Tell me about your vision. My vision is to influence people's lifestyles with eating and,
you know, having helping people lead the best quality of life they can. I feel like being with
and associated with people who are happy and are feeling good and feeling healthy are just so much
more fulfilling to be with. And so just creating that community and increasing everybody's quality
of life and vibration is my vision. That's awesome. Tell me more about that. Where did this all
started come from and what gets you out of bed every morning? Yeah, so this all started with my
youngest child being diagnosed on the autism spectrum. And as a scientist, you know, I was
kind of definitely trying to solve the problem. And when I was observing her symptoms, it just
seemed like she was chronically in pain, you know, like there was something that was really
disturbing her ability to lead kind of a happy and just have a quality of life that one would
associate at the two and a half, three years old of life. I did try the medical world and really
wasn't finding a lot of answers at that point. And this is back in 2009, really kind of just
being turned down about this or this test and such. And so I kind of took matters into my own hands
and started to really look into gut brain connection, gut brain connection, especially
when it came to food and started to experiment on my daughter as well as myself and changing our
foods. And when I came across like taking out gluten and casein, which is a significant class
of proteins, you know, one class of proteins found in wheat, gluten and casein found in dairy,
I saw some improvements and it got me kind of just going down this rabbit hole of why are these
proteins contributing to her symptoms? What about the other proteins? And I'm a protein chemist by
trade. And so I went down the rabbit hole. And that's when I came to this association of the
processing of proteins in the diet, in the American modern commercial world is creating glutamate
through the processing of proteins. So we have gluten proteins being processed, the casein
proteins being processed, like creating cheese. But then you have whey protein and soy protein and
all of these various protein concentrates, isolates, hydrolysis sites that are breaking
up the protein and contributing to, you know, an amino acid being freed called glutamate. So
glutamic acid is one type of amino acid, but that is, you know, what leads to MSG monosodium
glutamate. You just have a sodium ion in there and it becomes very addicting. It hijacks our
taste receptors. It's associated with inflammation. And I found when I came across that clue and
really went through, okay, I'm going down Google patents and food patents and such, and really
went through the diet, my daughter's symptoms were, I mean, she changed. It was complete
radical change in her demeanor from faceless, no expressions to just like this vibrant, you know,
exuberant child, you know, happy on life, you know, literally waking up and saying, this is
the best day ever, where before she would be crying and screaming for hours at a time, as if she was
in pain or she was looping. So it was a complete dramatic change. So I started talking to other
parents and parents helping parents, you know, local communities here in California. And people
like, you've got to get this word out. Like, this is amazing. And so I decided to start
unblindmymind.org, which was a nonprofit, and started to research the book, which was just
published last year, which is Fat, Stressed and Sick, MSG Processed Foods and America's Health
Crisis, and really just trying to get the word out there that these are things that we can take in
control, you know, rather than looking for the medical, you know, world for answers, it really
is a huge lifestyle change. Doctors are not trained with what's going on with the food
processing right now. They're rarely asking patients what they eat. And so this is a whole
other niche that I call myself the food doctor. It's an unmet need here in, you know, improving
the health of our societies. But that's really where my passion and vision started. And, you
know, I get out of bed in the morning thinking, Okay, you know, who can I influence today? What
can I do for myself to continuously be on this journey?
Wow, that's awesome. Wow, there is so much you said in that, that I have no clue what it is.
I got the gist behind it. So what would you say with all the research and things that you
accomplished? Like, where are you at with, with your business side of things with unblind my mind?
And where do you see it going?
You know, I, I, you know, just a very small operation here where I'm just looking to
influence, you know, whether it's one bite at a time, one person at a time, one, you know,
conference at a time, so getting invited to health conferences or autism conferences or chronic,
you know, ailments, you know, I did work with a medical center for a number of years where I like
to influence the medical world to be looking at these chronic inflammatory conditions from a
variety of different lenses, not just throwing prescription drugs at it, but what can we do to
really help, you know, sustainable approaches for improving patients' lives. And then the research
is constantly out there with, you know, pharmaceutical companies with their glutamate
blocker drugs that are just like mega, mega, you know, billions of dollars here where why take a
glutamate blocker drug and not have a person look at how to reduce the consumption of glutamate in
the foods first and foremost, see how well that goes. Now, of course, that approach is not a lot
of money, right? So this is all about eating healthy. There's not a lot of money in that. And
so, but I feel really passionate and feeling very authentic about spreading this word. And like I
said, the book is also kind of part of how to spread the word. And that's my vision is just,
you know, one bite at a time, improving people's health.
Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for being bold to go that route because not a lot of
people are. And we found like how many people have been bold in some times and they haven't had the
best results because this billion dollar industry you're going against and they're not happy about
that at all. Yeah, so it's big pharma and big food. I mean, they are not happy about, yeah, eat
healthy. Yeah. And more and more people when they wake up to this reality that they realize like
there's so much you can do on your side. And I think I've been saying this to myself and my family
for I want to say at least four or five years now that I'm born and raised in India. Like,
I don't think you can tell, but like I'm born and raised in India. And when I came to United States
when I was 18 and I think a few years down the road, I was in college. I think I injured my low
back. And I went to chiropractors and went to doctors and all those things. And they would just
manage my symptoms and will not heal me. And I'm like, like years and years worth of money spent,
years and years worth of therapy, this and that, none of them, none of them, not a single one of
them was like, you can do these, these, these things that will actually improve your health.
Your condition, you have issues in these areas that you destabilize your muscle so you can release
your low back so that they can start healing it. No, they would just give me drugs or adjust me here,
adjust me there, like chiropractors do. And so I was like, I don't think American medicine right
now is meant to cure you. I think it's supposed to maybe treat your symptoms sometimes. Yeah,
it's a bandaid approach. It is an expensive approach. And I think the American, you know,
the amount of money that we spent percentage wise, you know, our percent GDP spent on health care,
the outcomes are not reflected there. We are not a healthy nation relative to how much money we
spend. And you know, I do think significantly it's our lifestyle. And food is a big part of that.
Yeah. The, there's so many approaches to this. And I, yeah, thank you for sharing that. And
I hope more and more people hear about this. I think more and more people know to no need to
take in charge of their own life. And so relying on some doctor and going, getting a test once a
year, telling them, Hey, you're healthy, but are you really healthy? Are you slowly dying or slowly
killing yourself because you don't know any better? Yeah. Yeah. No. And I do think that, you know, a
lot, you know, the test is only, you know, as good as what the projected, you know, ailment might be
or whatever your ailment might be. And I worked with a really chronically ill patient population
for about five years with a medical center called chronic fatigue syndrome or ME CFS. And I mean,
honestly, I don't think I've ever worked with a sicker population. I mean, just chronic
inflammatory conditions where the medical world is just not understanding what's going on there.
And we would do all these tests and there really wouldn't be anything that was just very crystal
clear or showing up in, you know, all across the population of explaining, you know, what's really
going on here, you know? So I think a lot of our various illnesses, diseases, you know, are rooted
in chronic inflammation. And so it's, you know, my, when I work with one-on-one people, you know,
through the unblindmymind.org website, you know, it really is like, okay, let's identify your root
cause of inflammation. That might be very different from this person and this person. And so, you know,
everybody's journey is different. Everybody's microbiome is extremely different, you know,
and our neurological wiring is so different, genetics. And so really kind of helping people
understand what their chronic inflammatory root cause is and seeing if we can improve that,
you know, and that really helps improve quality of life quite a bit.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned into Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is
going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people
to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an
excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.