If you're curious about the transformative power of a plant-based lifestyle, Rachael Brown’s journey is a must-hear. Featured on The Glen Merzer Show, Rachael—author of For Fork’s Sake—shares her inspiring shift to a whole-food, plant-based diet and how it changed her life and her family’s health.
Rachael didn’t grow up vegan. Her diet transitioned drastically 14 years ago after her nephew was diagnosed with cancer. This pivotal moment led her family to explore nutrition’s role in health, inspired by groundbreaking works like The China Study and Forks Over Knives. Switching overnight, her household embraced whole foods, eliminating processed options. The results? Stunning health improvements, including Rachael’s cholesterol dropping 50 points in just 17 days.
“Your body is always trying to heal itself,” Rachael explains, emphasizing how plant-based eating reversed carotid artery plaque in just nine months. Her son’s genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s highlighted the critical role of lifestyle in shaping health outcomes. As Rachael puts it, “Genes load the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger.”
Her book, For Fork’s Sake, was born from a desire to simplify plant-based eating. With humor and heart, it breaks down the why—for personal and planetary health—and the how—practical steps to make the shift effortless. Rachael’s advice? Give your taste buds two weeks to adjust. “What people love about meat isn’t the meat—it’s the plants seasoning it.”
Whether you’re plant-curious or seeking better health, Rachael’s story proves that change is possible—and delicious. Tune in to her full episode on The Glen Merzer Show, available on YouTube and podcast platforms. Dive into a lifestyle that heals and inspires—For Fork’s Sake!
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DISCLAIMER: Please understand that the transcript below was provided by a transcription service. It is undoubtedly full of the errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions. To understand the interview more completely and accurately, please watch it here: Rachael Brown, For Fork's Sake
Here's the transcript:
Glen Merzer: Welcome to the Glen Merzer Show. could find us across all your favorite podcast platforms. You could find us on YouTube. And please remember to subscribe and you can find us at RealMenEatPlants.com. My guest today is author Rachael Brown, author of the book For Forks' Sake. She is an expert on pain neutralization technique. She is a food coach and now an author. Rachael, welcome to the show.
Rachael Brown: Thanks so much for having me, Glen. Glad to be here.
Glen Merzer: So did you grow up in a family where you were raised as a vegan from birth?
Rachael Brown: No, I did not. My mom was mostly vegetarian. She she enjoyed fish, but she herself didn't eat meat except for pepperoni. She loved the seasoning, the spices of pepperoni. But for the most part, I ate mostly vegetarian. We would have meat one or two times a week, but lots of vegetables and fruit. She'd have fruit trees and a big garden always. So I would say we ate on the healthy side of the standard.
Glen Merzer: So your mother was a pepperoni-a-tary.
Rachael Brown: Yes, exactly. OK. Yep.
Glen Merzer: So you ate more or less healthy. So you got some value learned.some value to put on health when you were eating. Yeah. But not anywhere near the diet you're eating now.
Rachael Brown: Exactly.
Glen Merzer: At what point did you embrace the idea of eating a whole food, vegan, low fat diet?
Rachael Brown: It wasn't until 14 years ago. I will say in my mid 20s, I was told I had high cholesterol and I should be on a statin.I had watched my dad be on cholesterol medication his whole life and he would have the thing where he would take, I'm not gonna throw any drug under the bus, but he would take a prescription and he would lose his taste. So we'd have to change prescriptions. And I just didn't want to go down that route. So I would ask my doctor, what should I do? And I would be told cut back on the cheese, cut back on the eggs and exercise more. And I hiked, I ran, I rock climbed, cycled.So that didn't really seem to make sense. I would up that a little bit and I would reduce the G's and eggs, but my numbers would slowly move down a little, but they would always creep back up. So that was in the back of my mind. But then 14 years ago, my nephew, who was five years old at the time, was diagnosed with cancer. And his mom was in nursing school and she had a professor who asked her if she'd looked at the role of nutrition in cancer.This is my sister-in-law who had a small hobby farm. She had taught me how to pull mozzarella cheese, like make our own mozzarella cheese the summer before. We at the time had 13 chickens. My daughter had a little organic chicken, organic egg business. So yeah, it was a shock to me when she read the China study and watched Forks Over Knives and called me and said, you have to look into this. We change our diet overnight.My nephew is now a healthy 19 year old. I always forget to add. so when I read
Glen Merzer: what type of cancer was it that he overcame?
Rachael Brown: Blood cancer, I believe. I need to ask again, because I don't remember. He had surgery, had lymph nodes removed, and they actually did Gerson therapy initially. That's a lot of juicing and people are unfamiliar, but all whole food plant based stuff and then a whole food plant based.
Glen Merzer: So they did the Gerson therapy in the United States or Mexico?
Rachael Brown: They actually did it themselves. She got the book and she passed that on as well. And so she was juicing, you know, 21 times a day, getting him everything he needed. yeah, so, you know, after learning that information, I asked my husband, you know, you want to give this a try? And he was game. Our kids were six and eight at the time. And so we got our blood work done and decided to really try this for 10 days. And I couldn't get back in for my second blood draw until day 17. And so when I went in to see my doctor, he said, what did you do? Because I couldn't do this with medication. Your cholesterol has dropped 50 points. And so that was both good and bad news at the time.
Glen Merzer: Why was it bad news?
Rachael Brown: Well, just bad news because I didn't know anybody other than my sister-in-law's family who was doing this. It was going to be a lot of work, it felt like. And knowing what I know,
Glen Merzer: what thought was bad news was that, you're going to have to stay on this more restrictive diet.
Rachael Brown: Yes. Like this is going to be really hard. But as we know, isn't really that hard, is it? It's not at all. And that's mainly why I set out to write the book, because after we experience all these benefits, I would try and tell people, you know, here's the China study, read this book and they would hand it back to me. You're like, much of a read.So I set out to write a really simple, easy to read book. The audiobook is under four hours. The simple just to understand the why. Why for our health? Why for the health of the planet? And then how? How do you go about doing this? How's the easiest way to get on board as fast as possible?
Glen Merzer: Right. And so you had at the time that you made this change a six year old and an eight year old.
Rachael Brown: Yes.
Glen Merzer: And that was 14 years ago.
Rachael Brown: Yeah, they are 20 and 22 away.
Glen Merzer: I did that exact same math in my head.
Rachael Brown: Nice job. Nice job.
Glen Merzer: Are they they vegans?
Rachael Brown: They are. They are whole food plant based. No oil. My daughter will eat. She has a little more processed food, vegan food. But my son, we learned throughout this process when we initially made the change. Our cholesterol dropped a lot, but it didn't go as low as it probably should have under normal circumstances, especially my son and I. And our doctor said, you know, if you want to do the genetic testing, because my grandfather had Alzheimer's, died of pancreatic cancer, my uncle died of pancreatic cancer, my dad's in those early stages of Alzheimer's now. So he said, you know, we could do this test, the APOE, the Alzheimer's gene test. So we did, and my father carries the gene, I carry the gene, my son carries the gene. So it was really important for us once we understood the whole concept of, you know, genes loading the gun lifestyle, pulling the trigger. We're really careful. It made it really important to follow this way of eating. And I mean, we got used to it. You know, that was 14 years ago. But yeah, my son will send me pictures of things he's cooked for dinner. My husband and I are like, wow, I wish we could have that. So they jumped on board. You know,
Glen Merzer: well, that's great. And Tell us about that transition period. How long did it take before you became comfortable with your new diet?
Rachael Brown: Well, I would say, you know, partially what I wanted to impart to people in the book is that we made probably almost every mistake you can make. And so I want to help people not make the same mistakes. You know, we went very black and white in the beginning and it was like, OK, we know this works now. So this is what we're doing. You know, in our house was. Had nothing offensive to eat I had non-dairy chocolate chips and sometimes my husband would have some of their seem to snack on but really otherwise it was all whole food plant-based no oil food But in being that restrictive and we said, know when we go to friends house or when we go out You can eat what you want initially and that led to things happening like my son eating I can never remember with six hot dogs and 12 cookies or 12 hot dogs and six cookies at a birthday party because you know it was finally the forbidden fruit. So so we learned a lot I would say but you know it didn't take as long as I thought you know probably within a couple of years even less maybe in the first year slowly over time if we were out or we were somewhere else you know those foods that the kids had been looking forward to like good we can have. pepperoni pizza, cheese pizza, or macaroni and cheese. They would have it at their friend's house or at a birthday party and they would say, it doesn't taste as good as I remember. And they started loving the foods that we were eating at home. And the science behind how our taste buds change around every 14 days, it really makes sense when you're not giving your body those offending foods, those hyper palatable foods. Your brain isn't setting off all those fireworks anymore. And all of a sudden, a red pepper tastes really sweet or a peach tastes really sweet. So it's fun to watch the kids experience that for themselves and learn to self-regulate.
Glen Merzer: Right. That's why when people say, I couldn't go vegan because of the taste, I love the taste of my steaks. I say to those people what they are suffering from is a failure of the imagination. Because they're not understanding the construct that their tastes will change if they'll just give themselves two weeks to eat actually delicious food.
Rachael Brown: I couldn't agree more. And that and most people who love meat really love what's on the meat or the seasonings and the plants that are put on the meat to make it taste good.
Glen Merzer: That's why very few people eat just boiled steak. know?
Rachael Brown: Yeah, exactly.
Glen Merzer: So you made the switch and your cholesterol has stayed down ever since?
Rachael Brown: Yeah, yeah. Got nothing but lower. I mean, it's been incredible. And not only that, but we actually when we found out that my son and I had this gene, we did carotid artery tests. And, you know, I had the veins. I was like early 30s and I had the veins of a late 40 year old. And the person doing the carotid artery tests said, well, that's like a C plus or, you know, C minus, for an American. And I was like, what do you mean for an American? don't be an average American. He said, well, the rest of the world, that would be a failing score. so within like nine months from eating this way, we watched literally those carotid scores reverse. And my doctor said, this is literally you're watching heart disease reverse. So in little is. nine months, you know, the plaque was disappearing because of what we were. Yeah. And we did a calcium heart's heart score test a couple of years ago and have perfect scores. So, yeah, it's incredible. Our bodies are always wanting to repair themselves. It's what they try and do if we can stop hammering them with all the things that are making that hard or impossible.
Glen Merzer: So you're willing to test yourself. Clearly, you've done a number of tests. I'm always scared to test myself because I don't want to worry. I just feel, I'm in good health. I got nothing to worry about. Why do I want to do a test and find out I have a certain gene or whatever? But at one point when I had hernia surgery, I had to get a test of my heart because of the anesthesia. I had to be approved for that. So I had to go for a heart scan and I didn't want to do it, but I wanted to have the hernia operation. So I called up a retired cardiologist friend of mine and I almost killed him. I felt bad about this, but I think I almost killed the guy. Here's what happened. I said to him, doc, is there any way I could get out of doing this heart scan and still have the surgery? Cause I don't want to do a heart scan. And he said to me, Glen, if you have heart disease, don't you want to know about it? And I said, of course not. And he said, thought I killed him. But I had the heart scan and I'm fine. And then I had the surgery and that was good, too.
Rachael Brown: So if you had to do it again, I mean, I would assume that. the way you eat now, you know that you're you're pretty protected from from any kind of heart disease or but do you still feel that way? Would you still not test for something?
Glen Merzer: I still don't like to test my my I have a philosophy which is I will do my annual blood work. Keep track of my cholesterol, blood sugar, things like that. But I would never do, you know, Well, I'll give you another example. I got another hernia. It turns out that it turns out that the whole food, low fat, plant based diet will protect you from heart disease, diabetes, a degree of protection from cancer, not total, a degree of protection from autoimmune disease, not total, protect you from obesity, protect you from fatty liver disease. It will not protect you from sneezing your way into a hernia. It just it's no good for that at all. And nothing else is. So I have two sides to my groin and now I've got a hernia on each side. So when I got the second one, they needed to confirm that it was a hernia. And I said, what else could it be? So they did an ultrasound and the ultrasound didn't confirm it. Because the ultrasounds don't always work to confirm a hernia. So my doctor actually said to me, okay, the next thing you have to do is a CT scan. And I said, are you kidding me? I'm going to do a CT scan for a hernia? You out of your mind? I'll come back for another ultrasound in a month. And I came back for another ultrasound in a month and it confirmed the hernia.Isn't that insane to do a CT scan for your... They know it's a hernia.
Rachael Brown: Right.
Glen Merzer: know, hernias tend to be reducible, which means they go, you you lie down, they go away, stand up, they come back. There's no such thing as a reducible lymph nodes swelling, you know? There was no other possibility that it was anything else. But in the medical system, next step is a CT scan. And why don't I want to do that? Number one, the radiation. Number two, what else are they going to find? I don't want to know. Right. Don't tell me there's a dark spot somewhere. I don't want to know. Right. Leave me alone. that's.
Rachael Brown: Yeah, I will tell you, actually, on my calcium heart score, I had to go back the next year because I said there's actually a dark spot on your lung. so it was a year.
Glen Merzer: feel to hear that?
Rachael Brown: I mean, slightly horrible. They were like. You know, it's it's probably nothing. It's it looks like an old scar, you know, that kind of thing. But yes, I was relieved. And after the second, hadn't, you know, changed. so they said, OK, at this point, you can keep coming back just to make sure. And I said, no, thanks. I don't want the radiation. And I'll just go with it hasn't grown and it's going to stay that way.
Glen Merzer: Exactly. And if you didn't know about it, would have been that much better.
Rachael Brown: Right.
Glen Merzer: that is my advice to folks out there. Think twice before you go for tests. because they always find something.
Rachael Brown: And don't don't sneeze.
Glen Merzer: Sneezing is a mistake. So how easy or difficult was it to get a six year old and an eight year old to start to adjust their diets?
Rachael Brown: You know, There were moments of, or pain points, I would say. My son especially didn't really like to eat anything green for quite a while. And so it was tricky making smoothies. We did some smoothies and blueberries like brown for some reason was better than green. So it turns out you can make brown smoothies pretty easily. But you know, it came up with creative ways kids love games So making it more of a game kind of thing at dinner, know We would have soup and he didn't really like soup and so for it felt like forever It was probably only a few months, but we would play the soup game,
Glen Merzer: which was the soup game. I never played that
Rachael Brown: All right. Okay, you can try this at home So you close your eyes and you have somebody feed you a bite of soup and say can you tell me what what did you just eat? What was that vegetable? Five times out of 10, he didn't get it right, but it was a really enjoyable way to eat soup. So I mean, silly things like that. I offer some suggestions. We would play high, low, and what the heck at the dinner table. So everybody got to tell during their day, what was a high, what was a low, and what was a what the heck that happened. you know, it turns out when you're sitting at a table engaged in conversation, if you've been active during the day, maybe you don't love what's placed in front of you, but you're hungry and you're interested in the conversation and you're waiting for your turn to tell, know, then you'll actually eat. so yeah, it wasn't as hard as I thought. And I found over the years that it's actually kids transition way easier than adults do. I mean, I suggest make a list of your favorite foods. And that's what we did with our kids. And at the time it was things like enchiladas, pizza, burgers, lasagna, you know, it was mostly standard American fare that they really loved. And so I just went about finding whole food plant based no oil versions of these foods. And it would take a few tries sometimes to find a recipe that we loved, but getting them in on it like, okay, we're going to try this new lasagna recipe, you know, is it a thumbs up a thumbs down or in the middle. And we just stuck with it until we found some favorites and really quickly these became their new favorite foods. you know, kids also when they learn about factory farming or about what they're actually eating on their plate, it's like their heartstrings are still attached to their head and they don't separate that as easily as adults do. And they don't have all those emotional ties to foods, you know, like with holidays or that grandma fed them or whatever. And so it doesn't seem to be as difficult to get them on board. So, yeah, and I've witnessed this over that over 14 years now with lots of other kids as well.
Glen Merzer: And so what about when the kids were invited to a pizza party or something like that? How did you deal with that?
Rachael Brown: Yeah, you know, we quickly realized that we. like after my son went to that birthday party and had all the hot dogs and cookies, you know, we can control outside the house. and for a while before I learned that taking enzymes don't really do anything, I did a research paper on that for the Center for Nutrition Studies certificate. But like my son, I remember he was going to a birthday party and it was a pizza party. And I said, you know, do you want to take an enzyme so your stomach doesn't hurt after you pizza because you know at this point we've been eating this way so if they ate cheese or ice cream or something then they would have a stomach ache and he said no I don't want to take the enzyme because if I take the enzyme I'll eat more than one piece of pizza but if I don't take it I'll just have one piece and he was in third grade and he had more self-restraint than I did I know like at that point so they just learned to self-regulate themselves over the time and You know, once you once you experience that stomach ache from, you know, eating ice cream after you haven't had it for a long time, there's no better teacher than than yourself in that way. So thankfully, it didn't take a long time. And, you know, occasionally they would have something. But overall, they've maintained coming back to and sticking with a whole food plant based no oil diet.
Glen Merzer: Right. Now, I'm sure your family takes B12 supplements, right? Do you believe in any other supplements? Take anything else?
Rachael Brown: Not until this year. I always went to the T.Clein Campbell route and said, you know, eat a lot of whole foods. will get what you need from whole plant based foods. However, we were very low on omega 3s and we we eat a lot of natural omega 3s and the source of walnuts and flax seeds and chia seeds and all these things. Apparently not enough. So that and vitamin D, I thought we live in California. We don't need to take vitamin D. That's ridiculous. Even though our levels were low, I thought, and maybe this is outdated or, you know, wait, this can't be right. But turns out only when you're in Southern California, do you get that degree of sunlight that is enough. So we are now taking omega-3s, algae, omega-3s, and vitamin D as well.
Glen Merzer: And have you monitored your vitamin D levels and now they're good?
Rachael Brown: No, we have not yet. It's been like maybe month five that we've been taking them. So we'll be going back in shortly.
Glen Merzer: should working by month five.
Rachael Brown: Yeah, yeah, they should be. Yeah. I mean, we do blood work. Maybe we're a little bit opposite of you. We actually do blood work more often. Our doctor, who is not whole food plant based now, he is like, why? Why do you want to do more work? You know, you guys are healthy. But for us, making some of these smaller changes have really made a big impact. So so, yeah, we tend to test at least twice a year to see what
Glen Merzer: I do. I do, too. I test two or three times a year with my blood work. It's the scans that I'm. Then they find things.
Rachael Brown: I mean, yeah, yeah.
Glen Merzer: In the the blood work. It's true, they could find something in the blood work, but generally that would be something I would want to know about if they find something, whereas a dark spot, I don't want to know about it. And what about exercise? What do you recommend as an exercise program to stay healthy?
Rachael Brown: I recommend that you do whatever you enjoy doing, movement of any kind for at least 30 minutes a day is what I would suggest to people. And that can be gardening, walking, dancing, whatever you enjoy, really. We do a lot of working out, but it's stuff we enjoy. So I don't like to lift weights. So we go to a local rock climbing gym and it's functionally doing the same thing, but it's a lot more fun to be climbing with friends. We are right next to a state park and I run trails. But that's enjoyable, you know, I'm the hike for fun. We do long-distance cycling We rode around the Olympic Peninsula 600 miles this this fall Late summer, I think it was six days and you know that entirely fueled by plants and this was you know, there's a not a lot of Grocery stores and so so sometimes it was convenience stores grabbing the only thing we could find which was like the it's it fruit bars and some pistachios
Glen Merzer: So you did like a major six day bike trip?
Rachael Brown: Yeah. Yeah. My husband does. No, we were actually this one was staying in hotels. yep.
Glen Merzer: So carrying, you know, a bag on the back of our bike
Rachael Brown: with a change of clothes and yeah, carrying our having breakfast usually in the morning, grabbing something to have on the road while we're riding.
Glen Merzer: Part of a whole kind of bike tour vacation thing.
Rachael Brown: No, we're members of Adventure Cycling, this organization that started the cycling routes around the U.S. And so you can just purchase maps from them. And so we weren't a part of any group. We have friends who live in Squam, Washington. So we drove up and parked our van there and rode a loop. So we finished there in the end as well.
Glen Merzer: And was it the whole family of just you and your husband?
Rachael Brown: It was just my husband and I. The kids were already back at school. So, yeah. But they have done, we've, did as a family, part of reg Brian. I don't know if you're familiar with that being in Indiana, the registered annuals, great bike ride across Iowa. It's been going on for, think 30 some years. So every year there's a different route, but you ride from the Western side of the state to the Eastern side of the state, over 10,000 people every summer. so we did that as a family, please. Six years ago. Yeah.
Glen Merzer: OK, now you've also worked in pain management, pain neutralization technique. Is there any interface between that and diet? Do you find that when people go on the kind of diet we eat, their pain tends to be less of a problem?
Rachael Brown: Yes, most definitely. And in fact, I know I don't know if know Kathleen Gage. She is a SCA member. She is the first person I talked to who I remember saying she'd been eating vegan, but it wasn't until she cut out oil that her knee pain went away. And I find this often with people who are, they think they're eating a clean vegan diet. They don't realize they're eating a lot of processed vegan stuff. And once they get rid of the processed foods, once they get rid of the excess oils, once they're eating real whole plant foods, then they deal with less inflammation, their pain goes away, even if it still is arthritic bone-on-bone kind of pain. So yeah, definitely, most definitely eating this way, just in terms of what it helps your body deal with inflammation, in terms of that alone, people feel better. Not to mention all the side effects, like usually if you're eating this way, if you have any excess weight to shed, it comes off easily. And we know that excess weight is… hard on the body, but also hard on joints, know, some things like knees, ankles, hips, if people are having pain there.
Glen Merzer: Right. And so would you describe your book as a kind of primer for people to to learn about the plant based diet if they don't know much about it?
Rachael Brown: Yes, I would say that this is the book to if you're vaguely interested or know somebody who does this and you're like, yeah, I'm not really sure. This might be the book for you or if you eat this way and you have family members or friends who are like What is that weird thing you're doing again? You know, I wrote this book to be the easy to digest Pun intended book on the subject. So I really hope everyone reads all of your books Everyone reads the China study and these are seminal works that that gives so much rich information that is so helpful But for people who aren't into the science or don't really care about the research, they just want to get at it and see how this works. This is the gateway drug book, I think the entryway book.
Glen Merzer: So, yeah. Well, it's a very pleasant, easy read. And it's it's got good information about how a family can transition to this kind of diet. So the book is available on Amazon. And is available as a Kindle as well as it is.
Rachael Brown: there's a ebook. There's an audiobook. You can get it at Barnes and Noble anywhere you get books.
Glen Merzer: OK. And did you narrate the audiobook?
Rachael Brown: I did. Yes.
Glen Merzer: So you get the book narrated by the author. We'll put a link in the show notes to the book for Forks sake and any plans to write any other books, Rachael?
Rachael Brown: You know, it's not off the table, but I'm still speaking at VegFest, at libraries, at bookstores, doing all I can with this book. So, yeah, maybe someday.
Glen Merzer: All right. Well, it's been a pleasure speaking with you, and we hope to see you soon.
Rachael Brown: Thanks so much, Glen.
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