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May 27, 2024 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:48
MacKenzie Phillips' Battle with Painkiller Addiction & Recovery | Dr. Oz | S7 | Ep 52 | Full Episode
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A Dr. Oz investigation.
If pain meds are the gateway to addiction, why is it so easy to get them?
For that, I've had Percocet.
Is that a possibility for this?
We go undercover to see just how easy it is.
Plus, actress Mackenzie Phillips gets real.
You go from these prescribed opioid medications, the doctor cuts you off.
It's not a far jump from there to smoking some heroin.
Are we all one prescription away from being hooked?
Coming up next.
I insist on recovering out loud.
This season we are facing addiction head on.
One in three families is affected by substance abuse, yet 90% of those who need treatment, they don't receive it.
We need to change that.
So today, we're going to continue the conversation about addiction.
In a Dr. Oz investigation, Elizabeth Leamy goes undercover to find out if it's easy to shop for painkillers.
The root causes of heroin abuse often are getting those painkillers.
We want to find out if it's happening a lot.
Then, the highest ranking medical officer in the country, the Surgeon General, is here to tell you how his office is hoping to end this crisis.
And then we're going to announce a big national initiative to start a critical conversation that not enough of you are having with your kids.
And trust me, we're not doing this right.
But first, addiction is a national crisis, and prescription painkillers are a major driving force.
Our most recent data shows that doctors all over this country wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers.
That's enough for every adult to have their own bottle of pain pills.
For every adult.
But to me that is astonishing and it's also alarming.
Many of you know actress Mackenzie Phillips.
She's struggled with addiction most of her life and she's gonna bring this story alive.
She knows just how dangerous pain pills can be, especially when you're a recovering addict.
Mackenzie Phillips was born into a world of privilege and dysfunction.
The eldest daughter of rock star John Phillips, her childhood was spent bouncing in and out of her divorced dad's drug-fueled lifestyle.
At age 10, he taught her to roll her first joint.
By 11, she moved on to cocaine and LSD. Then at 12, Mackenzie was cast in the hit movie, American Graffiti.
But it was the role of rebellious teenager Julie Cooper on One Day at a Time that made her a certified star.
Yet off the set, Mackenzie's world was spiraling out of control as addictions to cocaine, alcohol and heroin began to take over her life.
Until a drug-related arrest, rehab and relapses ended her role on the long-running series.
But Mackenzie still hadn't hit rock bottom.
She wrestled with inner demons and addictions for another decade before getting proper treatment and finding balance in her life.
Then, a prescription pain pill addiction derailed over 10 years of sobriety and led her back to heroin and her 2008 arrest.
But Mackenzie refused to give up, fighting her way back from every setback on her road to recovery.
Today, Mackenzie Phillips shares the lessons she's learned in her lifelong struggle with addiction.
Please welcome Mackenzie Phillips.
I'm so happy you're here.
Thank you.
I know it's sometimes hard to get the message out, but you're just the perfect story for it.
11 stints in rehab.
Correct.
Still fighting hard.
Never give up.
How are you doing now?
I'm doing so amazingly well.
I went back to school and I'm an addiction and alcoholism counselor at Pasadena Recovery Center in Pasadena, California.
God bless you.
That's a big part of the story.
We have over 20 million folks here in recovery, and they rarely talk about it, much less get involved in helping.
I insist on recovering out loud.
I insist on being open about my recovery.
I feel sort of beholden to the addict who's still suffering to show that recovery is possible.
I want to understand better why it is so hard to get sober.
Well, I mean, you understand the brain chemistry of, you know, top-down control, you know, hijacked brain, new neural pathways that the drug is creating, which manifests in a shocking behavior.
And so people immediately think, oh, well, obviously this is a bad person.
This is a moral issue.
This is a person whose moral compass is skewed, when in fact the behavior comes from the brain disorder of addiction, right?
Why is it so hard for people to get sober?
Because they expect immediate...
Well-being.
When in fact you didn't get as sick as you got overnight, you're not going to get as well as you're going to get in 30, 60, 90 days.
You have to give your brain a chance to recover.
I want to examine some of the challenges that you face personally.
So 1999, you have cosmetic eye surgery.
Yes.
They give you opiates.
Yes.
How did you handle it in the midst of that?
I was, you know, almost 10 years clean and sober at that point.
I handled it like a champ.
I took them as prescribed.
I got off of them almost immediately, and I went on with my life.
I was doing a Disney Channel show, playing a mom on Disney Channel.
I was working with children.
I had my eyes done, and then I moved on.
So were you not nervous having had prior problems with drugs that are addictive?
I think I was a little cocky.
I think I was a little cocky at that point.
But at the same time, I was doing everything on a daily basis to maintain my well-being, right?
So that's how I got through that particular surgery.
All right, so you decided to have more cognitive procedures.
Why not?
I decided I needed to have breast augmentation and liposuction on my thighs.
And what happened this time?
Well, this was after the death of my father.
I still hadn't spoken my truth.
I had backed away from my recovery program.
And the switch got flipped in my brain.
If one pill was great, then four would be ideal.
And then I always say...
And then I found myself with a pain pill addiction again.
Well, language is very powerful.
I didn't find myself with a pain pill addiction.
You know, again, there were a lot of steps that led to that.
And so I try and make sure that I don't use phrases like that.
I found myself with a needle in my arm.
No, I didn't.
I went out and I scored the drugs.
And I created the space in which to do it.
So I don't want to...
Deny the process of getting sick again.
So we were testifying together.
We were.
At this caucus in Washington.
Yes, we were.
In Congress.
And you beautifully explained that you were diagnosed with brain vascular disease, carpal tunnel syndrome, lupus.
It was a constellation of problems that could really hurt a person.
But you took your step back and said, maybe you didn't have any of that.
Well, only with distance and grace.
A little bit of grace and a little bit of distance was I able to look back and go, yeah, I understand hyperalgesia, you know.
Pain medications were pinning the pain in place, exacerbating the pain, causing a psychic, a psychiatric, a crazy need for more medication.
And once I got clean again, thank you, God, my son said, Mom, how did you manifest this miracle?
You walked with a cane.
I had to help you up off the couch.
It made me understand, even on a deeper level, the power of the brain telling you that you need this medication to survive.
You know, of course there are people who require opioid pain medication, but we need to have some sort of criteria in place to figure out who's at risk, who are we poisoning, who might die, you know, and then who has a clear and present need for this medication.
And yet you're getting those medications from a doctor.
If I get this list right, and please fill in any gaps, you were on Thorazine, Demerol, Vicodin, Xanax, and Valium.
Well, that was for the surgery alone.
Oh, my goodness.
I was on post-surgery, chronic pain syndrome, brain vasculitis, carpal tunnel, lupus diagnoses.
I was on fentanyl patches.
I was on OxyContin.
I was on Opana.
And I was on OxyFast, the drops that you put under your tongue.
I weigh 120 pounds.
These were, the doctor said to me, I said, I need to get off these medications and he said, you need to remain on opioid medications for the rest of your life.
You're probably gonna end up in a, I'm telling you, in a wheelchair.
And there was a part of me that thought, oh no, I'm going to end up in a wheelchair.
I'm going to be crippled with pain for the rest of my life.
And then there was a part of me that went, this can't be true.
So I had to detox and I had to reassess to find out if it was true or not.
I wasn't going to believe my brain, my distorted perception, my thinking, and some, pardon me, but some doctor who was telling me that this was my future.
So I immediately, you know, not immediately, I went into a detoxification program.
After being arrested, okay, it wasn't like I jumped into the detox and went, let's find out if this is for real or not.
I had to go down to the bottom of the barrel.
But once I went through the detox and spent some time clean and sober again after 10 years of beautiful, wonderful recovery, I mean, I can do yoga.
I can do anything.
I have, you know, I mean, I'm 56 years old.
I've got a little, actually, today is my 56th birthday.
Well, happy birthday.
Happy birthday.
I can do anything.
I don't have pain.
I have like a little neck pain in the morning, but...
I'm still perplexed.
It's stunning.
How can you go from thinking, and from doctors thinking you're going to be in a wheelchair on half a dozen narcotic medications, to being the way you are now?
How do you find that truth, even if you're in rehab, even if you got arrested?
It's very difficult to reconcile that because I believed it to be true, which I believe allowed me to perpetuate it, which allowed me to justify more meds, more meds, more meds.
And then when the meds were over and the doctor was like, I don't know if I'm liking what's going on with you.
I'm cutting you off.
It's not a far jump, even for some...
For someone like me, clearly it's not a far jump to the dope man, okay?
But what people need to understand is that it's not a far jump to the dope man for your neighbor, for your aunt, for your mother-in-law.
It's not a far jump anymore.
Twenty years ago, we'd be like, what?
Are you crazy?
But now, because you go from these prescribed opioid medications, the doctor cuts you off.
Eventually, the doctor's gonna cut your butt off, right?
Oops.
Then, you know, you're out on the street, you know, you know where to buy the pills because you're in that mindset.
It's a dollar a milligram, so you're paying $80 for an 80 milligram oxy.
That becomes unsupportable.
You can't spend that every day.
Then you're in that thing of where you're buying the pills from somebody, and then, I don't care who you are, it's not a far jump from there to smoking some heroin.
What you say is so beautiful, too, that recovery is part of the process.
It is.
Once you've been there once, it's tempting.
In fact, most people go back.
Most people go back.
This is a lifelong battle.
We all got to do it together.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for having me.
When you come back, how easy is it to shop for pain pills?
What we found in our Undiscover investigation will shock you.
Later, as America swept addiction under the rug, we're putting it on the table, tackling the addiction crisis head on.
The Surgeon General joins our conversation.
It's tearing our country apart.
With an announcement they could change countless lives across the nation.
Coming up.
The truth about zero-calorie foods.
We break it all down.
Plus, Leah Remedy.
What you haven't heard about the Scientology scandal.
If Tom Cruise watches this interview, what would you say to him?
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
This November, we're taking your health to the next level.
I don't think anything is possible.
It's a month of game changers.
Take your health to the next level.
Watch the Dr. Oz Show.
The Centers for Disease Control has officially declared prescription painkiller abuse in this country an epidemic.
46 people die from prescription painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet every day.
You know what that means?
By the end of this show, two people will have died from a prescription painkiller overdose.
Just in the hour of the show.
We have reached a crisis point, and we are all affected by it.
So I asked an investigative journalist and one of my core team members, Elizabeth Leamy, to find out just how easy is it to shop for painkillers.
We went undercover to see how easily we could get opiates.
Would doctors prescribe what are often called the gateway drugs to heroin?
A prescription for pain pills like this one is how addiction often starts.
Could be for a perfectly legitimate medical reason, but your body likes the way the drug makes you feel and soon enough you're hooked.
Addiction is everywhere, with no part of the country left unscathed.
An epidemic so serious, it's now got the attention of even the president.
So this crisis is taking lives, it's destroying families, it's shattering communities all across the country.
I myself went to the emergency room a couple of years ago after a car accident, and even though I described my pain as mild, what did the doctors prescribe for me?
Vicodin, another powerful opiate.
Would our undercover experiment be similar?
Hello!
In all, we went to three medical offices and one dentist.
Some warned us about the addictive dangers of narcotic painkillers and refused to give them to us.
We actually don't do narcotics.
And it's to stop drug abuse, obviously, right?
No, that's a narcotic.
We usually don't give that.
But watch what happened when I visited an urgent care clinic.
Can you bring your team down to the desk?
The physician assistant wasn't planning to prescribe opiates, so I asked, which is exactly what addicts do.
Percocet's pretty strong and I'm not sure that we need to hit you that hard, but I can certainly give you a few if pain is really severe.
I got the prescription.
Five pills of Percocet.
That's an opiate, a narcotic, and maybe a future addiction.
Startling.
Elizabeth Levy is here.
So, just to recap, one in four offices that you went to get narcotics from gave you one.
That's right.
Or some.
Did anyone ask you about a family history?
Nope.
Did anyone ask you if you personally had had problems with addiction in the past?
Never.
So did it surprise you?
No, it didn't.
And I think that's because of that emergency room visit a couple of years ago.
Maybe I'm cynical now because, I mean, minor car accident, minor pain, but I walked out of there with a major prescription for Vicodin.
And so did my husband, even though his injuries were also minor.
We didn't fill the prescriptions specifically because we were worried we'd get hooked.
I'm stunned that even those simple questions about addiction histories aren't getting asked.
From the research that you did, looking at all these things, what made you so convinced that you knew what to say?
How did you figure out what words to use to sort of lure in the doctors or their aides to give you narcotics?
Well, a recent study showed that when people ask for a specific painkiller like oxycodone by name, they get it about 20% of the time.
But when they don't name names, they only get something that strong about 1% of the time.
And I found that to be exactly true.
In my other three undercover visits, I didn't mention any particular drugs, so I didn't get any opioids.
But when I said, hey, how about some Percocet?
Bam.
I got it.
These are red flag items for doctors, and people like me have to be trained.
We need to know that folks are asking for pills by name.
It's a concern.
We also have to be able to be aware people are hiding their addiction history, which unfortunately happens.
But I gotta say, I don't think that I was ever given an adequate education in the use of opioids for management of pain.
And I don't think I'm alone.
I think that's the norm.
But I do believe that the medical community is making an advance.
And I bring that up because I was proud when you went to one, it was a dentist's office, I think, and they said, no, this does not warrant a pain medication like an opiate.
A couple different places actually pushed back at my little hints, even though I didn't name any particular drugs.
The American Dental Association has had a major education campaign.
Maybe that dentist had heard that.
And I also saw a nurse practitioner who specifically mentioned that the feds have been cracking down on prescribers, monitoring them, and if they prescribe too many controlled substances, they'll get kicked out of the Medicare program.
So she was afraid for her livelihood.
Thank you for your wonderful work.
Thank you.
So, listen, I've been working closely with some of the biggest medical organizations in this country, and we've come up with a series of questions you need to ask your doctor before filling a pain prescription.
It's going to be a help to them as well and for you.
So, for example, what's the goal of taking the prescription?
Is it really bad enough pain, or is it a minor little thing?
How long should we be taking these pills?
For the full list of questions that you need to ask your doctor, you can go to drraz.com.
Up next, the country's number one health official is here with a very special announcement that could change every household in America.
Stay with us.
Later, we're testing out back pain gadgets in our fix-or-fail lab.
Can innovation junkie Max Liguebert find one to cure his own back pain?
I can't tell if this is like a torture device.
Find out which of these solutions really work.
Coming up.
For far too long, drug addiction has been seen as a moral failure rather than what it really is, a chronic disease.
Out of shame and confusion, families all across America have swept the issue under the rug.
But that puts countless lives at risk.
So I've asked the highest-ranking medical officer in the country to join me in this conversation.
The United States Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, is here.
Come on out for that.
Welcome to the show, Ben.
Thank you for being here.
Well, I'm very happy to host you, because we've got tons of things to talk about, primarily around this issue of addiction.
So we were together at that Facing Addiction rally in Washington a few weeks ago.
And for the first time, just so you all know, you addressed the issue of addiction by announcing a Surgeon General's report.
This is a huge step.
What inspired you to take this pretty bold step?
Well, first of all, it's great to be on with you today.
And I'm so happy that we're talking about addiction because this is an issue that is affecting so many families and so many communities all across America.
I came at this issue initially as a physician who had taken care of many patients who suffered from addiction.
And what I saw firsthand was just how addiction tears families apart and how it's tearing our country apart.
And I'll tell you this, once you've lost a patient to addiction, that's not something you forget.
And I haven't forgotten the patients that I've lost, and that's what continues to motivate me.
But I'll tell you a story, actually.
Before I left Boston to come down to Washington, D.C. to be Surgeon General, I actually went to visit my hospital one last time.
And at the hospital, I met with many of the nurses I had worked with ever since I was an intern.
This was up at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
And I got together with them.
I thanked them for everything they had done because many of these nurses had helped train me from the earliest days, you know, of my career.
And they made one request of me.
They said, if you do just one thing as Surgeon General, we want you to take on the drug crisis that's tearing the country apart.
And that's what I'm doing with the Surgeon General's report on addiction.
It's always the nurses, I'm telling you.
They do a lot to remind us what matters.
In your dreams, what do you aspire to accomplish when it comes to addiction?
By the time your tenure is done, by the time the Surgeon General's report is finished.
One of the most important things that I want to do is to move our conversation forward on addiction, and I want to change how we talk about addiction.
We have to stop seeing addiction as a moral failing and see it for what it really is, which is a chronic illness that we have to treat with compassion and with urgency.
But that's not always how we've looked at addiction.
And so part of the intention of this report is to change how we talk about addiction.
The second intention of this report is to also bring the best possible science together about prevention, treatment, and recovery.
Because I'll tell you, as Surgeon General, one of the best parts of my job is going out into communities and listening to people and understanding what their experiences have been like.
And what I hear time and time again from doctors and nurses, from hospitals and from families, is that they often don't know what to do when confronted with addiction.
When a mom or a dad finds a stash of drugs in their kid's bedroom, they're often not sure who to call or how to think about it.
And I hear this time and time again.
And I wanted this report.
To be something that can not only help the scientific community, but can also be accessible to moms and dads and to kids everywhere.
And so that's my intention with this report.
So I think as part of our nation's effort to change the face of addiction, President Obama, the Surgeon General, we've got the country's drug czar, leaders in medicine, politicians, celebrities, we all agree addiction affects every single one of us.
We have to have you involved in a critical conversation with your kids before it is too late.
So, got another big announcement today, besides the General's endeavor, is that we are announcing the National Night of Conversation in partnership with Facing Addiction and Drugs Over Dinner.
And their leaders are here today.
And I want to thank them, Jim Jameson, for helping organize this.
Thanks, Dr. Oz.
We are asking you...
As parents, to sit down with your kids on Thursday, November 19th, and have an open conversation with them about drugs and addiction.
We developed this night with the main federal agencies whose sole mission it is to deal with these drug problems.
So to show your support, I'm asking you to post an empty plate, just an empty plate.
You can do that, right, Mackenzie?
Oh, you bet.
An empty plate signifying something important, because you're not talking about food tonight, we're talking about lives.
You can do it today on my Facebook page and hashtag Night of Conversation.
That's how I'm going to know that you want to help me tackle this epidemic head-on.
And to spark your conversation, I posted a list of the top 10 things you don't know about drugs on DrOz.com.
For example, things like we consume, all of us, 80% of the world's opioids.
We only have 5% of the world's population.
Something's not right.
There are a lot of facts like that that will get your kids talking with you in a very comfortable way.
Together, we can change the face of addiction for good.
Surgeon General, thank you very much, Vivek.
We'll be right back.
Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!
Later, a juice that's getting a lot of attention lately.
One that claims to relieve body pains from head to toe.
Full of antioxidants and loaded with health benefits.
People are now turning to natural sources to relieve their pain.
Is this the superfood you've been waiting for?
Coming up...
The truth about zero-calorie foods.
We break it all down.
Plus, Leah Remedy.
What you haven't heard about the Scientology scandal.
If Tom Cruise watches this interview, what would you say to him?
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Last year, Americans spent $50 billion to ease symptoms of back pain.
I, too, suffer from lower back pain.
And as far as I understand it, you've brought some of the more well-known products that can help alleviate those symptoms.
Be ready.
We can give them a try.
Awesome.
Let's do it.
So we're going to start out with this one.
It's called the Better Back.
We're going to throw this around you.
These are going to strap around your knees.
How you feeling?
I feel like I'd get arrested wearing this in a public place, but it feels really good.
Yeah, it looks like you actually gained about three inches of height.
Three inches!
Alright, so this is the next device we're going to talk about.
Okay.
And it's a back stretching device.
Stretching, we all know, is always important, but this product is really designed to make it easy for you.
Whoa!
How you feeling?
It feels really good.
It feels like I'm getting a good stretch.
Yeah?
Which is surprising because it looks vaguely like a medieval torture device.
Alright, so this device is something that you can put on your back and wear it around all day.
What it's actually doing is giving you shocks throughout the day.
Shocks?
It's called a TENS device.
We're gonna place it where your back pain is focused.
It feels like whatever the physical sensation of, like, static.
The next product we're gonna talk about is this one.
It's called the Sit Smart Relief.
Okay.
You can play around with it a little bit if you want.
You put it on your chair and it really gets your pelvis in a good position, so it keeps your spine happy.
Feels like it's less comfortable for me to slash.
Yeah, and that's the whole point.
That's how it's working.
How do I know over the long term which is going to be the best solution for me?
Well, how about we just let you take them home and try them out for a few weeks?
All month long, we're bringing you 30 ideas in 30 days to fix your biggest body problems.
That was innovation junkie and documentarian Max Legevier testing back pain gadgets in our Fail or Fix lab.
We wanted to see how we're working his own back pain.
So, to bring you the gadgets that really work, Max decided to continue his testing at home for the last two weeks.
Let's see how he did.
I can't tell if this is like a torture device.
This is definitely a bit more arduous to put on.
I think it's worth it because it does give you a really good stretch.
This is supposed to enhance your posture when you're sitting.
It's flexible yet firm, making me feel like I want to sit up straight.
Alright, so now we've got this device.
TENS stands for Transcutaneous Electrical Neurostimulation.
Alright, that feels really weird.
This is like the best of both worlds, I think.
Kinda like a lower back reset button.
Alright, Dr. Oz, it's been a long and interesting two weeks, and I gotta tell you, my lower back is feeling pretty good.
I can't wait to share my favorite face with you.
So Max Nugabear is here.
After testing all these gadgets, I've asked him to show us what worked best for him.
You had a lot of options.
I did have a lot of options.
I, in particular, like this because, you know, adherence is important, and this is just so easy to use.
It's sort of like I said, you know, it's a bit of an orthotic for your butt, and it's not a free ride.
So for me, it did serve as sort of a reminder that I had to sit up straight and engage my core.
So it's the first fix.
What's it called?
It's called a sit-smart.
Sit-smart.
All right, so I'm sitting dumb now, I guess, right?
This is sitting dumb.
Yeah, but, like, imagine that you're typing at a keyboard.
I use my computer a lot, and so I tend to hunch over.
So put it back in the chair like that.
Okay.
And I sit like this.
I feel like I'm having an enema.
Is that right?
But I can lean back still.
You can lean back.
You can lean back.
But at the very least, it'll be a reminder for you to, like, engage your core, which is super important.
I guess it does keep my lower back firm a little bit.
I mean, we tend to think that our back muscles are the only muscles being engaged and sitting up straight, but it's really our abs, too.
In fairness, I could probably do this without sitting on this sit-smart thing, if I was smart.
I mean, like I said, you know, you still have to, like, you know, be mindful of posture.
All right, so we'll give that a B. We'll find out.
All right.
Now, you got this other little gizmo here.
This is sort of colorful.
You couldn't pick just one.
This is how Max is.
He picked two things he liked.
What is this called?
So this is just a backstretching device.
I tried this every day, morning and night, for five minutes.
So they look like acupressure points or something, and then the middle for your spine is nice and soft.
All right, let's try this.
This might—hopefully won't feel like an enema like the other one did.
So you just lay back on it.
Oh, this is nice.
This is heaven, Max.
Oh, I like this a lot.
You just lie like this?
You could just lie like this, yeah, when you wake up, before you go to bed.
My lower back tends to feel stiff in the morning, and so...
Those little buttons, they actually, those points massage your back just from your breathing.
Yeah.
Now, I'll tell you, one little thing I would do, I would do a little leg stretch.
You know how you roll your legs to one side or the other?
I'd do a little bit more of a stretch like this.
Oh, that feels good.
Doesn't it nice?
Yeah.
You make a modification, the Lugavere modification.
Yes.
You know, listen, if you can't buy one of these devices, which I think might make sense for some folks, at least just get a pillow and put it under your lower back.
Just let the back relax and you take deep breaths in.
You might get a similar benefit.
Thank you very much, Max.
Hope you enjoyed it.
We'll be right back.
Later, we're making cooking in the kitchen real easy, even if you can't cook, 12 different dishes with just one food ingredient.
Oh, no, it's good, Mark.
Mark Bittman, the master of healthy cooking, shows us how.
They're really simple.
This is a very clever idea.
Coming up.
We are bringing healthy back this season and want you to bring it too.
Grab your prescription pad for fun and sign up for free tickets today.
You can go to DrOz.com/tickets and sign up.
There's the juice that's getting a lot of attention right now.
It may have been showing up on your Facebook feed for its ability to relieve your pain.
It is tart cherry juice.
Now, we've covered the benefits of this unique juice before for its high level of antioxidants, and there's research showing it can also help you fall asleep.
But, like with so many so-called superfoods these days, it's really important to deep dive into how it works, to find out if it's right for you.
Now listen, I spent my childhood on my grandfather's cherry farm.
There I am.
See, I'm the one in the back with the one in the front of my sister with the crew cut.
I remember she stole that donkey from me.
That's my mom, by the way, trying to scold her and give the donkey back from me.
I always love to chase the cherries.
We would go out with those donkeys and collect the cherries into little carts.
But those tart cherries aren't necessarily what you're going to find at the grocery store.
So I've invited raw food expert and EPO to break this all down for us.
She's up with the audience here.
I hope you enjoyed my nostalgic picture there from Turkey.
So what are the health benefits of tart cherries?
Well tart cherries are packed full of antioxidants.
So antioxidants are known to decrease inflammation.
Recent studies are showing that it can actually help to reduce pain all over.
And besides which they contain three really powerful properties for fighting cancer and heart disease.
But on top of that all, for all the ladies in the house, Antioxidants are great for slowing down the signs of aging because they're slowing down the oxidation of our cells, the rusting, and so the more antioxidants we can get in our bodies, it just makes us look more useful longer.
So that picture that I showed you is probably from 1970. Why now is it becoming so popular?
People have known about it, I think, for a long time.
Yeah, I think there's like this big interest in the next big superfood, right?
Because we're realizing how important antioxidants are.
And so we want to know where we can get them from to flood our bodies with them.
Also, as you've spoken about in other shows, you know, pain pills have their risks, and people are more and more now turning to natural sources to relieve their pain.
And what better way than to eat a handful of beautiful tart cherries or drink some juice?
So who do you think has a lot of pain in their lives?
What profession?
Athletes.
That was really good.
Yeah, definitely.
So I actually turned on to this a little bit because of athletes.
So New York Rangers, here's a picture of these guys, and other professional athletes have come out saying pretty openly and calmly that they're drinking this stuff because it seems to help with their body pain.
But the real question, of course, is does it taste good?
So please tell us the best way to take the tart cherry juice, honey, and then I'm going to use some experiments in the audience to see what people think of it, really.
Absolutely.
Well, I always advocate for the whole fruit, but it's only available in July.
So if you can get it fresh, great.
You can also find it frozen or find it dried.
But also you can drink it as a juice or as extract.
But with the juice or the extract, because the fiber isn't there, we just want to watch the sugar levels, you know, as with all juices.
All right, so how much do you normally take in a day while they're tasting it?
You want to do 8 ounces in the morning and 8 ounces at night.
So that's about 100 cherries.
So you can imagine if we were to eat 100 cherries, that's a lot of fiber.
But fiber does offer other benefits as well, as you can guess, right?
I mean, give that big glass that was meant for me to that young woman behind you who knew about the New York Rangers.
She probably played professional hockey.
Good.
So what do you think?
It's sweeter than I thought it was going to be.
I thought it was going to be more tart.
It's definitely sweet.
What do you guys think?
It's good.
It's sweet.
It is tart.
It's good.
Would you take it for pain?
Sure.
So here's how I take it.
I actually mix it with seltzer water because I find that a little too sweet as well.
But with a little seltzer water mixed in there, it looks like a mixed drink, a little vodka on the side.
Exactly, with the vodka.
Now, what do you think as a professional?
I actually think it tastes good.
You do?
I'm very picky.
But the vodka sounded excellent.
Picky with vodka.
There you go.
So I think it's one of those superfoods out there.
We'll find out for sure.
And I don't think there's a risk of trying it.
But there's one risk to your wallet.
You've got to be cautious of the supplement versions.
They make these really big claims.
I don't know if those are true or not.
So be thoughtful about where you buy from.
Annie's book, Raw Food Detox, has some other natural food solutions you can try out as well.
We'll be right back.
Later, we're revealing how much exercise you have to do if you ate your favorite junk foods.
The truth about zero-calorie foods.
We break it all down.
Plus, Leah Remedy.
What you haven't heard about the Scientology scandal.
If Tom Cruise watches this interview, what would you say to him?
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
This November, we're taking your health to the next level.
I don't think anything's impossible.
It's a month of game changers.
Take your health to the next level.
Watch the Dr. Oz Show.
Imagine this.
You take one of the simplest ingredients that you have in your pantry and mix and match them to create 12 different meals.
And it is simple and easy.
For example, take one food like tomato soup.
There it is in the middle.
You can make 12 different dishes from it.
And it really works.
And to prove it is the master of simple, smart, and healthy cooking, Mark Bittman himself.
You are very much into broad, philosophical perspectives on food, but the most important of all is simple and easy.
Why?
You want people to cook.
I mean, at the end of the day, we want people to cook.
Because they'll be using real ingredients, they'll be treating them simply, they won't be eating weird stuff.
So today Mark's got his mix and match dinners that you can all make tonight.
You're not going to believe this is so much fun.
Mark starts by saying brown rice can be boring, which it can be, but for that reason he's got 12 different foods you can make from simple brown rice.
I actually just sampled some of these and I can't wait for people to see them.
That's what you call rehearsal?
Yes, rehearsal.
So what can you do so different with brown rice that we haven't thought of before?
Well, these are brown rice cakes with parmesan, scallions, and parsley.
And they're really simple.
So you pre-cook brown rice.
You can cook it the day before.
In fact, it's better if you cook it the day before.
Tell them why.
It's important.
Well, you want it to dry out a little bit.
So you put scallions, parmesan, you mentioned parsley.
And you make cakes with them.
That's literally like making meatballs.
It's like making rice cakes.
Like crab cakes.
Look how delectable these look, guys.
And they really taste as good as they look.
You can see the smell.
Now, to make 12 of these, different recipes, you've got to do a lot of different versatile things.
So I notice here, you've got this healthy fried rice.
Again, you make the rice ahead of time for the reasons that you said.
And you said.
And for fried rice, actually, you really need to make it ahead of time because you want...
Here, you want the starches to clump together with fried rice, you want them to fall apart, right?
Because you want individual grains of rice.
So, really, anything that you would make fried rice with, you make with brown fried rice.
And a fried egg on top with some sauteed ginger or leeks or scallions on that is really amazing.
I'll just give us one more example because I had this for dessert.
This is a brine rice with grape and some other kind of ricotta salad.
Yes.
And it's naturally sweet.
The grapes are fantastic.
It's kind of a rice pudding.
Yeah.
A healthier version.
I haven't had trouble figuring out that it was rice when I first started.
So you've got nine more recipes like this we'll put up there, but just for the simple rice.
Let's move over to the next big item, which is I know one that many of you are addicted to, the whole idea of buffalo sauce.
You say, forget the buffalo sauce from now on.
We can make chicken wings 12 different ways with basic ingredients at home.
Well, we do have a buffalo sauce as it happens, but that one...
This buffalo sauce?
Yeah.
I'll be the judge of that.
But you've got a lot of things.
You've got buffalo with lemon garlic pepper, teriyaki, jerky, chipotle miso.
I'll race you in all these.
All these are versions.
And they're all...
So the basic thing is you grill or you grill chicken wings.
And you can do this in advance.
You grill them over low heat.
And then when you want to crisp them up, you re-grill over high heat.
I was about to criticize you.
And it tastes like it's fried?
Well, it's crisp.
It doesn't taste like it's fried.
It's drier, but yeah, they're good.
Oh, no, it's good.
You're hungry.
Yeah, but the meat's moist in this.
It's good.
These things weren't so good.
I wasn't going to say anything to be polite, but...
You jumped the gun because you were so hungry here.
So, how do you make the actual...
So, these are...
This is a Thai peanut sauce.
Basically, peanut butter, right?
Lime juice.
Coconut milk.
It's so simple.
Yeah.
And a little soy sauce.
And that's...
I mean, obviously, you have to measure these ingredients, so it takes one minute longer than it took here, but this is a two-minute recipe.
Let me just do quality control on this.
There we are.
I like that.
It's good.
Now, what's this?
And you can use sesame paste.
Tahini would be really good in here also.
This is a yogurt, very simple.
Again, yogurt curry.
So yogurt, lemon juice or lime juice, curry powder, some cumin.
Love the smell of that.
A little olive oil.
A little oil in here, too.
I'll show you how to really whisk.
A consternation whisk.
You do it much better.
My hands are dirty right now.
So these are easy to do.
It takes, as you mentioned, a minute or two.
I mean, you don't do all 12 at once, obviously, although for a party you could.
The hard part for me would have been this.
This is a very clever idea.
So one more time, you cook it ahead of time.
You can cook it ahead of time.
You do it all at once, or you can cook it ahead of time, and then three, four minutes over high heat or in a grill pan like this, and they will crisp up and get that beautiful color.
I will toast you, Mark Bittman.
Thank you very, very much.
Wonderful advice.
You can find the rest of Mark's recipes on dros.com and in his new book, which is fabulous, Kitchen Matrix.
It's in stores now.
We'll be right back.
The search is on.
We're looking for a nurse to join our core team of experts to provide wisdom, expert commentary, and advice.
If you'd like to nominate yourself or a nurse who's made a difference in your life, go to DrOz.com and click on hashtag nurse search.
I nominate Melody Butler in her current role as an infection control nurse.
She's a patient advocate and uses evidence-based practice to educate patients, parents, and healthcare professionals about vaccines and is ultimately saving lives.
This November, we're taking your health to the next level.
I don't think anything's possible.
It's a month of Game Changers.
Take your health to the next level.
Watch the Dr. Oz Show.
Tomorrow, you'll be talking about Eat This, Do That.
It's a one sheet.
There it is.
Audience, I want you to be honest.
How many of you change your orders at a restaurant after you see the calorie load?
Hands up.
Good number, but not all of everybody.
Here's the deal.
Today I'm going to tell you about the amount of exercise you'd have to do to cut out the calories you just consumed.
For example, a can of soda, it's pretty innocuous, 200 calories.
What does that really mean though?
That would mean you'd have to do 54 minutes of lunges.
54 minutes of lunges.
That's a lot of lunges, just a burn up of 200 calories.
Think about that.
Is one soda worth it?
No, it's not worth it.
Alright, next.
Two slices of pepperoni pizza with that gooey cheese on them.
It's only 626 calories.
I know, it's so tempting, especially with a beer.
But just to burn through those two slices, it's 159 minutes of climbing stairs.
That's more than double the length of the show.
It's a lot of stairs to climb.
So if you're going to go out for a pizza, at least stick to one regular cheese.
It's enough.
80 minutes to climb the stairs.
Finally, a slice of cheesecake.
It's so good.
It just melts in your mouth.
710 calories.
Well, you can guess how much that exercise would take you.
148 minutes of brisk walking, like your breathing hard kind of walking, not a party stroll in the park.
So the next time you get to those junk food cravings, think of the amount of work you'd have to do to burn off those calories that you just would have eaten.
It might not just be the motivation you need to put down the pizza.
Thanks for joining us today.
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