Nation of Islam How to Eat to live - Bro. Val

What if eating less could give you more life? We sit down with Val, raised in Harlem’s King Towers near Mosque No. 7, to trace a journey from church choirs to FOI discipline, from pork and deli meat to a plant-powered, one-meal-a-day routine. It’s a story about culture, conviction, and how a simple rule—fewer meals, better food—can reshape energy, mood, and long-term health.

We get specific about protein myths and why plants are the original source of amino acids. Val explains how fiber changes the game for blood sugar and cravings, why fasted training can feel lighter and stronger, and how he transitioned from eating five times a day for bodybuilding to a single satisfying meal supported by fresh green juices. For athletes and high-output jobs, we talk practical tweaks—using shakes, adjusting windows, and honoring common sense without abandoning the core principles.

The conversation dives into digestion and elimination, connecting reduced meal frequency with a quieter gut and a cleaner colon. We unpack fasting phases—from glucose use to fat burning and autophagy—plus the bump in human growth hormone that supports recovery and vitality. We also highlight public health realities for Black America, the marketing origins of “three meals a day,” the WHO’s stance on processed meat, and why industrial meat’s hormones and antibiotics are a hidden cost to your microbiome.

Underneath the nutrition science is a simple ethic: discipline is freedom. Hydrate with water-rich foods, build meals around whole plants, keep alcohol and ultra-processed foods out, and let time between meals do its quiet repair work. Most of all, guard your thoughts—because resentment and gloom can sabotage a clean plate. If this episode challenges what you’ve been told about protein, breakfast, and hunger, hit play, share it with a friend who needs a reset, and subscribe for more candid, practical health conversations. Your move: what would you change first—meal timing or what’s on the plate?

Chapters

• 0:00 Host Intro And Guest Background
• 1:52 Growing Up In Harlem’s King Towers
• 6:00 Harlem’s Black Consciousness And NOI Presence
• 12:30 First Encounters With NOI And Malcolm’s Legacy
• 16:20 Discovering Farrakhan And Leaving Christianity
• 19:50 Joining The NOI And FOI Process
• 24:30 Diet Evolution Away From Pork And Meat
• 30:00 Plant Protein Versus Animal Protein
• 36:00 One Meal A Day: Training The Body
• 44:20 Intermittent Fasting And Credit To NOI
• 47:40 Donations And Building The Platform
• 49:20 Hydration, Juicing, And Water-Rich Foods
• 53:00 Calorie Needs For Athletes And Flexibility
• 58:00 What One Meal Looks Like Daily

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

What's going on, everybody out there? It's Ron Brown, NMT the People's Fitness Professional, aka Soul Brother Number One, Reporting for Duty. Peace to everybody in the chat. We got one person in the chat, and usually uh 6 p.m. is not a normal time for me. So whoever's in the chat, they really uh are either NYP family or they're here to see Brother Val. All right. So thank y'all. Who whoever's in the chat, peace to y'all, the two people. Um, um, I'm gonna like for you to oh, make sure, make sure you I'm gonna have a commercial for this next week. It's so hard for me to do this. Like, comment, share, subscribe. Don't forget the super chat, yada yada yada yada. I don't like begging, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00

All right, just inform them. They get it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02

Right. Indeed. So we got brother Val from the Nation of Islam in the building this evening. Oh, uh, oh, your wife is oh, your wife is watching.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12

My number one supporter, cheerleader.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16

Um, so I want to go right into it. So you're from where I always take people down, like uh, you know, the history, so so people get to know them. So, where are you from exactly?

SPEAKER_02: 1:27

I'm from 112th Street, um, between Lennox and Fifth Avenue, New York City, Harlem, USA, two blocks away from um Central Park. I was born and raised there. I was born in 1966. Um, we moved there, I think, when I was about six years old. My grandmother, who is the matriarch over the family, she raised me and my sisters. So, like I told I was telling you before, it was originally Stephen Forster Projects. And then it was um renamed Martin Luther King Towers because after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the early 70s, I believe they changed the name. So that's where I'm from. Um, and matter of fact, I was from building 41, 41, 112 street, and the father, Clarence 13x, the father was from building 21 in the same complex, in the same projects. At this time, when I was a young, I didn't know. I didn't know the father, I didn't know about the 5% nation. I'm just six, seven years old running around having fun. But later on, I learned that the father was from 21, which is right across the parking lot parking lot for me. I would say anywhere from 20 yards because you have a parking lot, then you have two buildings on the side, and the the the doors, the the entrance of the door of the buildings, the doors are facing each other. It's just a parking lot in between them, and that's where the father was living at at the time, but but but unbeknownst to me because I was a young man and I didn't know anything about all that.

SPEAKER_00: 3:01

Right, right, right. Oh man, there's so much to impact on just on the so so you grew up there, and what was the social climate at that time? I mean, I mean, that was that's the 60s, right? 60s, 70s. So, I mean, it's a lot of uh police brutality, you know, uh a law, you know, pretty much stopped the riots at that time with the youth and things like that. The nation of Islam was uh especially in Harlem, was was thriving, big. Five percenters. Who else do we have out there? We had the Ansaw law community, were they around too?

SPEAKER_02: 3:33

Yeah. I'm not I'm not uh too familiar because I was young. All I know is every time I went outside, it was tons to me. It seemed like hundreds of thousands of people always, because the project was always packed, people were always, and we was right next to, and I was right in two blocks away from the moss, really, because the moss was 116th Street right at this time. I'm on 112th Street, but the project covers from 112th to 115th. You got 10 buildings inside the uh inside of uh King Towers, so it goes from 5th to Lennox Avenue from 11th to 115th. So as soon as you walk, you just cutting through because as a kid, I'm cutting through. You don't walk from corner to corner, you cut through the project. Soon as I get to 115th Street, 116th is right there. That's the moss, you know, where Malcolm taught as well as Minister Farrakhan taught Muhammad's mass number seven. But at this time, I don't know that. Like I said, I believe Malcolm was assassinated in was it 64? Was it 64? I don't remember okay. But at this time, I think I was I was I wasn't born um when Malcolm was assassinated when Malcolm was on scene. And the reason why I know that is because my mother, she was gonna name me after Malcolm X, and this is what she told me later on. And I said, Yeah, why didn't you? After I got to know you know who he was and read about him and so forth and so on. I said, Well, why didn't you? Why didn't you? And she said, I didn't because I found out your father um was having another baby with another woman, so she said, Because of that, I didn't want that baby to get the get your father's name, so I named you after your father. So that's why I got my name, which is Valdy. Because originally my mother, my mother was gonna name me after um Malcolm X, but she she decided to change that because once she found out that my father was having another baby with another woman, she said, No, I can't have that. So that's when she gave me my father's name, which is Valdry.

SPEAKER_00: 5:30

Nice, nice. So now, so all that was going on, how did you grow up? I mean, what did you see?

SPEAKER_02: 5:37

Well, when I grew up, all I saw was, I mean, it was just so much so much energy. All I knew that it was a lot of energy, but I was in the church. I was raised by my grandmother, not my mother. My mother wasn't my primary caregiver, my grandmother was, and she had us in the church every Sunday, every every Sunday from I mean, when I can remember, we did pieces on Sunday, on Christmas. We sung in the in the choir, we did the whole thing. My grandma said, Come on, y'all gonna go to church up until when I was about 14 or 15 years old. And then I start saying, Listen, grandma, I don't want I don't want to go to church. Now I'm sleeping later than late, so therefore I don't have to go to church. But the social climate was um just a lot of black positivity, a lot of black energy. But I'm seeing this and feeling this, but I can't verbally express it. You know what I mean? You know how you see something, you're a part of something, you in the mix of it, but you can't verbally articulate what you're seeing and what you're feeling, but you know you can feel the energy of it. Right, it wasn't till later than when I began to uh grow older in my teenage years when I've been I began to understand a little bit more, and then on my own research and study, I said, Well, let me look, let me really look into this. And then I realized, wow, I was basically um birthed right in the middle of a lot of that, and I had no idea at the time, other than I do remember this. This is what I remember when I was a little boy. I remember the brothers from the temple coming over selling fish because my grandmother was saying, Open the door, and I was open door, and the brothers came on, they had suits, and they I think they had like um cool coolers, like you would carry cooler, like cold drinks in, but it was it was packed in fish, and then it was selling fish within the projects, and my grandmother used to always buy fish from them. So he said, Come on, the brother's gonna come up with the fish. I says, Okay, so I would go to the door, and my grandmother tell me what she wanted, and then I would take the fish and put it in our freezer, and my grandmother would pay them. So I do remember that experience, but a lot of it I was oblivious to, I was just in it, but I wasn't aware of it.

SPEAKER_00: 7:35

Gotcha, gotcha. So now, um, to take it into uh how to eat the live. Okay, um, well, first off, before we go to how to eat the live, how did you how were you um introduced to the nation of Islam? And what was your experience going into the nation of Islam and what which uh mosque or temple?

SPEAKER_02: 7:58

Okay, well, I first got introduced because of just be becoming more aware. I started reading more books and I started learning more about black consciousness, and I read Malcolm X autobiography, and I read um a few other books, and then um someone gave me a tape by um Minister Farrakhan, and um I listened to that tape, and basically I was addicted to to what he was saying. I couldn't believe what he was saying. I'm like, Are you kidding me? Is this guy for real? I mean, because it was just my first exposure, it was mind-blowing to me. And I just I said, Well, where do you get the tapes from? He told me. So I said I started going to buy the tapes. I used to go by the tapes and go by the lectures, and every time I listened to something, I learned something. But what it did for me, it got me out of the mindset of Christianity because I never heard a religious teaching other than Christianity because my grandmother, I grew up in the church, so that's all I knew. I didn't know about anything else until I heard one of those tapes. And then I'm it it was like I needed to hear more, like I really wanted to understand this. Like, what is he really saying? And then it started making sense to me. He started breaking it down where wow, I never looked at Christianity the way he described it in some of some of his lectures. Um, but then when he described it and um I began to understand it, I was like, oh, he's 100% right. Like this is I can understand this. Um, and then I just began to buy more tapes and more tapes and more tapes. And then eventually um I went to the MAS um on 127th Street, um, and I went into the nation for for a good while, for a few years. Um, and um that's where I was at. And once I once I did that, and once I accepted that, I never went back to Christianity. Um, most of my family is Christians, but we have a loving relationship. They understand me, I understand them. Um, but Christianity never had the hold on me that it had at that time after that, because it was just uh our opening message, and um, you know, so he that was my birth into the black consciousness and into Islam, listening to a fake take by Mr. Farrakhan. What year was that? Do you remember? Oh man, that had to be back in the 80s. I would say it was in the early 80s. Reason why I know that is because I I could remember when he went to Madison Square Garden in 1985, Power Last Forever, when Mayor Koch was the mayor of New York City. And um, I think it was like two years before I started listening to tape, and then when I heard that tape, that was like it to me, it was just it sent chills through my body, the stuff that he was saying and how he was talking. And I mean, you know, unafraid, unapologetic, I mean, just 100% black. I mean, I was like, wow, this guy's this guy's amazing. Um, so that I know it was before 85, so it maybe have to be 83 or 80, 82, somewhere around that time.

SPEAKER_00: 11:11

Gotcha. Now, so you went into the nation of Islam. Yeah. You became a part of the FOI. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02: 11:19

Well, what you do is once you go in, there's a whole process. You you go through an actual process, and uh, you know, I don't want to, you know, say everything, but you go through a whole process, and then you basically um you write your letter, and then after you write your letter, then you get your student enrollment and your and your um actual facts and so forth and so on, and then you have to basically say that, say, say that say what you learn and study to the brothers, and then you become um basically uh convert to the to the religion of Islam and you become part of the FOI, which is a never-ending journey. It's not like you become and then that's it. You know what I mean? It's a it's a it's a it's it's a continual process of working on yourself, cleaning yourself up, coming into a different mindset, becoming a new person by your words, actions, and deeds. It's just that's just a processing part, but then the work has to be done after the processing.

SPEAKER_00: 12:15

Okay, so I don't want to maybe we don't want to go too deep into that because you know people would have to experience that for themselves.

SPEAKER_01: 12:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 12:22

So now you get into the you go into the FOI, you become a Muslim, um, and then you know you're this from the you're a Muslim from the 80s up until now. That's what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02: 12:37

Yes, yes, yes. Wow but when you first when you first come, well for me, I can't speak for you. When you first come in, you learn, you understand, but my dietary law wasn't um what the what the nation of Islam um basically has for a dietary law. I was basically I stopped eating pork on my thing. I was about 20 years old. I started, and the only reason I stopped eating pork, I'm being honest with you, because brothers, the brothers I used to hey, you shouldn't eat pork, you should, because my grandmother, she was from the south, and she basically fed us what she what she could afford to feed us, and we ate what we ate. So I did eat um ham a lot. I never remember eating, you know, like the the worst part of the pig. I I never remember eating every that, but I do remember eating a ham sandwich at the time, you know what I mean when I was younger. But then later on, around 20 or 19 or 20, the brothers I used to hang out with and play sports with, they were like, yo, you shouldn't eat that, you shouldn't eat that. I'm like, why, why, why? So they started telling me about the trick now worm and so forth and so on. And then I says, okay, but my thing was I always like to go do the research. So then I went and got a book, and then I started reading up more on it, and then I stopped eating, um, I stopped eating pork. And then um later on I stopped eating red meat. I think '95, I stopped eating red meat. And then one year, Minister Farrakhan had asked the nation to do um Ramadan vegetarian. Forget what year it was, but he asked the nation to do um Ramadan in vegetarian style, basically, no meat. And um that's what I did. And then when I did it, I just didn't go back. I said, I just did this for 30 days. Why would I go back to meat now? You know, so and this been had to be at least, I think we're going on 15 years now that I haven't had any meat. Um, so basically fruits and vegetables. But then later on, going back into the books of the most honorable Elijah Muhammad, How to Eat the Live, book one and book two, he goes into how meat, um we're not designed by nature to eat meat. And the best, the best diet for you is fruits and vegetables, a vegetarian diet. He goes into that when you really go in and you extract the information you see, you know. In one point, he says in the book, we should begin to um gradually wean ourselves off of the meat and the chicken and so forth and so on.

SPEAKER_00: 14:56

So um I have a I have a question for you on that. So uh my issue with not eating meat is where are you getting your amino acids from?

SPEAKER_02: 15:05

Okay, um, and um I'm glad you asked that question. And the reason why I'm glad you asked that question is because everyone thinks that you get protein from meat. When you eat meat, okay, you're getting animal protein. Animal protein. And I say that because um the animals you eat don't eat meat.

unknown: 15:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 15:28

So when I say the animals you eat don't meat eat when you got the cow, when you got the chicken, when you got the turkey, none of these animals eat meat. So if they don't eat meat and they're and they're being and they have protein, where are they getting their protein from? They're getting their protein from plants. Plants make protein, not meat. What animals do is they recycle the protein that they eat from the grass, from the grain that they eat, and then it becomes part of them. So what you're doing is when you eat meat, you're you're you're eating recycled protein. Okay, because um nitrogen, nitrogen is um the nucleus to protein. Okay, that is the that is the essential ingredients that you need. Nitrogen, once it hits the earth, along with the sodophotosynthesis. I don't want to get too too confusing. Photosynthesis from the sun, it goes into the earth, it goes into the soil, it begins to make protein. That's how protein is made through plants. That's why plants have protein in them. And plant protein is a better assimilator into the bloodstream and into the body as opposed to meat, because meat makes your stomach work too hard to break down the meat, because we remember we are the life force of our body, so the meat that you eat is not going, is may it may be going into your stomach whole, but in order for you to get the nutrients from it, it has to break down the body. Look at the body like this it is a human juicer. If you take an apple and you put it in a juicer and you and basically you grind it, and then the liquid comes out, that's what the body is. The body, and that's what the digestive process is is breaking down whatever you put in it. So the liquid, so the liquid, so the juices that goes into the um intestinal tract that goes into your small intestines, your large intestines, and then into the hepatic nerve to the liver, that's all juice. In order for it to get into the bloodstream, it has to be liquefied. So the nutrients become liquid. So once it becomes liquid, it goes into the bloodstream, and then that's how you get basically your energy and your amino acids and all the nutrients that you need. So if you're doing this from the plant base, you don't have that breakdown, that that digestive process is much easier on the stomach and it needs easier on the digestive system. Go right ahead with your next question.

SPEAKER_00: 17:52

Okay, so my my that is is uh meat, first of all, you know, it has a lot of calories, right? So if if you if you're in need of you know a lot of calories, like a person who's always moving around, then meat would be a good resource, right? Um, also plants don't have a complete amino acid profile. So, and that's to say that meat does, but meats I would say have more of a complete profile of amino acids. So, how would like a plant or a plant-based diet provide enough amino acids, a more complete profile for someone who you know wants to build muscle and work out and burn a lot of energy?

SPEAKER_02: 18:46

Yeah, well, everything that you can get from meats, you can get that and then some from plants and and fruits. Because when we're talking about plants, we're talking about fruits and vegetables. We're not just talking about vegetables alone, and we're not talking about fruits alone. So, in vegetables and plants, what they have is they have protein, they have carbohydrates, and they have fiber, which is very important. And then in the fiber aspect of it, what it does is it slows down the process of digest digestion into the bloodstream. For instance, if you eat white sugar, it hits the bloodstream like that. No, it with no time because it has no fiber in it. So therefore, it's going to get into your bloodstream quick. And this is how um you get uh something like sugar diabetes, because it's the saturation of sugar circulated in the bloodstream, which they say basically you have high blood sugar. So it's basically the same thing, sugar diabetes. But when you're eating fruits and vegetables, they can be enjoyable, but they're not addictive. Why are they addictive? Because they have the fiber element to slow the digestive process down for it to slim assimilate into the bloodstream at the proper time in the proper way, so you don't feel that charge. You don't feel like like when you eat some sugar and you feel like, ooh, or you take some red bull, you feel that because of the caffeine or the sugar in it. So you feel that up thing real quick. You don't feel that with when you eat uh fruits and vegetables because it's a natural assimilation. And when you say fruits and vegetables don't have the amino acids, they have all of the amino amino acids that require. The only one that um a lot of people say that they they lack is the vitamin, I believe vitamin B12, um in the in the diets. So if you want to take a vitamin B12 as a supplement, that's fine to make sure, or if you want to, especially if you um like in your case, you're a trainer, you're working out, you're doing all these other activities where you feel as though you don't have enough energy throughout the day. But the important part also is um once you begin to eat one meal a day, you should you're supposed to have more energy, not less energy. And the reason why I say that is because once the body is no longer saturated with heavy foods, you feel lighter, you have more energy as long as you're using your energy in a manner in which you regulate it. In other words, you just not use the energy, but you use energy, in other words, you have purpose for your particular energy, and therefore, if you move throughout the day in that kind of way, it'll be less likely, not that it won't happen, it'll be less likely that you become energy depleted.

SPEAKER_00: 21:11

Gotcha, gotcha. So um now to eat one meal a day. Yes, okay. What is the process to get to that one meal a day? Um, you know, me, I like to jump right up head first into things, right? Um, you know, and I crash sometimes. So, you know, so I was doing one meal a day, and uh I was just I just didn't have the energy. So, you know, Brother Eric Muhammad was saying, you know, you know, if you were doing three meals or if you're doing four or five meals, however you were doing it, just wean yourself up one meal at a time. Now, my concern is my concern is once I get to this one meal a day, which I was doing already, how can you pack in enough an enough enough amount of calories for you to have the energy throughout the day and to the reserves for the next day?

SPEAKER_02: 22:10

Well, my answer to you is you we train the body. And when I say that, um, when I used to be heavy into bodybuilding, I used to eat not three times a day, but five times a day. Because in order for you to pack on that muscle, that muscle mass, you have to give it a supply of energy.

SPEAKER_01: 22:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 22:31

So I would eat five times a day. I made sure I had whatever I need until so I can put that muscle on. I'm hitting the gym really hard. So the biggest I've ever been was like 225. Um, and because you're training to put on muscle. But when you begin to eat one meal a day, you're doing the same thing, you're training your body. So when I say the five meals, I was force feeding my body the five. My body wasn't calling for it, but I was force feeding it. So after you for after I was force feeding it for a while, then my body began to start calling for it because now it's trained. Yo, you you've been feeding me big, I'm ready. It's been three hours. Where's my food at? So you train your body to call for the food and want the food. So when I got to one meal a day, you have to train your body off of five males or the three males or the two males. So what you would have to do is you have to go through a period. Like when I first started doing one meal a day, I remember I was I remember when I was in the gym with my workout partner. He's like, Yo, man, you starting to look like you're on, you know, you on crack. I said, Why you say he said because you're getting real small? I said, Well, I'm changing my diet, I'm doing one meal a day. So there is a there's a process, you just can't do it and expect to look the same you did eating five meals. So there's a process, and after the process, after the training, after the the period of time, there's it's almost like a lever that clicks in your body, like boop, okay, we we have established the one meal now, and now we can actually do what we did prior. Um, even though we was eating five meals. For instance, I'll give you a quick example. I work for the New York City Department of Sanitation for 25 years. I used to go do my route, and after my route, after work, I used to go to the gym. That's almost like two workouts in a day on one meal. So so it can be done. It's just a training process. A week is not going to do it. You can't do it for a week, or you can't do it for two weeks and three weeks, and then you expect, okay, it's gonna happen. It takes, I can't tell you how long it's gonna take you, but I know it took me some time in order for my body to click over and make that transition. Okay, and I've been eating one meal a day now for I don't know how long. Now they call it intermittent fasting, but we know it as one meal a day with the most honorable Elijah Muhammad. And I and I mention intermittent fasting only because something that the honorable Elijah Muhammad made a law, a dietary law for the Muslims to prolong your life and health. Other people see the benefit of it, but yet they don't want to give him the credit and say one meal a day, they'll say intermittent fasting, which means you eat one meal or two meals, you know, for but but but yet in the process, you may not eat for eight, 12 hours, you may not eat for 16 hours. So they call it intermittent fasting because they give you a time restriction, a window in which we you can eat and you cannot eat. It's similar to one meal a day, you're not eating all day, and this is why the honorable Elijah Muhammad said the main route of these books is to stop you from eating one or two or three meals a day, which may prolong your life. That's that's what the key is. So I just wanted to put that out there because it's a big crave now for intermittent fasting. I lost weight, I'm doing intermittent fasting. But in my opinion, the author of it all, because you have scientists, when I say scientists, heavy uh doctors and surgeons, I forgot one surgeon's name. He's a he's a cardiological surgeon. He he's even telling his pet his patients, if you fast, you would become more healthier. And all of and what I'm saying, all of this information is in the how to eat the live and the message to the black man, our savior's arrived, fall of America with the honorable Elijah Muhammad putting that restriction on us eat one meal a day, even though we may not have the the the the detailed information of of to why, but it is effective, and it is effective. So it's important once you get to it, because it's not about um gaining big muscles, and it's not about um doing those kinds of things, it's about the pro the the longevity of your life, even though we may be Christians, Muslims, whatever religious, whatever, whatever religion we claim, no one wants to leave the planet any faster than they have to. Okay, so why not adopt a diet that can help you sustain yourself?

SPEAKER_00: 26:54

Right now, I want to say uh that's what they call it now. It's the omed omed diet. Okay, that's what they call it now. OMED diet. Thank you, thank you, uh brother Joey for the$30. I really appreciate you. Much, much, much appreciated. Um, much appreciated, brother Joey. I just want to make sure your name is up there and you're shown, you know, you're acknowledged. Thank you, sir. Really appreciate it. We're trying to grow this platform uh to do more in-person podcasts. Um, so that's the goal. So whatever, whatever donations you guys send, that's where it's gonna be going to uh building up online, online, building an in-person platform. We have a studio, um, however, uh, you know, this stuff costs. So um, you know what I mean. So thank you, Joey, brother Joey. So, yeah, um the brother said um the adept more number seven. Most of the time we're just dehydrated and think we're hungry. I can I could agree with that to a certain extent. Sometimes we're lacking the the the calories though, and we don't we don't realize it. So that's why I want to try to, you know, like when you're eating this one meal, is it one meal in one one sitting, or are you eating from four to six?

SPEAKER_02: 28:16

Well, usually it's one meal in one sitting, okay? So usually it's not, you know, all day long after the particular odd to the time prescribed, because basically your basic meal is that one meal a day, which is usually one sitting. Now, if you want to have something to drink or you know have some coffee, that's fine. You can have that. I'm not saying don't eat, don't drink anything after the one meal, or don't drink anything before the one meal. We're talking about the actual food that you consume. But to answer the um to to piggyback on the brother's question um about the deep most of the time we're dehydrated. Yes, we are dehydrated. 75% of adults when they go to um the hospital for emergency care, 75% of them are dehydrated. But sometimes we don't recognize that we can get hydration through the foods that we eat. We we think of hydration when we think of water, but you can get hydration through watermelon, you can do get hydration through melons, through through strawberries, and see that's the beauty about fruits and vegetables, and you know they're God's food is because they all contain water, and each one of the fruits and vegetables contains water over 80 percent. Now, if we are 75 water and we're eating water as well as drinking it, you're getting the nutrients, okay? So you're not just drinking the water, you're drinking the water with the nutrients in it, so you're getting water with all of the nutrients that you need for the maintenance of your overall health. So that's key, that's very important. What you're actually drinking, as opposed to soda pop, bear, alcohol, hard liquor, and all that other stuff. If you're actually drinking the food juice, like I talked about with the apples, right now I have a blender as well as a juicer. I basically juice every day, right? Every day I'm juicing, I'm drinking my juice down. So what Is that telling me that that that's giving me the nutrients that I need, but it's also giving me the hydration factor, right? Not just water, water, water.

SPEAKER_00: 30:09

Right. So now to go back to the eating the uh one meal in one sitting, right? How many are you like mapping out your calor calories? Are you saying, all right, in this one meal, I'm gonna eat 2,000 calories, I'm gonna eat 2,500 calories, I'm gonna eat because let's say if if with my activity level is required for my body to take in 3,000 calories that day. Because I'm I'm an athlete, I'm running, um training in this. How are you are you calculating how many are you calorie counting it?

SPEAKER_02: 30:48

Well, let me let me also say this. If you are because when we when we talk about how to eat the live, we're talking about how to eat the live. We're not we're not talking about a position in which, for instance, if you take the former um heavyweight and the greatest heavyweight champion, in my opinion, ever lived, Muhammad Ali. At that time, the nation of Islam's philosophy has never changed from one meal a day. But we recognize that him as a heavyweight champion of the world, he cannot eat one meal a day.

SPEAKER_01: 31:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 31:23

So we have to we have to put in the common sense um rule into play. If you're that physical and you're doing, you know, where your body is demanding certain foods based on your physical activity, baseball, football, boxing, and you're really, you know, you're you're at that level of it, then you have to feed the Bobby the prop the proper nutrients. You know, that's just common sense. So I'm not gonna try to uh fit the one meal a day into a lifestyle like that, you know what I mean? Because he needs to gotta get up five o'clock in the morning, go running for five miles, from there, go to the gym, hit the bag for another 45 minutes to 10 minutes, skip rope, do all of that. So that's very depleting. So he gotta eat, he got to re-eat, and then he got to do what he got to do for his relaxation. So if you have a lifestyle where you're a professional athlete or you're an athlete or you always running, we can understand when you don't basically prescribe to one meal a day based on your profession of your particular discipline. But that doesn't mean that you just go out and eat a whole lot of junk, a whole lot of stuff that you know that's not good and healthy for your body. You know, you still have to remain a healthy diet as possible. No alcohol, no smoking, no, whether whether it's weed or whether it's uh hookah, whether it's whether it's uh this this vape, this vape stuff, whatever it is, none of that. You can't put any of that in into your body and still want to remain healthy. So you want to eat healthy foods, you want to eat healthy fruits and vegetables and stuff like that to maintain your physical strength and performance level. But at the same time, we don't want you to go to the point where you just say, ah, the hell with it, I'm gonna eat what I want to eat. Because in the long run, and this is why I say it's the accumulation of what you've been doing over years. Once you hit 40, 50, 60 years old, you're gonna see the result of your eating habits and your lifestyle. So when you we when you get to that age, we want you to still feel and look good. That's the important part.

SPEAKER_00: 33:27

Indeed, indeed. So you're not you're not counting how many calories in the gym.

SPEAKER_02: 33:31

No, I don't I don't count how many calories. Um, I go like I said, I go to the gym for an hour, an hour and a half. And my basic meal, I would say five or seven days a week is salad. The salad, I'll get, I'll get uh um some spinach, I have some quinoa, I have some um uh um some some regola. I have some I have all kinds of different salads in there: onions, garlic, tomato, all of that stuff, and it's it's a it's a substantial enough where when I finish eating, I'm satisfied, but I'm not stuffed. And that's another thing. We eat past the point of satisfaction. You know what I mean? We just eat and eat and eat and eat, but you know, you already fed your hunger, you're good, but you want to keep eating more, so you want to try to limit that activity as much as possible because that's where you begin to start putting on extra pounds. And once we start climbing in number, not getting old, not getting old, climbing in number, you know, once we pass that age of 35, it's really important to really focus in on your diet and your health because you're not 21 years old no more. You can't just run and jump and you're okay, you're not gonna see no pounds on you. You gotta make sure that you're doing what you need to do, especially when you get past that age of 35, because that weight is gonna show up on you real quick.

SPEAKER_00: 34:48

Right, right. So now, um, so you answer the calorie count. So you're able to eat just like a salad, right? Which that salad, a huge salad, let's say, with maybe some dressing. I don't know if you do dressing, you know, and you don't eat meat, so you don't have that there. So maybe your salad is maybe three, four hundred calories, five hundred calories.

SPEAKER_02: 35:13

Right, maybe, maybe if that, right.

SPEAKER_00: 35:15

If that, if right if that, if that you're able to survive day to day on just that amount of calories, yes, for the most part, yes.

SPEAKER_02: 35:22

Now, from time to time I may eat something else, but it's not to deviate from my diet. Like, for instance, if I go out, if me and my wife go out to dinner or something like that, I may have a little bit more to eat, but on the normal, I don't, I don't, I don't go out and eat like that. And when I do when we end up, when we and her do go out, I don't eat what's not on my diet, what's not in my diet. In other words, I don't I still don't eat meat, or I still don't eat a lot of white bread, I still don't eat certain things. I may eat a little more of it, but I just don't go back to the bad stuff that I gave up. I don't go back to that.

SPEAKER_00: 35:54

Okay, so you you and you've been doing this for this particular diet. I know you've been eating one meal a day for years, right? Right. So now, but now you're just doing mainly salads, no, no animal products. How long have you been doing that?

SPEAKER_02: 36:09

Um no animal products for about 15 years.

SPEAKER_00: 36:14

Wow, and so clean bill of health, you never get sick, sick less.

SPEAKER_02: 36:18

Yeah, matter of fact, I lost 25 pounds when I went to when I started doing it because I was 225. And then I once I start eating like this, I began to come down and come down and come down. So, like I said, even some of the guys that was in the gym, they was like, Yo, what's the matter, man? You're losing your size, what's going on? I'm like, listen, I changed, I'm not, I'm not eating all of that stuff, I'm not eating like that anymore. Um, and I said, Plus, I'm getting older now, I'm not trying to carry all of that muscle. Um, and then three years later, they all start doing the same thing. They're like, Oh, I understand now. I said, See, you know, you understand when you get older, you have to really focus in on your overall health and diet. Um, but also you have to understand what you can and cannot do in reference to abusing your system by eating so much food. Like I was I never really abused my system, but I was just eating too much to put the muscle on because muscle is active live tissue, it's not like fat. Fat is just waste on the body, it has no real purpose, it's just there. But muscle is what you utilize and use, and you need to keep strengthening, so you have to feed it in order for it to be active.

SPEAKER_00: 37:25

So, like I said, like I said, I came down from 120 or 225 to 120, uh to two 200 to 200, and you maintain 200, which is eating less than 500 calories a day, basically.

SPEAKER_02: 37:37

Yes, yes, and I like I said, I juice every day, I put my bananas in there, I put my strawberries.

SPEAKER_00: 37:43

Well, see, that's that's still that's still some calories, a little bit. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So you so you may may get in maybe 700 calories, maybe, maybe, because like I said, I juice every day, every day I juice, and that's just straight liquid, straight down on my juicer or my blender.

SPEAKER_02: 37:58

Gotcha, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00: 37:59

All right, now you had some notes that you wanted to uh you had there.

SPEAKER_02: 38:03

Yeah, I wanted to go over, and this is the importance of um the how to eat to live, because when we look at black America, the current state of black America in 2025, we're number one in heart disease, number one in heart attacks, number one in stroke, number one in breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, high blood pressure, being overweight or obese, and second in diabetes behind the Native Americans. So when you look at that, when you see the health chart before you, before Black America, you have to say that we are woefully lacking in our health. So we we need to adopt another form of diet, whether it is how to eat the live one meal a day, or whether it's something that you can gradually work with with two meals a day, because the important factor is that you want to improve your health. And if you continue, now matter of fact, the the physicians and the doctors are now to say, this is, I believe, the first generation where they are projected that the parents will live longer than their kids because of the food that they consume and now so much processed food now. I mean, 70% of the American diet is processed food. And when I did the math on that, 70% of the American diet is processed food, but you have 70% of America that's either obese or overweight. And then you have 7% that is extremely obese. So, what does that say? We're eating too much, and people think that um you have to eat three meals a day. You don't have to. Matter of fact, eating three meal a day, any three meals a day didn't really come into popularity until 1906 with the Kellogg brothers who developed um cornflakes. Once they introduced cornflakes to the American public, then the then basically that sparked the three meals a day thing. Because what the slogan that they his assistant came up with a slogan is breakfast is the best, it's the first meal of the most important meal of the day. And people still talk about that today. But that was the marketing tool that they used in order to get people to eat breakfast because that one time people wasn't eating breakfast like they eat it now, they didn't make it an essential meal, is what I'm saying. They didn't say you can't leave the house without eating breakfast. After 1906, they marketed that. That's how they got uh cornflakes and and cereals off the shelves because they wanted to sell their product, which was cornflakes, and these are Kellogg brothers. Don't take my word for it, look it up, and you'll see it. Then that's when people start doing that one meal, that three meals a day, three meals a day, three meals a day.

SPEAKER_00: 40:36

Okay, okay. Now, um, before we go more into the notes, I have another question. Yeah. Person who works out. When after you finish working out, are you drinking and shake or are you doing anything like that?

SPEAKER_02: 40:48

Yes. Soon as I finish working out, I would say maybe 30 minutes after I finish working out. Um, either at home or I'll go to my local juice bar. Shout out to my local juice bar haul. Um, so uh yeah, I go there and I usually get me a vegetable, a vegetable juice. I don't get a protein shake, I get a vegetable juice. And basically, it's like all greens in there. They put everything green in it and a green apple, and then they also put uh turmeric, they also put ginger, and they also put lemon in there, and I drink that down. And that's I usually do that five days a week. If I don't get it from there, I'll just do it when I get home um on my own and I make it here.

SPEAKER_00: 41:25

So you know, I'm a calorie counter. So so so you're doing two shakes then? Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02: 41:32

Okay one before and one after.

SPEAKER_00: 41:34

All right, so I would say in those two shakes, you're getting about 300 calories. Okay. To four, maybe. I'm just saying, it just maybe, maybe, right? And then and then the other middle, now you're getting three, so you're you're hitting the creeping up to the thousand calories in my mind.

SPEAKER_02: 41:52

And and and and and and what why it's good because for me, you have to develop your own routine. I get up in the morning, I do what I have to do as far as you know, getting in the bathroom, taking care of myself. Then I don't eat anything. So I hit the gym. I hit the gym about, I don't know, maybe about 11 o'clock. After I leave the gym, and now mind you, I haven't ate anything. So I like working out without eating anything. I don't feel sluggish, I don't feel tired, I don't feel like I'm not strong, I feel good. And the other thing it does, it keeps the weight off because now I'm working out in a fasting mode. Because breathless really means break your fast.

SPEAKER_01: 42:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 42:27

But because I didn't eat anything, I'm not breaking my fast, but yet I'm in the gym working out, so I'm working out while my body is still fasting. So that's making sure that the extra fat or the dexilators or whatever the kids is being burnt off me. Then I go get my shake after the gym. Then I say, you know what, let me go get my juice now. And then I'll drink, and then I actually feel like, ooh, that felt good. Just to you know, get the nutrients back in me. And then later on, um, maybe about 4:30, five o'clock, then I have my first actual food meal that I'll eat. And then later on, if a basketball game or something's on and I'm watching something, I'll make me a shake and then I'll drink my shake.

SPEAKER_00: 43:05

There we go. So, so you get you, so it's it's it's one meal and two shakes. There we go. I think I could do something like that. I think I think I could do two meals and two shakes, right?

SPEAKER_01: 43:18

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00: 43:18

You know, I think that's how I'm gonna do it because the one mil, the way I train and all of that was killing me. And it actually messed up my workout. I said, you know what? I'm not working out. Wow, it threw my workout off for a whole week. So let's let's let's go on, let's go back into uh your notes.

SPEAKER_02: 43:34

Okay, um, I do have uh quite a bit of notes here. Um, I'm gonna cover with how much time we got left. We ain't got much time. So I want to do, I want to go into um, okay. The most honorable honorable Elijah Mohammed instructed his followers to eat one meal a day, right? Why to prolong their life? Because it takes 24 hours, 24 hours to completely digest your meal, allow it to similar assimilate into the bloodstream, and then the elimination process, which is very, very important. The elimination process, okay. Um, because once you have the elimination process, you have no accumulation. This is what you don't want. This is why the one meal a day is so important. There's no accumulation of waste matter, okay. So if there's no accumulation in the colon of waste matter, then the the chances of you developing polyps, tumors, or cancer or colon cancer become slim to none. Because what we don't realize when we eat three meals a day, the body is breaking down this food, pushing it to the colon. Then the then the next meal, the body is breaking down the food, pushing it to the colon. The last meal, the dolly, the body is breaking down the food, pushing it to the colon. Now you're being impacted over and over. You're not giving the digestive system a chance to rest. All you're doing is packing it in, packing it in, packing it in. And then somebody, you have three meals a day. Say if you're eating three meals a day, you got seven days a week, right? So that's 21 meals a week. But yet the elimination process can only be three to five a week for some people. So now, whatever what happened to the other 19 or 18 elimination process? Where is it at? It has to be somewhere, it's not, it didn't disappear, so it's still in the colon. This is why 70% of adults suffer from um gastro digestive issues because of the impacted in the colon. You have to clean that out, and that's the beauty about the one meal a day, also. It doesn't allow your body to accumulate poisons from the food you eat. And when I say poisons from the food you eat, you can have the best food on the planet, but there is a digestive process that breaks down and gives you the best and leaves the rest that's come becomes waste. What is waste? Waste is poison to the system and to the body. You have to remove it, you have to get it out, and the only way to get it out is through the elimination process. So if you're constantly eating, but yet you're not eliminating, then what you're doing is you're basically storing waste in the colon that can lead to colon cancer. And black men are number one, not black men, black people are number one in colon cancer. I already said that. You know that from um the former actor um Chazwick Bowman that played the Black Panther, he died at a young age of colon cancer, you know. So it's very important uh when you eliminate that colon. Not only that, the colon is where 80% of your immune system is. So now if you're constantly packing in the food, not allowing the immune system to do the work that it needs to do, which is travel throughout the body and pick up the debris and all of these uh bacteria or viruses that is supposed to cleanse the body because now it's impacted, it's being hampered by you eating three meals a day. So I want to mention that also. Then I also the other thing with sugar diabetes sugar diabetes is the saturation of sugar throughout the blood. But if you're eating one meal a day before you get to the next meal, the sugar's out the blood. So you're not over taxing the pancreas. Okay, because if you over-tax the pancreas, then the pancreas is not working properly, and now you got to use insulin because the pancreas, your your particular pancreas inside your body is not producing enough insulin and allowing the the actual food nutrients to get into the cells. So now they gotta force feed you insulin in order for it to work. But the one meal a day, you don't have to worry about that. The same thing with the salts and the sugar and a high blood pressure. Okay, so it's really a system that's designed to make the overall body function in a way that is natural to a healthy lifestyle and to longevity.

SPEAKER_00: 47:58

Gotcha, gotcha. Makes sense, that makes sense. So now, and any other notes that you want to go over?

SPEAKER_02: 48:04

Yeah, I want to go over um fasting and the beauty of it. When sometimes we say, I remember when I used to be uh at work, it's like, man, you're not eating, you fasted. How do you do that? We we make it a marvel because we haven't tried it. It's not something impossible, and it's not something that you can't do or no one else can do, it's just the discipline. We have given up the will, the active will to discipline ourselves to do what is right. So with fasting, it's just the discipline of it. Okay, fasting is prescribed. What happens to the body when you fast? The most honorable Elijah Muhammad says fasting can heal, can heal 99% of your ailments? Okay, why did he say that? This is what he said. The followers, the believers believe what he said, so they participate in fasting. But let me help you to further believe what he said. Now, when you do the fasting process, what you're doing is you're doing an internal cleansing as well. For the first 10 to 12 hours, your body, your body's energy is running on glucose, which is sugar. It's another word for sugar. So say if you eat your first meal, right? You get up in the morning, you eat breakfast, you eat a big breakfast. Now, once your food begins to digest, what it turns to is glucose, sugar. So you're running on that. That's your energy. So I wanted to say that so you can understand as well as I go along. Now, after the first to 10, 12 hours, you start being depleted in sugar, okay? Then what your body does is from 12 to 16 hours is start feeding on the fat on the body, whatever fat you have on your body, wherever it may be, because you remember we have two forms of fat. We have subcontainers, and then we have um um subcontainers is the fat that you actually touch right. Then you then exactly have the actual visceral visceral is the fat that's on the organs of the body.

SPEAKER_00: 49:56

Oh, the visceral is on the organs.

SPEAKER_02: 49:58

Yeah, visceral is inside the body that you don't see. Subcontainous is what you can actually pinch and see. Okay, so you have two forms of fat on the body. So what happens is after the 12th and 16th hour, then you begin to feed off the fat on your body, okay? And then from the 16th to the 20th hour, your your fat is being converted into ketones. Ketones are a system in which the body burns fat at a level in which it is easier for the body to hold on to energy because the body realizes wait, I'm not eating now, and now I'm gonna have to go into my reserve, okay? And my reserve are my fats that's con turned into ketones. So that's what happens. Now the magic happens after the 20th hour, the 24th hour, which happens is autophagy happens, and this is what autophagy is. This is why I say fasting is beautiful when you understand it. Your body begins to do an internal cleanse. Okay, so all of the cellular debris, all of the dysfunctional cells, all of the cancer pre-cancer cells, all of these cells that's in the body that's lying dormant, that's there, that could potentially grow to something, begins what it does, it actually does a whole sweeping. I have to use all of this for energy to burn. So now I'm cleaning all of this, and in the process of cleaning all this, I'm converting these uh um cells from from from dysfunctional or debris. Once I remove that, then my natural, normal, healthy cells can grow more proficiently, and not then after that, you at the 30th hour, what happens also is the human body begins to make HGH, which is human growth hormone. And human growth hormone is the youth, they call it the youth hormone. And the reason why they call it the youth hormone is because you begin to look and feel younger. You can actually see it in your continence, you can see it in your skin, you can see it in your face, you actually feel and look younger. It's called um uh human growth hormone. So that's very important, and not only there, I'm not gonna stop there because we can go further into the fast. Now, if you go to 30 or 30 or 36-hour fast, now you're talking about brain deprived neurotropic factor, where you're actually your actual brain begins to enhance the synapses and the neurons, which is the communication of the brain. It's just it's almost like you said, in like, I want to pick this cup up. So I reach my hand and pick this cup up. But in order for me to reach my hand and pick this cup up, you have neurons in your brain, but your neurons don't communicate with each other without the synapses. The synapses goes to the other neuron and tell the other neuron what I'm what I'm thinking of what I want to do. But the communication has happened so fast, we don't think of it like that. But they communicating with each other, the brain cells are actually communicating with each other. So, what it does is it helps to reorganize and the brain and the memory and learning and focus and concentration, it keeps it clearer and fresher in the brain. So, this is what fasting does. So, when we look at fasting from a health perspective, the honorable Elijah Muhammad is 100% correct when he's talking, when he talks about fasting can heal 99% of your ills. Because if you're relatively healthy or if you're going through a health issue and you never looked at fasting as a way to help you, maybe you need to in corresponding with your physician or your doctor. Because it's very important to you understand the biological nature in which the creator put in you. The creator put everything in you that you need, it's just that you have to understand and learn how to utilize it for your overall benefit.

SPEAKER_00: 53:39

Indeed, indeed. Sorry, I'm trying to send somebody this uh this live. Yeah. Uh okay. Any anything else you want to go over before we before we come? We got uh seven minutes.

SPEAKER_02: 53:51

Um, yeah, I'll go over. I already mentioned that. So I'll go over really quick. Um the reason why I say, or the reason why the honorable Elijah Muhammad says, let me say that, um, meat is no longer meat eaters by nature, um, and it will shorten your lifespan, is because even in today's market, um, we have to understand that there's six different hormones injected into meat, whether it is uh beef, lamb, chicken, turkey, or for other forbidden flesh, which is pork. And not only that, they're feeding pigs now and cattles a steroid, a feed steroid called raptopamine. And this steroid is supposed to make build muscle or fat onto the particular animal to fatten them up before they actually go to the market. It's not making a healthier cattle, but what it's doing is it's making them grow faster in a shorter period of time to get them to the market so you can purchase them. The other thing is when they when you go to these slaughterhouses and they cut these chickens up and they fill these chickens up, they are washing them in chlorine. I'm gonna say that again. They are washing them in chlorine, okay? And they also fit it, filling everything and they because they think antibiotics is the solution for everything. So it's over, it's an overuse of antibiotics. And people don't realize, even when you have a slight infection, whether it's a tooth infection or whether you have another infection, and you go to the doctor and they say, Well, you have an infection, let me give you these antibiotics, and you take the get the antibiotics from the drugstore, you go home, you take them for the period of time you're supposed to take them. What it does is it affect it affects your bacterial fluoride. It basically puts it almost not a not out of balance, but it puts it in an imbalance. Okay, so it's important to take probiotics after you take antibiotics to balance out your fluoride because antibiotics just wipes it clean, it's indiscriminate. So your good bacteria and your bad bacteria is being wiped away with antibiotics. So, what you want to do is you want to bring that balance back. So when you bring that balance back, use a probiotic. Go to the store, get you a good private probiotic, and it'll help the intestinal fluoride grow because you are supposed to have inflectional and intestinal fluoride in the gut, friendly bacteria as well as bad bacteria for overall healthy gut. That's important. The other thing I want to say about meat is processed meat. This is what the World Health Organization said October 2000, October 15th. They came to the conclusion. They said processed meat is they classify processed meat as a number one carcinogen. And they say it will, not it might, not it probably will, not maybe you might. They said it will cause cancer. This is what the world health organization said. Processed meat is hot dogs, bacon, whether, whether, whether pork or beef or turkey, cold cuts, salami, and sashes. So I'm just letting you know this is what the World Health Organization is. If you don't believe me, look it up yourself. Say, what did the World Health Organization say about processed meat? And you can Google it, we can Google everything now. They'll let you know that on October 2015, they came up with a study saying that it's a carcinogen and it will cause cancer. And then they said red meat, it's a possibility that it's a carcinogen as well. They didn't, they didn't, they didn't, they didn't they didn't clearly identify it like they did processed meat, but they said it's a possibility. So I say all that to say meat is not necessary for you to have a healthy long life, is what I'm saying. And you don't need animal protein when you can get plant protein.

SPEAKER_00: 57:38

Okay. Now um before we close out, um, you know, I I want to go more in depth into you know these these you know the plants that actually have protein. And you know, eventually we we can do that if if you would like to come up again. Um so before we close out, anything else you would like to say?

SPEAKER_02: 58:00

Um the only thing I would like to say, I like to end it on this when I read um how to eat to live. Um, and the honorable Elijah Muhammad says this your mind is the most powerful force in your possession. I say this because you can eat the best foods that money can buy. You can eat one meal a day, one meal every two days, or one meal every three days. But if your thoughts are on negativity, misery, bitterness, gloom, you will create that in your life. Focus on positivity, hopefulness, confidence, optimism, great expectations. Be in the spirit of God.

SPEAKER_00: 58:45

All right. Thank you, Leah, Depp Moore. Really appreciate you, beautiful bill. I appreciate you, brothers, for tackling this topic. Uh, Depp Moore, we I really wanted to focus on this a lot. Uh, we had the brother Herman Smalls on to talk about health and fitness at some point. I gotta get him back up. Um, you know, it just seems as if people are more interested in other topics. However, this is probably one of the most important topics that we could tackle. So I would love to keep doing this. Thank you guys for coming out this evening to watch the show. Thank you, Brother Val. I really appreciate you. And we're gonna close out with usually I say peace, but I'm gonna say Asalam Aleykum.