Doug Greene on Healthy Living

Doug Greene, co-founder of New Hope Natural Media, an organization that focuses on business relationships between natural products companies, has had a vast career spanning companies and continents in the health food industry. He’s a close friend of the founders of Whole Foods and Silk Soymilk, and he organized the first Natural Products Expo, which attracted more than 20,000 people and exhibitors from across the country. He helped improve food distribution networks in Russia, where he was involved in starting an organic foods system, magazines and conferences. Currently, he’s passionately pursuing companies and products in the healthy oils and fats segment. In this interview, Greene talks about how individualized nutrition is the future in health management.

With so much income and information, why are we still so unhealthy?

These days, the biggest problems are caused by a lack of oils and fats in the diet. Oils and fats have become bad words, but they’re the best things for the body. Spectrum Company showed a relationship between the quality of fat a person ingests and the size and responsiveness of the brain. The brain is 70% fat; the nervous system is also made up of fat cells to a large degree. We must increase the quality and quantities of healthy fats we eat. Put omega-3 and omega-6 back in your diet and you’ll see a difference in your nerves, response and appearance.

What can we do to eat a healthier diet?

All this convenience is making us more and more unhealthy. Cook your own foods. Take responsibility. Food has become just about entertainment now, not about nutrition. For food establishments, if your stomach is full and you walk out with a smile, they’ve done their jobs.

What do people need to do or hear in the first 30 days?

The only advice that works comes from you! You need to remind yourself daily about what’s good for you.

What trends do you see in the future of nutrition?

There’s no average person, so you can’t say an average person needs X amount of this vitamin or that enzyme. We’re moving toward more personalized ways of evaluating what people need. Individual health testing is going to be a big trend. Many tests of this sort are even coming online now—you can spit or take a swab from your cheek, send it off to a lab and have test results sent back to you. We’ll each know our health numbers as well as we know our phone numbers.