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April 16, 2024 - Dr. Oz Podcast
41:55
Concussions: Dr. Oz's Personal Encounter & Nationwide Epidemic | Dr. Oz | S7 | Ep 16 | Full Episode
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Today, I go from doctor to patient.
Not to test a supplement.
What am I going to find out?
To expose a nationwide epidemic.
Concussions.
As a teen, it even affected me.
The concussions that I remember were both in football.
I only had two that I know of.
Even the term concussion, that's not even a good term.
We should call it a brain injury.
The unexpected news from my brain scan.
Please share with everyone what you found.
Coming up next.
That's me, number 71.
It's 1978.
It's my senior year in high school.
I was an outside linebacker.
Football has always been a passion from the time I was in high school.
I loved the chance to get outside, to be active, and nurture my competitive spirit.
Even beyond those benefits, being part of a team taught me about confidence, about dedication, about teamwork.
But there's actually one game I don't remember.
It's this game.
It's the Delaware All-Star Game.
I played in this just before I went to college.
I was diagnosed with a concussion.
In fact, I had two concussions during my football-playing days.
Now, in those days, we said I'd been dinged or my bell was rung.
Back then, when I was playing sports, concussions weren't taken seriously.
But today, they are.
And that's why I'm doing this show.
We're going to take a look at why the Centers for Disease Control are calling concussions an epidemic.
Then, the at-home test that every parent should have in their home to screen for a concussion.
And we're going to take a turn and look at a documentary that shocked me.
It's a nation we waste, listen to this carefully, 40% of our food, throwing out $180 billion every year.
Coming up, what you can do about it.
But first, I never gave much thought to my concussions until a show we did earlier this week when I went for a brain scan.
It was part of an experiment.
That was the personal moment that changed my perspective on concussions.
While doing a story on the effects of caffeine e-cigarettes, I got unexpected news on my baseline brain scan.
You have an excess of delta waves.
And when I see that...
These spots right here?
Those right there.
And they also actually go into your temporal lobes.
So what does that mean?
So in our experience, when we see high delta, it often correlates with people who had concussions or traumatic brain injury in the past.
So we've done 113,000 scans, and traumatic brain injury is one of the most common things we see.
The recommendation?
I follow up MRI, Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
I don't like medical tests.
Like most people, you're worried about the outcomes.
Not the test itself, but what am I going to find out?
Can I have your name and date of birth, please?
Great.
Thank you so much.
You're all set.
You can have a seat, okay?
My mind again turned to football.
The concussions that I remember were both in football.
I only had two that I know of.
Hi, Doctor.
Hi.
Nice to meet you.
How are you?
Come on in this way.
Just going to go over a few questions.
No medal in the body, no pacemaker.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
There's a locker here where you can lock your belongings.
A lot of warnings there.
Well, we have to make sure that there's no contraindications to the MRI. The MRI uses magnetic field and radio waves to create detailed images of the organs and tissues within your body, monitored by a technician in the next room.
Okay, that was the first 90 seconds.
How are you feeling?
I'm good.
Here we go with the next two scans.
It's going to be about five minutes.
Are you okay?
I'm still doing fine.
Thank you.
But as the test continued, the estimated times seemed to be increasing.
These are the final two sequences.
Keep your head very still because one of them is a repeat.
Okay.
This is the radiologist.
Hi, Angela Gnelli.
I'm one of the neuroradiologists here.
There's a small, tiny focus of high signal on this T2-weighted image here, which is a nonspecific finding.
These are some preliminary images.
I'll have to analyze this data and I will be able to discuss the results with you within a couple of days.
For the past 25 years, I've been on the other side of an MRI, and I gotta say, the worst thing about being the patient is having to be patient.
That's the time to think while the technician is doing all the maneuvering, and you're wondering, what are they seeing?
You've all been that?
Getting a test done and wondering, what are they actually seeing?
Especially when they started to repeat the test, I sort of felt that way.
Who's felt that after a test or during a test?
So that MRI was thankfully done at my hospital, and I entrusted my friends and colleagues to analyze the results.
And I've asked them to join me today.
We're going to start, though, with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent and an associate professor of neurosurgery at Emory University.
And Dr. Angeli Gnelli is a neuroradiologist at my hospital, New York Presbyterian.
Thank you for being here.
Dr. Ghali was actually there when I had the studies done.
You were pretty mum about the topic while you were looking at my images.
And you have my permission, if you don't mind.
I actually haven't heard it from you directly, so please share with everyone what you found.
Okay.
So, here we have an image of your brain.
And on this sequence, this is a susceptibility-weighted sequence, which allows me to see foci of hemorrhage, small dots of hemorrhage that you may have in your brain that you may not even know you had.
These we can see many years later, and it's the effect of trauma.
It can be secondary to calcifications.
In your case, you can see there are no areas that are very dark to suggest that you've had prior hemorrhage or hemorrhagic bruising.
So if I had concussions, they were not so bad that they led to bleeding in my head?
Correct.
I know you put me through another series of tests which were uncomfortable.
They said I had to hold my breath for eight minutes, which is hard to do.
And this is my psychedelic brain here.
What are you looking at here?
Isn't this beautiful?
So this is a relatively new technique.
It's called diffusion tensor imaging and tractography.
And this allows us to see connections between the outside of the brain and deeper structures.
But there is great potential for this technique.
And we're very excited because we feel that it can, in the future, show what may not be apparent on an MRI. It's a great, you know, potential new technique.
It's amazing, right?
You have these big centers, the cities, if you will, in the brain, and those tracks are like the roads that connect those cities.
That's right.
The cities are important, but you want to make sure the roads are in good shape as well.
Just to give me comfort, so if I'm understanding correctly, I'm okay from what you can see.
Yeah, you're good.
This is a very good-looking brain.
Good.
All right.
You're okay?
So far.
This part of me is okay.
So there are over three million concussions every year, which is, again, why I'm passionate about this.
And the CDC says that concussions have increased 200% in high school students.
So I'm going to explain to everybody why I'm so concerned about this and why, paradoxically, it's not the people you'd expect to get hurt.
Two athletes are colliding on a field, right?
They collide, and when you get hit, the brain moves around inside this fluid sort of wrap that it has around it.
And when the brain hits the skull, which is hard to protect it, you actually traumatize the brain.
The brain has the consistency of jello or hard-boiled eggs.
So inside the brain, where normally these tracks that you just saw in my head are connecting different thought processes and chemicals are going back and forth, when the brain shook up like that, these very delicate strands, much thinner than a hair strand, snap.
And see that snap?
Now the connection can't work anymore, so you begin to have vital processes not working.
And what happens if you're a big person?
You actually cushion the brain better than if you're a thin person with not a lot of muscles.
So younger people bang their brains around, more than older, more mature people, even with the same impact.
That's really important because it begins to make us think differently about who's at risk.
And that's why women Have a lot of problems, more than you'd expect compared to men.
That's why young people are more concerned than bigger folks.
And of course, these can lead to bleeds and even strokes like we were fearful I may have had based on their earlier testing.
So the question then becomes, what are we going to do about this?
Dr. Lenny, thank you very much for my images.
I appreciate your patience.
You're the bad patient.
Sanjay, come and talk about this.
So, even though there's no visual damage on all these images, and we did every image we could to make sure, does it mean that I didn't have damage to my brain at the time of the concussions?
It's a good sign, but it's not absolutely conclusive with these sorts of things, in part because this happened a long time ago.
You may have had some damage at that time, and your brain healed itself.
Our brains can heal themselves.
The biggest thing, and you say this all the time to your patients, is how are you doing?
And you can obviously answer that question, but also there's cognitive tests, you know, where we actually measure how well is your brain working, the function of your brain.
I feel great, and I would never have thought about this if it wasn't for that little experiment where he tried that revealed those changes in my EEG waves.
But I'm actually speaking for a lot of you out there.
Many of us had heads that got bumped, and we may not have been aware we had a concussion.
It could happen when we're very, very young.
It may have happened when we should have been aware, but we didn't think about it at the time because we had vernaculars like, we got my bell run.
That's right.
And the research actually shows that repeatedly banging your head actually causes significant changes.
You're a neurosurgeon.
I'll let you narrate this, but these are two pictures of brains.
And please tell us what we're looking at.
Well, on the left is a fairly normal-looking brain.
On the right, you can obviously see the difference.
Those brown areas, those are these areas where you start to deposit certain types of proteins, plaques, they're called oftentimes.
We think about it in the context of Alzheimer's disease, which is the most frightening thing.
When we talk about these repeated blows to the head causing what they call CTE, That is a sort of Alzheimer's-like disease.
That's what you sort of need to know about it.
It infiltrates the brain the same way.
The brain is a sponge.
It deposits itself within the sponge.
You can't just remove things that are inside a sponge.
And it sort of gums up those highways that we were just looking at in someone's brain.
So there's some folks who may not be quite as sharp as they should be.
Maybe they feel foggy, and it might be from some of these chronic issues with head injuries, which is worrisome.
It is worrisome, and I'll tell you something else that I think is very interesting.
We tend to think about it in the context of memory.
How well do you remember as compared to how well you remembered before?
Very important question, but it can be other things as well.
Headaches.
Very, very important.
These headaches can be debilitating.
Mood changes.
Significant mood changes.
Why is someone just having sudden bouts of depression, bouts of mood changes?
Could it be related?
Not always, but that's certainly something to think about.
And those can be really profound.
I didn't realize that emotional changes were a big part of this equation.
In the same areas of the brain that are responsible for emotion, the nucleus accumbens, you don't need to remember that name.
That's sort of the seed of emotion in our brain.
They can also be affected by this.
So why is it that young people are having injuries and we're missing them?
And are those injuries worse than when they happen in older folks?
Yeah, well, first of all, I think there's a cultural change that you just talked about.
I mean, we talk about concussions now like we never have before.
And by the way, even the term concussion, people will say, that's not even a good term.
We should call it a brain injury.
It's a brain injury is what it is.
And if you talk about it like a brain injury, everything changes.
Your family will respond to it differently.
Doctors respond to it differently.
Coaches respond to it differently.
You as a patient will think about it differently.
If it's a brain injury versus it just got my bell rung.
Young people in particular, their brains have not been fully developed yet.
And what that means is you sort of put this, you got the brain, you sort of put this glue down on it, right?
It's called myelin.
Think about like hairspray.
It locks it all into place, right?
When that glue's not on there and you suddenly jostle it around, you can imagine some of those fibers coming apart more easily as a result of that glue not being there.
So if folks are worried about concussions, and they should be, what can they do to alleviate damage if it occurs?
Well, one of the things that we have found really pretty good evidence around now is something simple, and they are omega-3 fatty acids.
Now omega-3 fish oil, a lot of people take them.
You may recommend them for decreasing the risk of heart problems.
Fish oil is really spectacular for this reason.
One is that it actually can cross the blood-brain barrier pretty well.
Things have a hard time getting to the brain.
Second of all, some of the components of fish oil make up the same building blocks you want to start using to repair the brain.
There's not a lot of substances that do this.
So if you or your child has had a concussion, using fish oil can be very helpful.
And even in people who are, you know, players but are in the off-season, using it at a lower dose regularly can be very helpful as well.
It can help diminish the impact of a concussion.
So after all that we've talked about, after all you've heard, what would you do if you were a parent and you had a kid playing contact sports?
We're going to find out how some parents and their kids are dealing with a new age of concussions.
Stay here.
Next, the medical crisis affecting every kid playing contact sports.
Including my own.
Are concussions the hidden epidemic facing your family?
Sanjay Gupta and I reveal the misconception.
You can actually have one and not lose consciousness.
Coming up.
Ever feel like you're being pulled in a million different directions?
We have a plan that takes you from burnout to back on track.
We're launching Blueprint for Balance, our year-long series that offers you the real tools, tips, steps, and insights to get you relief.
Y'all ready for this?
It's time for our brand new season of The Dr. Oz Show.
It's time for you.
That's coming up tomorrow.
That's Will Smith in the upcoming movie, Concussion.
The movie centers around the doctor who discovered brain trauma in pro football players, and that's what we're talking about.
A medical crisis affecting every family with kids playing contact sports, including my own, concussions.
Sarah's 19 years old.
She experienced her first concussion five years ago, and it was from volleyball.
Since then, she's had 13 more concussions, and she's here with us today with her mom, Krista.
So, Sarah, how have these concussions affected your health?
Well, ever since my first concussion, I've had frequent migraines.
I've always had sensitivity to light, sensitivity to noise, and I got my first one five years ago now, and it's still something that I have today.
It's a lot of changes.
I always associated concussions, I think most people do, with the traditional contact sports, you know, basketball, baseball, football, hockey, those things.
You got to play volleyball.
Most people wouldn't think that.
They look at the volleyball, oh my gosh, it's so soft, like little kids play with it.
But, you know, when you're standing in the back line and you have a girl who is, you know, really tall, she's really athletic, Wicked serve, you know, it's going 60 miles an hour, coming straight towards you, and you hit the ball the wrong way, and it hits you in your face.
Well, I ask you in part, because I actually look up the numbers of concussions in different sports, you'd be shocked.
Very safe-seeming sports have lots of concussions.
It's not just a matter of picking one or two, and that's important to the show, everybody, because you can't just ban contact.
Because if it happens, even when you're not having contact, it's you're demonstrating.
Just to share your story, serious concussions were serious enough that she had to be homeschooled her sophomore year in high school.
At one point, her doctor put her on brain rest for a month.
That brain rest meant no electronics, phone, TV, iPad, no reading.
She had to sleep for 18 hours a day.
Sanjay, I've never heard of brain rest of this degree.
I thought it was sleeping a little longer than usual.
Well, you know, obviously, with Sarah, she's had a significant number of injuries to her brain, so doctors are going to change probably the amount of brain rest based on that.
Brain rest, basically, you think of the brain like a muscle.
If you injure a muscle, you want to give it some rest.
That's what the doctors typically prescribe.
We've now come around to actually thinking about the brain the same way.
So, there are two major misconceptions about concussions.
The first is that boys are more likely to suffer a concussion.
Sanjay, I showed an animation explaining how the muscles are an important part of this because it protects your head, but why is it that women are so much more at risk, girls in particular?
Yeah, it's a couple of things.
Part of it, I think, is that we have found that the Girls and women, young women, are more likely to report symptoms.
That could be part of it.
But also, if you look at the bodies, you look at the ability to withstand the pressures from a 60-mile-an-hour fastball or whatever it may be, because girls' necks aren't as strong, their head's going to actually move back and forth a lot more quickly.
So that's part of it as well.
Interestingly, neck-strengthening exercises is a big recommendation now for girls to prevent concussions.
You think about the head?
The neck becomes equally important.
So, let me bring Cheryl into this equation.
Her son Luke is 13. He suffered his first concussion playing soccer and his second playing football.
Luke is scheduled to play again this fall.
So, Luke, what do you remember about your concussions?
I got my first concussion in soccer and a ball was flying at my mouth and it cut my lip open.
Blood was everywhere and I ended up getting 10 stitches.
The main focus was my lip that day, but later that night my parents said I was acting strange.
I was very tired, I was dizzy, I had mood swings, and I had horrible headaches, and exposure to light made it a lot worse.
But you didn't lose consciousness when you got hit by the ball?
No, I did not lose consciousness, but I was very dizzy and I had a hard time walking.
I just want to point that out to everybody, because this is the second big misperception about concussions, that you can actually have one and not lose consciousness.
In fact, most concussions you do not lose consciousness.
It is a big misconception.
Only about eight to ten percent of the time does someone lose consciousness.
It doesn't mean you haven't had a concussion.
So Cheryl, I have to ask this question as a father.
I'm going through the same thing.
Are you worried about Luke having more concussions?
Of course I'm worried every time he steps on a field or a court, but the reality is he's a 13-year-old boy, and if I could wrap him in bubble wrap and follow him around all day, I would, as any mother would, but that's simply not the way we live.
And Sarah, what would you say to all the parents out there about the risk of concussion?
You have to take the first one seriously.
It'll just benefit you in the long run.
It only took me a week before I got my second one.
Obviously, by that time, I was not okay to do anything.
It really injured me.
I thank you all for sharing your stories.
I know how difficult it can be at times.
When we come back, my call to action on what you can do to prevent concussions.
Coming up later, would you know what to do if your child suffered a blow to the head?
The more tools we use, the more we communicate with one another, the easier it is to attack the problem.
Information parents need to know now.
How to spot the first signs of a concussion.
Coming up.
I believe playing sports in high school and college helped me become the person I am today.
My son Oliver also plays sports, and he loves it.
When he runs off the field, sends an accomplishment.
I know how he feels.
I was there.
But something has to be done to stop the effect of concussions we are seeing on our kids' playing fields.
Harut Hagopian is here.
He's a high school girls soccer coach who's made it his mission to equip players, parents, and coaches with concussion awareness.
My goal today is really clear.
It's to arm you with tests So coaches and parents can diagnose and treat concussions as quickly as possible.
That's our best shot at making sure we don't have long-term problems.
So you have a very specific protocol that you're using with your teams for tracking concussions.
How do you do it?
We start with the impact test.
Before the season even begins, before we have our tryouts, the girls are all required.
The girls that I coach and all the athletes at our school are required to take an impact test.
It establishes a baseline of how their brains work cognitively before there's any kind of injury.
And then if there is a suspected injury, the big thing they tell the coach is that they're not expecting us to be doctors.
If we suspect that there's any kind of brain injury, any kind of concussion, that we send the kids back, they take the impact test again.
We don't ever see the results.
It's confidential medical information.
We just make that information available to the parents, and the parents can take it to their medical professional and decide what to do from that point.
So I've talked to a lot of moms concerned about the fact that the coaches may not have the exact same level of awareness or worry that they do.
So what happens if a mom watching right now doesn't think a coach is taking this problem seriously?
The first thing to do is, it's all about communication.
Ask the coach, what is your concussion protocol?
If the coach doesn't have the answer to that question, find out who does.
Because we all follow.
We are required to take the CDC online course.
We're required to show that we understand what concussions are.
We have the saying, if in doubt, pull them out.
So, all this said and done, I think it's sort of nice if you can validate it on your own at home.
So my medical unit called all these neurologists who are experts in this area and they found another test to use called the King Devic test.
Like the impact test that you use, it can help determine whether players should be removed from games.
But here's an advantage.
The test can be done immediately on the sidelines after a suspected injury.
It can be done at home as well.
And here's how it works.
So I've got the test in front of me.
You're going to see it on the screen behind me.
Let's pretend that I'm playing in high school football again.
And I need to figure out if I'm okay.
I will take a baseline test.
Now look at the numbers.
They're very simple in the beginning.
See it says 258073. See I'm reading across now.
Once I take this first screen, I go to the second screen.
Notice these numbers aren't connected by horizontal lines anymore.
It forces your eyes to process the numbers differently.
And then the third Screen, because there are only three screens, has all these numbers bunched up in weird patterns that force you to work even harder to process it.
Now, why this is important is because your eyes process so much of what's going on in the brain, it ends up being a pretty effective way of screening our brains.
And concussion researchers at NYU Medical Center here in New York say it's one of the easiest tests to do, and the decision can be made right there with you.
It's also very inexpensive.
It's an app.
So how do you ensure at the end of all this, whether I'm taking a test at home and my parents figure it out, and I think everyone should be taking a baseline test with their kids right now, today.
There's no waiting on that.
The baseline test happens right now.
Once we have that, how do parents make sure their kids are safe?
Excellent diagnostic tool and that's something that, again, goes back to communication.
I think we talked about with Luke, the concussion symptoms happened after he had left the field when he had gotten home.
If they have access to that test and they realize something is wrong or even a change in behavior like his mom mentioned, contact the school immediately.
So I think the more tools we use, the more we communicate with one another, the easier it is to attack the problem.
Well stated.
So let me offer some final thoughts.
I believe in sports.
I think a lot of folks watching you do as well.
They build character.
They teach teamwork.
They instill confidence.
But like all of you out there, I'm concerned about the safety of our kids.
And it's our duty as parents, as coaches, as teachers to know what to look for and have the courage to take our kids off the field when playing becomes dangerous and puts their brain health at risk.
You can find the impact test that Coach Arutz spoke about and the KD test I just showed you on my little iPad on DrRoz.com.
Have your kids take a test today and To make sure you know if anything changes.
We'll be right back.
Later, can't resist a good barbecue restaurant?
Well, neither can I. I adore barbecue.
Just love it!
But how do you eat healthy with those big flavors and big portions?
I'm revealing what I would eat at a barbecue restaurant.
Coming up.
We're launching Blueprint for Balance, our year-long series that takes you from burnout to back on track.
On the next Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Today's conversation, how would you deal at your favorite restaurant?
Let's talk about barbecue restaurants.
They're known for big flavors, big servings, big sides, which can also be a big challenge for anyone who's trying to eat healthy.
Who loves barbecue out there?
I know they're barbecue lovers.
You put your hands up very prominently.
Oh, I did.
Yes, you did.
I do like a barbecue.
You do.
What do you like favorite?
What's your favorite dish at a barbecue joint?
At a barbecue, probably barbecue chicken.
Barbecue chicken.
And how about you?
Everything in it.
Everything.
Oh, yes.
I just love the barbecue.
I wish I could have it a single time every day.
But it's not happening.
Well, for some people it does happen.
So here's the deal.
I'm going to share this little fact about me.
I adore barbecue.
Just love it.
Love it.
What would you eat at a barbecue place if you loved it and you knew it wasn't too good for you?
That's the question.
What would I order?
Hmm.
Let's find out.
Cup.
Look at that.
Come in!
Very innocently, he asks.
Oh!
It's a delivery.
It's a barbecue delivery.
Thank you very, very much.
Who's got change?
Who's got fives?
Any fives?
No one brought any money to the show?
Here.
This is the absolute least I could do.
I get caught without cash.
Here, you hold up a second.
You love barbecue?
Yes, I do.
All right, we're gonna go through this together.
Okay.
Are you ready?
So this is what I actually order at a barbecue joint.
There's some things that I love a lot.
Corn.
Who likes corn?
Corn.
Hold the corn.
Now, I happen to love, oh, collard greens.
Mmm.
And as much as collard greens, I also love...
Coleslaw.
We all loving coleslaw?
Now, of course, you gotta have the ribs.
How many of you guys are chicken folks?
We heard some chicken folks.
How many of you like the ribs?
My ribs right there.
And you can look in there.
These are really good ribs.
I mean, that's not just any ribs.
They look fantastic, don't they?
Now, here's the thing.
But you gotta make some trade-offs.
The trade-offs are hard to make.
So one little trade-off.
I love beer.
So I'd always have beer off soft drinks.
Trade the soft drinks in for your beer.
This is unfortunately really, really tasty, but I actually don't like mac and cheese that much.
So I put this back in the bag.
And the only other thing I'd say to you is, you know how you guys love the big biscuits they have?
I always trade my biscuits in for an extra serving of ribs.
So I have my limits and I have my weaknesses, and that's how it looks.
You like my mix there?
You like it?
Yeah, it looks good.
Can't go to a good joint without ribs.
All right, when you come back, America's food scandal that you don't know about and you don't want to miss it.
We'll be right back.
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Is that right?
Yeah.
Make your appointment today.
Go to DrRoz.com/tickets and sign up for free tickets.
What if I told you 40%, 40% of the food grown or processed here in the US never 40% of the food grown or processed here in the US never makes it to Pretty crazy.
And what's worse, for every four bags of groceries that you buy with hard earned cash in the grocery store, one of those bags is wasted and thrown in the garbage.
Food waste on an epic scale is a national scandal that's been hidden for years until now.
There's a new film called Just Eat It.
It traces food waste from the farm to the supermarket and all the way back to your fridge.
There's a problem with America's food supply.
An estimated 60 million tons of food is wasted each year.
That's 180 Empire State buildings worth of food.
Or, to put it in terms of my favorite sport, 730 football stadiums.
And the effect on our wallets?
Over $2,000 a year out the window.
In our households, we're wasting somewhere between 15 and 25% of the food that we're buying.
You know, that's expensive.
In the documentary Just Eat It, the filmmakers deep dive into the issue of waste.
So where does all that wasted food go?
Most of it straight to landfill, where the food will sit, rot and ferment, emitting a dangerous gas into the environment.
My question is, if that much food is being wasted, how much of it is still good and can I eat it?
Dana Gunders is a scientist of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
When we look at those huge amounts of food that we see tossed away, what goes through your mind?
You know, the first thing I think about is just how many resources went into growing that food.
And alongside that we have one in six Americans who are food insecure today, meaning they don't know where the next meal may come from.
And to have that alongside the level of waste we have in this country is really a moral tragedy.
I can see why it's a hard challenge for folks at home to deal with the bigger issues in farms and all the like, but what about in our own homes?
Why are we wasting so much food there?
One in four of those grocery bags being tossed.
You know, it's because we don't see it.
It's happening in little bits here and there.
And so, you know, we might be really sensitive to paying $10 a pound for fish in the grocery store, but when we throw out a third of it, we're not actually calculating that.
But in fact, it's adding up to about $1,500 per household of four that we're spending on food that we ultimately don't eat.
It gets tossed.
Now, I think most of you out there are saying, you know what, a lot of that wasted food is probably because it's old food.
It's no longer fresh.
I thought that too.
Take a look at this.
A lot of it's about appearance.
This is edible, but it's not edible to the supermarkets.
The amount of fruit that's left either in the field or is discarded after it gets in the packing house, I've seen it as high as 70%.
The least I've seen is 20% that gets thrown away for a lot of times no reason that a consumer would think would be practical.
You just saw what ended up in that landfill was actually good for another two weeks.
The sell-by date had not passed.
But they were so close, they figured by the time it chipped out there and got put on the shelf, there's not enough time to sell it, so they said, just throw it away.
So how many of you would have made a salad out of what you just saw in the dumpster?
Nice salad, wouldn't it have been?
Yeah, it would have made a nice salad.
Is this surprising to you, this whole story about food waste?
It's very surprising.
I thought that some of those foods go out to the groceries.
I didn't think that it goes to the garbage.
Who else is shocked by that?
Let me get you down here.
Go ahead.
It almost makes you angry.
Yeah, it does, especially when you consider people, they're starving.
There are a lot of food banks out there.
You could have gone to the food bank to feed the homeless or the needy.
Let's actually bring an expert in on that.
Jessica Coward is the nutrition educator for no kid hungry.
Thanks for what you do, by the way.
When you see a dumpster full of produce that actually literally is still ready to be eaten, what do you feel?
Yeah, this is shocking, and it does make me angry because...
Like Dana had mentioned, we have hungry people in this country.
One out of five children is struggling with hunger in America.
So if we were to take, for example, that one out of four garbage bags that we are currently towing away, how much of a difference would it make for a family that didn't have enough food?
So No Get Hungry is working with food banks across the country and with low-income participants to teach them how to shop and cook for healthy food.
That garbage, that grocery bag that you threw away, that could be a whole week's worth of groceries for one family that's struggling with hunger on a tight budget.
A week worth of food.
All right, so the question then becomes, how do we begin to stop the waste?
Dana, I would love to have actions that people can start acting on right now.
Absolutely.
There are so many things we can do right today.
For one, we can start with our freezers.
We vastly underutilize our freezers, but almost anything can be frozen.
You're going away for vacation?
Just stick your milk in the freezer.
Come back and thaw it out.
It's ready for your coffee Monday morning.
You don't even need to go to the store.
And food can often be in days, weeks, even months afterwards.
And lastly, I'd say just getting creative in the kitchen and really shopping your fridge, using those leftover ingredients and making something new.
The other day I had some pasta sauce left over and some salsa and I put it all in a blender with some tomatoes and cucumbers and I made gazpacho out of it.
Why not?
Absolutely.
We should all do that.
We should pick one day at least to do that.
Today's new book is called Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook.
Listen, now that I've thought about it, I don't like throwing away food anyway, but I'm not going to throw this bag away.
I'm going to save this bag.
Symbolically, we're all going to do this.
Our opportunity is to put these bags back in homes around America, save some money for each of us, and make sure that folks who don't have enough food can use them.
Up next, if your food is a slight imperfection, would you eat it?
We decided to do a little social experiment to find out.
That's next.
Later, hot to tell if your expired eggs are still fresh.
Ever feel like you're being pulled in a million different directions?
We're launching Blueprint for Balance, our year-long series that takes you from burnout to back on track.
On to next Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Earlier today, I had lunch delivered for a group of friends in my audience.
Now, you all eat this delicious, fresh salad.
You really enjoyed it.
In fact, you loved it so much.
There you are.
It looks pretty delectable.
You actually brought it back to your seats.
We had to confiscate it from you.
That's how challenging it was.
Did you guys enjoy the salads?
Yes, it was really good.
There was a lot of flavor.
We were trying to figure out what the ingredients were.
And a lot of times, it seems when you order things out, a lot of the ingredients go to the bottom.
So we're like, dig, dig, and then we're trying to figure out what some of the vegetables were.
There was one that we still haven't figured out.
All right, and what did you guys feel about the taste?
I liked it.
It had some unique flavor with it, you know, and it was crunchy, it was fresh, you know, and I loved the oil.
All right, so I'm hearing fresh, crunchy, some ingredients that were special you hadn't heard of before.
It's unique.
Yeah.
So you actually were eating food waste.
No!
Yes, yes.
That was all waste.
Now, I actually think it's delicious, too.
I hope you're not too mad at me about this.
We're not going to get food poisoning, right?
You won't get food poisoning.
I ate the whole thing.
Actually, it is fresh.
It's just stuff we would normally throw away.
I ate the whole thing.
Are you surprised?
Yes, I am, because it was quite fresh.
I really enjoyed it.
It still was crunchy.
So crunchy.
So there's a chef, Dan Barber, from Blue Hill Restaurant.
He creates these meals, and they're made from unwanted foods, and he sells them at local restaurants.
Those are from Sweet Greens, the ones you guys had.
Now, here's the thing.
Here's what's in the salad.
You ready?
What made it crunchy and made it taste fresh and unique?
You have to scoop around to see what the ingredients were.
Carrot peels.
Broccoli stalks, kale stems, cabbage cores, and romaine hearts.
Those are all the scraps you would normally throw from your cutting board off into the trash to get rid of them because they're not the good stuff, so we think.
It just goes to emphasize how much we can do with that.
Here's the point.
Scraps can be eaten.
We have to think about it very differently.
Stems, cores, peels.
Just about everything that you normally toss away can become part of your diet, and it's actually pretty good for you.
We don't want to waste them anymore.
In fact, I want to change all of our thoughts on this, and I've got a friend, Stephanie Sacks, to help us out.
She's a nutritionist and the author of What's the Fork?
What's the Fork?
So Stephanie's going to tell us what we should think about when it comes to food perfection, a whole new take.
Well, I love that they love the salads.
That's great.
Yeah, I was surprised as well.
Literally, we had to confiscate that from them.
So we've got to change our idea about food perfection.
So we put a poll up on DrRoz.com and asked how many of you would buy a bruised piece of food from the supermarket.
69%, most of you, said no.
Stephanie, I want you to change that.
The only way we're going to make a dent in the problem is if we start changing our buying behaviors.
People are serving us what we're telling them to give us.
So the power is in our hands, and let's take advantage of it.
These are some foods I'm going to put in front of us right now that we normally would toss.
But I want to find out if it's a good idea or not.
Okay, cheese is a little bit crusty.
Toss it or keep it.
I would keep it.
I'd just cut the ends off, and I would use what's in the middle, put it in a salad, make a grilled cheese out of it.
It's perfectly fine.
We don't need to waste it.
It doesn't look too good, but if you grilled it up in a grilled cheese, who cares?
You can't tell the difference anyway.
These bananas, I think most people would probably toss.
Probably.
Well, in my house, we peel them, and we break them into pieces, put them in a bag, and put them in the freezer for smoothies.
We also have some avid cooks in my home, so we make banana bread.
Well, that's a good idea because it's sweet as well.
Exactly.
Apples that are a little bit bruised.
You see this one here fell a little bit?
These are dented apples.
Yeah, so you can cut that bruise off, and you can put it in a smoothie.
It's perfectly fine.
Cut it off, put peanut butter on it.
It's a fine apple.
It doesn't have to get to rest.
It looks bruised in your stomach, too, by the way, once you chewed it up.
Exactly.
You can eat the bruise.
This is an area where I think there's a lot of controversy.
Yes.
Strawberries, great for you, but these two have mold on them.
A lot of people will throw them all away.
Yeah, and a lot of people do throw them all away.
What I like to do is I actually like to remove the ones that are moldy.
I like to look around, see if there's mold on any of the others.
And it's an indication that maybe some of the others are going to go bad, so what I'll do is slice them up, put them in a freezer bag after a good wash, and use them for smoothies.
Again, easy to mix them up.
You can't tell the difference.
Yep.
I love these molded carrots.
They get slimy after a while.
They do.
So there's slime and there's slime.
There's like a superficial slime, which often can be scrubbed off just with some, you know, elbow grease.
And, you know, sometimes the slime can shift the taste of a carrot, in which case I would toss them.
But if it's just a slight slime and you can get it off, I'll take the carrots and put them in soup.
And if they're big carrots, just peel the darn thing.
Exactly.
And finally, wilted veggies like this, which a lot of people will not find appetizing.
Yeah, well, you know what you can do in this case here is you can slightly cut off the end if it's brown.
If not, just put it in a cold water bath and it wakes it up.
So, how do consumers get more involved in this?
Because that's how we're going to change this trend.
So yeah, so I'm so appalled that I decided to work with the Ugly Fruit and Veg campaign and create a petition at change.org called What the Fork.
And basically what we're doing is we're prompting large grocers to start to buy uglies and to sell them at a discount.
So people have more access to fresh produce.
So I posted a handy food exploration cheat sheet for you on DrOz.com.
For everyone, you can put it on your fridge.
You will save a lot of money doing this, and you'll also save our environment by making sure we use all the food.
Up next, how to tell if your eggs are fresh.
It's a little experiment that will help you out.
It's what we'll be talking about tomorrow.
Stay here.
All new Oz.
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It actually kills the fat stuff.
It makes them literally burst.
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That's coming up on Monday.
Tomorrow you'll be talking about the Fresh Egg Test.
On today's show, we talked about how not to waste food, and it continues with this fresh egg test.
Who wants to help you with this?
Hands up.
Oh, very good.
How are you?
What's your name?
Amanda.
Come on up, Amanda.
There you go.
You can take that mic.
Go right in there.
You're nervous?
Yeah.
It's just a test.
Do all tests get you nervous?
Yes, actually.
I'm a bad test taker.
You're a bad test taker.
We're going to see how you...
You know what?
The audience will help you in this test.
Will you help her?
Sure.
If you're nice to them, they will.
So...
We're going to do this fresh egg test.
Real question for everybody else.
The purpose of this test is to determine if your eggs are good enough to keep eating or if you toss them.
Does that mean it should sink or swim?
Sink.
Sink.
Swim.
We've seen a little bit of both.
All right.
So we're going to do the experiment together and figure it out.
So first off, go ahead and pour that water in here.
Don't spill it.
And if you're holding the mic and you spill the water, you'll electrocute yourself.
No, I'm kidding you.
All right.
It's a danger.
Fill it all the way up.
You got it all the way to the lip there.
Now, I've got the eggs here.
Okay.
Now, hold that.
This is the moment of truth.
Take the egg and see if it sinks or swims.
Ready?
It sank.
What do you think?
Is that a good or a bad sign?
I think that's a good sign.
It's a very, you know, you have to see the smartest audience in television.
They're telling you that.
It's good for you.
Because it sank, it's a perfectly fresh egg.
Now, there's been a picture on Pinterest burning it up.
Here's an image that you'll make it easy to follow.
So, if the egg sinks, you're good to go.
If it's sort of halfway in, that's still okay.
If it flips like it's a beached whale and floats, that's bad.
There's some air in there.
Something happened.
It's a rotten egg.
Get rid of the darn thing.
Have you guys heard this before?
Yes.
Some of you yes, some of you know.
So I want you all to know about it now.
Let's stop throwing away eggs, which is the best source, most affordable source of protein for most of us.
We can find the egg test on my Facebook page.
I want you to share it with your friends and family.
The next time you want to cook eggs, we don't throw any of these little babies away.
Here's a little present from you.
Don't break it.
Thank you.
Nicely done on the test, by the way.
Remember, health and happiness starts at home.
I'll see you next time.
You did well.
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