The Truth About Oils: Cherie Calbom's Mission to Revolutionize Nutrition

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In this transformative episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we are thrilled to welcome Cherie Calbom, a pioneering nutritionist and author of 36 books dedicated to making wellness accessible to everyone. Cherie shares her inspiring journey from battling chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia to discovering the healing power of nutrition and juicing. With her wealth of knowledge, she has helped countless individuals reclaim their health through simple, practical, and effective dietary changes.
Cherie discusses her collaboration with George Foreman, where they launched the iconic George Foreman Grill, and how she has educated the masses on the importance of healthy fats, particularly coconut oil. She emphasizes the detrimental effects of seed oils on our health and shares the core message that anyone can change their health with the right tools and dedication.
Throughout this episode, Cherie highlights the significance of lifestyle choices beyond diet, including emotional well-being and stress management. She shares powerful transformation stories from her clients, illustrating the profound impact of holistic health approaches. Tune in to learn about actionable steps you can take to improve your health, the misconceptions surrounding fats, and the exciting trends in nutrition that are empowering the next generation.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- The healing journey of nutrition and the importance of juicing
- Insights from Cherie's collaboration with George Foreman
- The dangers of seed oils and the benefits of healthy fats
- Lifestyle changes that contribute to overall wellness
- Inspiring success stories from Cherie's clients
For more information on Cherie Calbom and her work, visit thetruthaboutseedoils.com and juiceladyinfo.com.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Live in the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast. Today's guest is someone who has spent decades helping people to transform their health and simple ideas in a powerful way. Sherry Hellball is a nutrition for every successful. And she is a pioneer of making wellness accessible to everyday people. Sherry has a long time to form anything and she is a leading voice in educating people on the impact of that and all and nutrition choices and also coconut oil and diet. So we will be talking to Sherry about her amazing work and her decade-long work of helping people and teaching about wellness. So, Sherry, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Thank you, Curtis. It's a great deal to be part of your show. Thank you very much for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Well, I appreciate you for reaching out, and why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:30

So I got interested in nutrition years ago when I was really sick. I had chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. I was so sick I couldn't work. I had to quit my job and move back home and sleep about 12 hours a day and wake up tired and feel like I had the flu all the time and I ached all over and no one could help me. I went from doctor to doctor and got about the same response that it was must be all in my head because they they didn't know what was going on wrong with me. Um, even to this day, those conditions are um not treatable really, they're managed, and people don't get well. I've talked to many people who've come to me and they've just been sick for years. But I decided there had to be a better way, and I was going to find it. So I went to health food stores and talked to people, and I discovered my diet was all wrong. It was terrible. No wonder I was sick. I loved junk food, fast food. I was a sugar alic. I hated vegetables. No wonder I was sick, right? I had no life coming into my body. So I learned about juicing and got my first juicer and decided I was just going to jump in and go for it and went on a five-day vegetable juice fast. And on the fifth day, my body spelled a tumor about the size of a golf ball with blue blood vessels attached that look like somebody cut them. I call it nature scissors or god scissors that went to work with the phytonutrients that we now know cut off what's called angiogenesis, those blue blood vessels that I saw that feed the tumors. They grow to the tumors and feed them so that the tumors grow. And when I cut off that blood supply, my body expelled that tumor. And I thought, wow, that was an amazing cure. I'm going to wake up tomorrow and be well. But I didn't wake up the next morning. Well, I was on a journey. And that's what true healing is. It's a journey. It's not just boom, you know, you take a two glasses of juice, like two pills, and you'll be better in the morning. Um, you're on a detoxification and rebuilding journey. And that was mine. And it took me about three months, and I did eat food. I juiced after that five days and ate food, like whole food, mostly vegetables, and there are many forms from salads and stir fries and soups and stews and ancient grains. And I didn't eat um hardly any animal products during that time. I just thought I'm gonna go on this really pure, perfect as I could be diet. And in three months, one morning I woke up and thought, wow, somebody gave me a new body in the middle of the night. I felt like a brand new person. And uh that's when I called it. That is the best cure on earth, you know. I'm I'm well, I feel fabulous. Going back to Southern California to my friends, my way of life, which included going out with my friends for cheeseburgers and fries and pizza and fried chicken and you know, all of the nasty stuff that we eat from time to time. And my symptoms started coming back. And that's when it dawned on me, wow, you can't eat like this. This uh cannot be part of your diet. What you're doing has to be your lifestyle and your way of life. So that put me on another journey of how much can I get away with? Two bites, three bites, maybe one. That's the way we are in the West. How much can we get away with usually? And I found out I couldn't get away with a whole lot. But what I could have was vibrant health, and I could feel good every day when I got up in the morning and have energy and clear thinking and no more aches and pains. And so that led me to want to go back to school and get a master's uh degree, degree of a master of science degree, is what I'm trying to say, in Whole Foods Nutrition. So I could be a credible source of information for your audience and for everybody that I work with. So that has been my journey. Uh, and now I've been teaching people ever since about a better way of life.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Well, talk about your experience of working with George Foreman and talk about uh what it was like uh working with him to help uh make uh health accessible to the masses.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

It was um an experience of a lifetime for sure. George, um, as you know, as everyone knows, is a legend and he was an amazing person. Uh a sad loss that that he passed away um recently. But it was um uh amazing working with him to launch the George Foreman Grill and to be the nutritionist uh to him and the team and to teach people about fats and oils even back then, and about um George was all about dripping away that fat with a slanted grill, as you know, so many people have them all over the world, really. It was probably the most popular uh appliance that people bought for their kitchens. And so we had a great time. We went to many different parts of the world, the team, um, presenting the George Foreman Grill and uh and of course here in the US on QVC and in various demonstrations throughout America. And he was a kind and really wonderful person who cared about people and his family, especially, and named all his boys George, so they would never forget who their father is. So um he used to call my husband the big guy when my husband would join in the green room as we watched the numbers on QVC when we went on to present the grill, and we did that for 13 years on QVC. And he called my husband the big guy, and that made John's day.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah, well, I I know that you've published 36 books. So talk about what is one core message that has stayed consistent throughout all your work.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

The message that I would I give everybody is that you are not stuck wherever you are. If you want to change your health, you want to change your life, you're looking um uh to correct something that maybe has been um bugging you for years or or uh been your nemesis, you can do it. And getting the right tools is the key, and then applying them, sticking with it. And usually um it's about at the point where people think, I'm never gonna get well, I'm never gonna get better, that you're and but you've been trying like a trooper, you're probably just about at the turning point. I've used juicing as um part of the program that when I've worked with people because it brings life into your body. Live food brings life to your cells, and it's been a life changer, a game changer for many, many people to start juicing and especially juicing vegetables. But it isn't just putting in the good things, it's not putting in the bad things like seed oils. And we're gonna talk about that today because there are so many studies on seed oils being so detrimental to our health, from heart disease to cancer to diabetes to metabolic conditions, and even to mood disorders like anxiety, depression, and even aggression and homicide, they've linked back to seed oils. So getting rid of those, getting them out of your diet, and putting in the good fats and oils, and what are those, like olive oil and um coconut oil, almond oil, the nut oils like almond and macadamia nut oil and sesame oil, those are your good oils. And of course, ghee, the oil of butter or clarified butter, it's known as, and your clean animal fats are good too. So all of those are good for us, and we're gonna talk about those that aren't and how to detect where they're at.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

That was my next question. You've been a strong voice around oils, especially coconut oils. So talk about the big biggest make misconception that people have.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

The big misconception started in the 70s and and just went forward about coconut oil. Coconut oil was so uh demonized because it has saturated fats in it, and they're good saturated fats, they're important for the fat around the heart that the heart draws on in times of stress. I know it as C16 and C18. Um, but what happened was the lipid hypothesis was born in the 50s, and what started it all was a new incidence coming on the scene in the early 50s of heart attacks. And it kind of exploded overnight. Well, what changed in the American diet was seed oils because during World War II the ships couldn't get through the waters with the tropical oils, particularly coconut oil, which up until that time was marketed and known in America as the healthiest oil on earth. It is a wonderful oil. It is so good for the entire body, it's rich in MCTs, the liver likes to burn them, and it's great for weight loss, it's great for heart health, it's great for your skin. And uh, the list goes on and on of all the benefits that you can get from coconut oil. But because of the incidence of heart disease in the 50s, people were alarmed, they wanted to know what's going on, why are people suddenly dropping over of heart attacks? And so they started doing autopsies and discovered the plaque in arteries and dissected that and discovered, oh yeah, there's cholesterol in there, there's fat in there and calcium. And well, it must be cholesterol, it must be fat that has caused this, and nobody stopped. Well, some did, and they were pushed to the side. Some, a few common sense voices said, we've been eating these fats for decades, some for centuries. Why would they suddenly cause all of these problems? But instead, they wanted to focus on something that they could pinpoint that they saw in the arteries, cholesterol and fat. And so they started looking at the foods that were high in cholesterol. And uh, coconut oil is not high in cholesterol, it's um it's rich in a variety of fats, but it does have saturated fat. And they lumped all saturated fat into one category and then demonized cholesterol. I mean, coconut oil, that's what I meant to say, demonized that. And for a couple of decades, 50s and 60s, uh, it wasn't so badly demonized until the 70s. And that's when a gentleman, Phil Sokolov, from uh the Midwest, who had had a heart attack, decided he was going to go after coconut oil in a big, big way. And he bought major ads in the New York Times and the New York Post and really tore into coconut oil for no good reason. There was no research, no science behind it, just saying, oh, it's a saturated fat and no one should eat it, and and even put out ads with a bomb with a piece of dynamite in it, and scaring people half to death of coconut oil. And so the coconut oil industry that was small and they didn't have the money to fight all of this advertising in America just dwindled away, and people left their plantations and their coconut farms and went to town to find work. And through the 70s and 80s, coconut oil and 90s even was demonized. And different organizations and the American Heart Association and many other organizations just really promoted vegetable oils or the seed oils and steered people away from coconut oil and animal fats. And it wasn't until the early 2000s when a few writers came on the scene, and I was one with my book, The Coconut Diet, and there were several other authors that began to point out all the health benefits of coconut oil and the studies proving that coconut oil is healthy, and that there's no reason to cut it out of your diet. It should be an important part of our diet. And it brought coconut oil back to the West, and that's when no longer was it just small little jars at health food stores, but you could finally eventually find it at big box stores in great big jars. And coconut oil now to this day is here to stay, thankfully.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Well, looking at the evolution of nutritional trends over the years, uh, to talk about the trends that that you're excited about and the trends that concern you.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

There's a wonderful trend right now. It's on social media, and it's with a lot of young people, Gen Zs and millennials, are talking about seed oils and the dangers of them and getting them out of the diet. And they are also trending toward natural ways to heal the body and prevent disease. And I love this trend that is developing a curiosity to know more and want to learn more. And um, at the same time, though, there is a trend still for fast food, right? Convenience food. Um, people are in a hurry, they're on the go, and people don't know how to make food. Um, even um Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that people are so used to relying on fast foods, things, you know, you open a box, you rip open a bag, you throw something in the microwave, or you run through the drive-thru on your way home. And we've lost our um desire and our ability to make food. A lot of people don't even have the cooking pots and pans, the utensils to make food. I am hoping and praying that we have a new trend that emerges all across America where people will say, I want to make my own food because I know what's in it, and I know that I can choose the right oils, I can choose the right ingredients, I can have healthier sweeteners, not sugar, and I can get rid of these pesticides, I can buy organic food so that I don't ingest all these pesticide residues, and I can get rid of the artificial flavors, the dyes, the preservatives, and make real food that is going to feed my body right down to the cellular level. That's a trend I hope that we start seeing more of.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Well, for someone feeling overwhelmed by health advice online, what are some of the simplest steps that they can start taking a day to try to improve their health?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Oh, get some good recipes. Um, you can start with the truth about seed oils, our book on um how to incorporate good fats and oils into your diet. We have over 50 really delicious recipes with great instructions on here's what you do and how you put it together. And besides good recipes, you know, you can get shopping apps. Um, Seed Oil Scout has one, and Bobby Approved is another one. Seed Oil Scout is more about restaurants, Bobby Approved is more about plugging any um packaged food, cooking cookies, crackers, chips, and so forth, uh, salad dressings, mayonnaise, and um plug in the brand, and they'll tell you what uh the score is for that. So uh little apps to shop with are really great. And beyond that, maybe a cooking class, maybe watching some healthy cooking uh demonstrations online would be helpful for you. And then just reading about good health. Where do you start? You know, like increasing the water in your diet and changing out your oils and fats and how to shop for whole grains and how to shop. Well, we have a shopping wisely chapter in The Truth About Seed Oils on how to shop for good oils and fats. And we have some other little tips in there as well. I just encourage everybody, just make a little goal. It won't even take a lot of time, but you know, even once a week to get online and just read something about how do I, you know, get healthier foods into my diet. There's a lot of people writing about that now, so you can learn a lot quickly and make it simple. One step at a time. Clean out your pantry, for example, and replace the foods in there that aren't good, that have the bad seed oils. And I better name what the bad seed oils are. So it's soy, corn, canola is really a bad one, grape seed oil, safflower, and sunflower, um, peanut oil, rice bran oil, and cottonseed oil. Those are the ones you want to avoid. And then the good ones, again, are olive oil. Of course, everybody knows about olive oil, and get the extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil. That's really trending right now and very popular. And you can find even the snack foods that everybody loves some chips from time to time. And I know you're going to eat them, but get them cooked in avocado oil or olive oil. Um, there's even some beef cello chips right now. So get them with a good cooking oil or fat and start reading labels and get crackers and snack foods that are made with good oils and reject the bad oils. And that's a good place to start for cleaning out your pantry.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Well, you're now reaching Gen Z's and millennials. So talk about how do you tailor your message uh to reach a new generation with new challenges and new habits.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

I've talked to a number of Gen Zs in particular who have told me they're just very interested in learning about health. That's not everybody, but it's a large percentage of um Gen Zs that are very, very interested. And so, how do how do you pique their interest? Well, it's got to be practical and fast and easy to do. Um, I think that is the generation more than any other that just learns in sound bites and wants things quick and easy. So I have um reels every day that come out on Instagram that are about 30 to 60 seconds, maybe a minute and a half at the most, on how to make like uh my one today, how to make good nut milk, oat oat milk or nut milk, um, and how to juice and simple quick recipes. And I think um that's what Gen Zs want to hear most. Is it simple? Is it fast? Can I do it? Is it easy? Yes, all of the above. And it has a big payoff for your health.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

What life what role does lifestyle play beyond food when it comes to true healing and and wellness?

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Lifestyle is so important. So in my A to Z guide, um the Juice Ladies Guide to Juicing for Health, I have 50 different ailments, and I have not only the juices and the nutrients that help those ailments, but lifestyle and so important. We are a whole person. And to say it's just this or it's just that. Is a misnomer. It's the whole thing, bringing it all together. So do you exercise? Do you exercise at least three times a week for 60 minutes? More is better. What about your stress level? And what do you do to de-stress when you realize that your stress level has gone way up? Because there are days that happens to all of us. I had one yesterday with technical issues, and my stress level was like way up here. And what do we do to bring that stress level down? My husband teaches heart math, which is a guided tutorial that you can do online to with breathing exercises to just really bring your heart rate down and bring your emotions down. What thoughts do we think? And what do we allow our minds to entertain? That is so important as well. You know, the people who say, well, just think happy thoughts. Well, it's not always possible. But what is possible is to recognize when those thoughts that are so destructive and stressful come into our mind to intercept them and say, I'm not going to entertain this any longer. I'm not going to dwell on this. I'm not going to let these thoughts hang around. And um, and the emotions that are negative. My husband teaches a class that we we always have at our health and wellness retreats of letting go, identifying the harmful emotions like anger and grief and sorrow that goes with the grief, apathy, and it goes on and on about eight or nine different emotions that are harmful to the body and letting them go. And you ask yourself three simple questions. Could I let it go? Would I let it go? And when? And then when you say yes to all three, and you may not say yes for a while, but when you say yes to all three and you truly let it go, you feel a release. It's like your soul does let go of that which is like tied it down. And forgiveness is another one. You just got me started on a lot of the other lifestyle issues, but we've noticed so often when we've worked with people, my husband and I, that when people are able to forgive those that have hurt them, there's a major shift. And oftentimes there's a health shift as well. So I could go on, but that's enough to get you started on some wonderful lifestyle changes you can make.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Can you share a powerful transformation story for uh about someone that you work with, one of your clients?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

I love to share this story of a lady who came to one of our health and wellness retreats. She came in a wheelchair and um she had horrible arthritis. I believe it was rheumatoid arthritis, and either had to have the wheelchair or the walker to get around at the retreat center. And so we did a lot of juicing and raw foods. That's that's what everybody ate. We had the classes on letting go and forgiveness and emotional and mental detox. And we came to the last, the day before last of our retreat. And it was the last class of that day, and I will never forget it. Her daughter was the one who drove her to our retreat, and she pushed back the chairs and said, We have something to show you. And her mom got up out of that wheelchair and took off walking fast around the room. And when we walked into the dining hall, all three of us together, the whole room was like cheering and applauding because she had not been able to walk at all at the retreat with a walker with a lot of pain, a lot of assistance, people getting doors, and now she was completely free. She didn't need a walker for the last day of the retreat. She didn't need her wheelchair, she was totally free. Why did she get there? We had a whole person approach. We had cleansing the body with juices and raw foods. We had emotional cleansing, mental cleansing, and spiritual cleansing. And I believe all of it worked together to bring her to a whole new place of healing and health.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

If you could give a piece of advice to someone who wants to completely change their health, what would that advice be?

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Get a juicer. Start juicing. It's amazing what it'll do for your health. And then get my book, The Truth About Seed Oils, and really start changing what you put in your body. And I'm going to grab my book that's just right behind me here on the shelf. And here's our book, The Truth About Seed Oils. You can get it on Amazon and start with getting rid of those nasty, awful industrial oils that are processed beyond recognition. That's why they're odorless and clear, because they start off as smelly, dark, awful seeds and they're put through high temperatures, like 500 degrees or more. And then hexane, a nasty chemical is poured in there, degumbers and other uh chemicals that process that oil. And by the time it reaches you, it's so denatured and so full of toxic byproduct. It is so harmful for your health. And so it's so important to get those bad industrial seed oils out of your diet. And I have one more story to tell you. It's of a young woman, a young mom who had suffered from migraine headaches for a number of years, and no one could figure out how to help her. From her naturopathic doctor to an allopathic doctor, which is conventional medicine, no one could help her. And then one day she decided she was going to cut out all seed oils and see what would happen. She got rid of her migraine headaches. Eventually, she didn't have another one, and she's not had another one to this day, years later, gone. Amazing what can happen. And the co-author of my book, Liana Werner Gray, um, also got rid of all sorts of emotional issues when she got rid of the seed oils, and of course, changed her diet and went to whole foods. It is amazing. You may suffer from depression, anxiety, other mood, uh, emotional disorders. And you may be shocked when you change your diet and start eating whole foods, organic foods. Get rid of those seed oils. You start juicing, eating more vegetables. What happens to you emotionally, mentally, and physically?

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Well, I am on my book tour for the truth about seed oils, and I have uh many shows coming up. So stay tuned. But I am working on uh collaboration with a number of companies that are providing healthy products. So come visit me on the truth about seedoils.com and sign up. Get the free 21-day menu plan. It's one of the chapters that didn't make it to the book, so we're giving it away free. Come get your free menu plan and um join me. Sign up for a newsletter and join me.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

So the truthaboutseedoils.com dash website. That was my next question.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Yes. And also juiceladyinfo.com. So there's where you can learn about juicing. You can get your free seven anti-inflammatory juice recipes. And then uh at the truth about seed oils, you can get your free book, your free guide, your 21-day menu plan for turning your health around.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Juiceladyinfo.com.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Yes. And follow me on Instagram at Juiceladies Sherry. That's C-H-E-R-I-E. So Juice Ladies Sherry on Instagram. And every day I'm coming out with a different recipe or a tip.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

All right. Well, close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

I have one quick thought about the seed oils. They have a half-life of about 600 days, which is about a year and a half. Uh, the bad oils will get into your cell membrane. And when you don't have good fats and oils, the body is going to choose a bad inferior fat to um replace what's needed in that cell membrane. And so to turn things around and to have healthy cell membranes, you need the good oils and the good fats. You need good omega-3s like flaxseed oil or hemp seed oil, um, fish oil, fatty fish, and uh your good um fruit and nut oils. And your fruit oils are olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado oil in your nut oils, almond and macadamia nut oil. And I'll leave you with a final thought. You will never know how good you can feel, actually, until you give this a try.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

There you go, ladies and gentlemen, the truthaboutseedoils.com and the juiceladyinfo.com. Check out Sherry on Instagram. And if you know of anybody who wants to take a shot at this and uh transform their health, you know, follow rate with you, share this episode to as many people as possible. We definitely uh want to have healthy people out there in America and all across the world. And I definitely want to get more listeners like you. So please tell a friend and have them to go to www.curveball337.com to check out all things living the dream. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Sherry, thank you for all that you're doing, you and your husband to help create a healthier world, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Thank you so much for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.