Ep 187 – 20 Years of Holistic Holiday at Sea: Interview With Sandy Pukel

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins, Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Giacomo and this is episode 187. Thanks so much for tuning in and hope that you’re enjoying the new stuff that’s coming out since our content break last month. It gives us a chance to be creative and think about new conversations that we can have with different people.

And we’ve been asking you who you want us to interview. And I thought to myself as we get into going on, what will be our sixth cruise on a holistic holiday at sea? I said, let me reach out to Sandy because we’re typically just caught up in the moment and we’re busy doing our thing and there’s some I know about you in the cruise, but there is a lot that I don’t know.

So for those of you who don’t know who’s joining us today yet, if you don’t know in person or you’re unfamiliar with him. This is Sandy. I, I don’t want to put your last name, Sandy Pel and Sandy. As far as I know is you are the visionary. I know that you’re, you’re the, the, the one you are, the one you were the main person for the HKC. And I had to refresh my memory. I looked at the site briefly. This is gonna be the 20th anniversary of what was the very first vegan specific cruise.

Although it was initially called the Holistic Holiday at Sea. And it’s such an honor to have you here today. And I think the coolest way to start this would be to learn a little bit more about you. And then of course, segue into what got you into this whole project that has lasted for such a long period of time right now and it’s still going strong.

Sandy

Well, thank you for having me on episode number 187. I’m very proud of you and very honored to be here. Thank you very much. So, I’ve been involved, my life’s work plant-based Diet for 54 years. This past April. I started in 1970 of April, 1970 I’m into it 100% not 99%. You know, this is my work. This is my life’s mission, so to speak. My, my work is to turn the world on to health and happiness by eating.

Well, exercising being respectful of the planet, all of it. I don’t just say I’m just vegan. That’s not enough because we know so many people we know are vegan. That’s great. But you’ve been Coca Cola and you’re vegan, your candy bars junk food, you’re vegan. So my thing is education, education, education, it always has been, of course, encompasses everything.

So I went to a lecture in 1970. A friend of mine told me about it and I said it resonate with me that night on that was it. I didn’t look back on it. I didn’t go sideways. I’m gonna think about it. I, I embraced it that night. I went home, told my parents and they said to me, well, what happens when you have kids? What’s gonna happen? Then? I says, mom, my dad because I wanna have kids is why I’m doing this because I want my kids to grow up in a better world where they could play with other kids that

are healthy and happy. So it’s always been my thing to do that. I did all the typical, I went to, went to college, even went to law school for a couple of years. And, but this has always been my, my calling. I did cooking classes right. In the very beginning I gave lectures. I didn’t care if three people showed up,

five people showed up my responsibility to be there.

You never know who that person is gonna be, who’s gonna turn somebody else on to it. So over the years I opened up a big natural food store in Coconut Crow, Florida. The time was one of the biggest ones in the country. Of course, it didn’t start out that way. I saw a second story walk up in a law office. Then we went downstairs, then we expanded, we had a restaurant, we had great restaurants over the years.

Great, great store. I mean, the store was fabulous. Known near and far. People came everywhere. We had stars of sports and, and, entertainment came there because Miami is a hot place and people used to come into the store. If they were into any kind of eating well, natural foods, they would come into the store. We had everybody, they came into the store and ate in the restaurant.

And it was a pleasure. It was a pleasure we had. I mean, I’m talking about from Bob Dylan to Michael Jackson to Sylvester Stallone or you’re talking about the, who’s who of the world we had in there. Politicians, everybody came in there. And I was always very, the president knew I was always very friendly to answer questions. So if there was any kind of question that had to do anything with natural foods, they would call me up.

I never even met the people, but I would answer, I would always have an answer for them. I was always available. So I did that at the store. We expanded to a restaurant and then along the way, did other projects, started a two or three nonprofit foundations, teaching education throughout the state of Florida. Started a project. I don’t know if you want to hear this stuff.

Giacomo

This is my, this is, this is how it goes. Right. Yeah, I’m the whole tie in here. I’m listening the entire time how it started with that conversation with your parents. And then it led to a lifestyle change, a conviction, your beliefs and now you’re creating a whole experience of people in, in this coconut grove location.

Sandy

And we started an event called Taste of Health. It, you know how you have Taste of New York and Taste of Chicago and they have vendors and they sell everything. Well, I started an event called Taste of Health, only natural food vendors. So the park was filled with natural food vendors. And the first year we had 4000 people and we donated all the money to to the Dade County school system to teach about nutrition in the school system.

And we did that for years. And then other people asked me in other states if they could copy me and help me, I would help them do it. So that was my thing. Always. I said to we had we and these days to help in the park, we had no the famous rock and roll bands to attract people to be there. And yeah, it was fun. Always fun but not the people who are on not Taylor Swift category but Richie.

Richie Havens category. How’s that Jerry Jeff Walker for those that know him or whatever it is on it.

So I’m aging myself, but that’s where it was at. So I did that education. And then in the 19, besides this, the seminars, I started doing seminars in hotels throughout the country. And we did that for 30 years before the cruise. Almost 50 years, I’ve been doing seminars.

So for the 1st 30 years, I did it in hotels in San Francisco, Palm Springs, California reference Colorado, Miami Beach. And we had the boos who everybody. We had Deepak Chopra three times. We had Dr Dean Ornish. We had, we had those environmental. We had Cesar Chavez. We had Hollywood celebrities such as Ted Danson and his wife Mary Stern version.

And we had, we had Ed Asner, we had Lindsay Wig, anybody who was into any kind of environment or natural foods, we got them and they were all very supportive of what I was doing. It’s not that I, I didn’t pay them any money basically. I mean, it was minuscule compared to what they get, but they were happy to support what I was doing. And I was very grateful for that and I kept the mission going on that.

So we did it in 30 years in hotels and fast forward to tie and I might go back a little bit but to fast forward, I was on a plane one day and I heard about this conference, this medical conference they did on a cruise ship. And I said, wow, why don’t we do this on a cruise ship because in my thinking hotels are great. It’s nice. But you’re doing it on a cruise ship.

They captured audience. They can’t go away. They have for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s a whole different dynamics. It’s a whole different way. You deal with each other when you’re with each other all day and all night. Your camaraderie, you’re sitting at tables and socializing and one of the rules we’d set from day one, the teachers can’t go up to Ivory Towers.

The teachers have to be in the dining room meeting with the guests. People love it. They’re sitting there next to whether it’s John Ramos, sitting next to Doctor Michael Greg or Neil Bernard or whoever it might be. Colin Campbell, Calwell lesser team. They’re in the dining room meeting with everybody else, answering questions and considering I said you switch tables as you will in every meal.

We had all these people. So people loved it. So it was always been my whole thing is education and why not have fun, why not have an enjoyable time while you’re having a vacation and education? And that’s what it did. The very first year we did the cruise, we had more people than we ever had in our largest thing in a hotel. Really? Yeah. And for the next 10 years, we had double digit increases in growth every year until we tapped out because after a while we capped out ourselves.

We did a self imposed tax because of the meeting rooms and the lectures. He wants to have the experience to be happy for everybody. So, in the meantime, in my spare time, I started the American Miso company, which is called Miso Master now. And, and I started that with John Bellamy in 19 eighties.

Giacomo

That’s just started that with the Bellamy.

Sandy

Yeah. And right now it’s the largest MISO company, certainly in the United States, probably one of the largest ones in the world. And then, we did Satan company. I started a Satan company where we did Satan all over the, all over the United States. So I was always into doing stuff too and, and it’s always times John was my partner in that. And then when I decided to do the cruise, I said, John, let’s do the cruise and everybody thought I was crazy.

My friends, my family, what do you mean on a cruise ship who’s gonna go on a cruise ship and wanna do eat vegan food on a cruise ship? And I said we’re gonna do it. So I went on the cruise ship to talk to one of the, to the, to the line. We decided to the first year and I walked into the dining room because I speak to the food and beverage guy. He was the main, he was the main obstacle and we went into the dining room and it was a, it was set up for a banquet.

There was five goblets on the table for wine, for water and liquor. And it was three forks and three knives and spoons. And I said to him, Hans, I said, we don’t need all this stuff. He said, Sandy and I lesson I thank him every day. Well learned. If you’re on our ship and you represent us, you must, with a capital M US T at every meal, you must have a soup.

You must have an appetizer. You must have a salad. You must have an entree, you must have a dessert and everybody love, everybody loves it. And the feedback we get from everybody, a five course meal who sits down and has a five course vegan meal these days. So by served by tuxedo waiters in the beginning, right? You don’t have to, you don’t have to do the dishes.

You got great food, you could ask for seconds if you wanted to. And so it was, it was incredible. And every year by word of mouth and by that time we mailed things out. There was no internet stuff. We did snail mail, we mailed out brochures, we advertised in legal journals and it grew and grew and grew until I, as I said, and I said, ok, now it’s time to do on a cruise ship.

So even that, even when I was doing on the cruise ship in my spare time, more spare time, I never have. I’m involved in educational seminars in Europe. So I’m part of a a founding committee. I’m on the, on the board of directors. We do, we do seminars in Europe every year and we go to a different country and we got to this past year, I just got back from Denmark the year before I was in England next year.

It’s gonna be in Belgium and we meet and it’s mostly mainly for teachers and how to support in their countries and whatever it is on it. But it’s also one of my things that I like to do, the whole thing is turn the world on. You gotta start let these people go back to their countries. Let us our teachers that come on the cruise, let them go back and speak to their audience like you do, like Dean, like Dean Ornish did like Colin Campbell does, you know, and I, I have a great relationship with

everybody. They’re happy to be there because I kid around with everybody. I don’t care what kind of teacher or how popular you are. You could write books and stuff like that, but it has to be a high to talk in front of 1000 people. So Michael Gregor gets into this auditorium and there’s 1000 people in front of him or Colin Campbell. It’s, it’s, it’s a rush, it’s a rush.

It’s a rush for me to see that. So I tell everybody they say, everybody says to me. So what do you get out of it? And I said, I tell everybody that opening day of the cruise, I say everybody has to have a good

time because I get a contact t from you. So if you have a good time, I’m gonna have a good time. So it’s your responsibility. If you want to know what I’m doing, you better make sure you have a good time and therefore I’ll have a good time.

So that’s, that’s my thing. And I try to bring teachers that, not just that they’re good that they, that they’re popular, but they can resonate with the audience because we get recommendations all the time. Why don’t you invite this person, that person? And sometimes I, I see the videos and untruthfully they’re boring and I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t want to have them.

So I used to use the criteria if the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal have to decide randomly. I’m coming in to watch that class. Is this teacher gonna hold their own? Now, did I blow it a couple of times? Of course, I have because sometimes some of the teachers are pretty bad. I thought they were good but it didn’t turn out that way. But, but we try and, and that’s how it’s been, we get recommendations from other people and now we get solicited all the time.

I wanna come on your cruise, the agent calls up, my client just wrote this bestselling book. I remember the first time Dean or the agent called up and I was, when I was negotiating the deal, she says, you know, he’s coming out with a it’s gonna be a New York Times bestselling book. I said, really? But it’s not out yet. So how do we know it’s gonna be best selling book?

So, in the meantime, we book, we booked him and it was a best selling book. We’re very, very, very, very fortunate. We had ba baby doctor for those who, you know, Benjamin Falk, who probably the author of the second or third best selling book in the world in history. He, we’ve had him a couple of times. So we were very fortunate. People want to come rich raw who now has a podcast himself over there.

He came, we’ve had a lot of great physical athletes, but not just because they’re athletes, but they have a message. It’s OK that you could look good and everything like that. But you also have to connect with your audience and how to present what you’re doing. So, and what I’ve learned and if I’m talking too much, you’re about to tell me what you have.

Giacomo

You have a lot to share, I’m putting the things together to me. You strike me as someone who is a connector. You bring together teachers at seminars, you have this strong belief in what you’re doing and you grow this network and you wanna make sure everyone’s having a good time. Now, the cruise. Is that your main thing?

Sandy

Yeah. Yeah. Well, education, educational stuff besides it goes. Yeah. But the cruise of people don’t realize it’s a real business, a full time job in the beginning. When I said we did those seminars in the park. We call the Taste of Hell. And we got sponsors from radio stations and newspapers and the beginning cruises were called Taste Of Health. But then we decided to change the name because Taste, he didn’t res didn’t we, you know, connect with what we were doing.

So we changed the name. So now we still have Taste Of Health, which is now a 501 C three nonprofit educational foundation. So we donate pro sees a lot of the crew stuff, a lot of stuff to other nonprofits around the country are on a similar mission that we are doing.

Giacomo

And you saw another mo working model like this where there was a captive audience and a bunch of medical professionals and those interested in learning from them, right?

Sandy

That was, I didn’t see it. I just read about it in like a magazine, I read about it. I never saw it.

Giacomo

So that was the part right there. The person who, whose lecture is it? OK? To ask who that person was the one that initially got you hooked on the healthy lifestyle and plant-based style.

Sandy

Yeah. He, he happened to be an MD right now. His name is Willie Rosenfeld. He lives in New York. He went to Harper College and he went to a lecture there about meros about healthy. And he told us about it and we went to the class and that was it. I, I did it.

Giacomo

And when you think back to that lecture, are there, is there a specific thing or a specific idea that you can remember about that conversation that, that sparked the 100% 100%?

Sandy

I use this the woman. It was this little old lady. She probably was 80 at the time. I’m exaggerating, but she certainly was over in her years and she was probably no more than 5 ft tall. Rebecca Doy was her name and we were in Manhattan. The lecture was in Manhattan, midtown Manhattan. And she said, if you eat well and you practice what I’m telling you to do here spiritually, physically, emotionally, you connect with the universe and what happens is good.

Things happen to you and, and there spark that she said to me, you want a parking spot in Manhattan? It opens up for you says you’re riding around, no one has a parking spot, you’ll find a parking spot. I’ll never forget that was the analogy that she used. And to this day I laugh at that. But, but that’s how you become, you become like, you know, your expression come bond with the universe,

you become bond with our friends.

We get along with everybody. That’s the way it should be. Right. It shouldn’t be a struggle. Life should not be a struggle. I should be. We’re here on the planet to enjoy ourselves. So in, in the beginning, I was focused on food, 100% food, food, food. But I learned over the years you need more than food. So I got into exercise and I go, I go to the gym every day.

Now, I’m not saying 365 days a year, but close to it. If I’m, yeah, if I’m around every day I go for an hour and a half to two hours every day. And I don’t go there to, to get muscle. Obviously, you see, it’s not for me to get muscle, to maintain just to feel healthy. I do cardio, I do weight work, whatever it is on it. But if there’s a gym, I just was in Saint Louis this past weekend and there was a gym that was maybe 2 ft by 3 ft.

One of the worst gyms I ever saw. But I managed to survive in there. I was down there every morning. I was the only one, one day, the other day, one woman. that was it. But I go down with her this morning, I went five in the morning. Sometimes at home. I go, usually close at eight o’clock because I meet with friends and stuff like that. But I’ve, I’ve decided, not decided in my studies, food is great.

Exercise is great. You put the two of them together. It’s not one plus one equals two. It’s a geometric progression. So one plus the other, it takes you to another whole level. It’s not just any one on one. It’s un, it’s, it’s incredible what you could achieve by doing that together. And then if you do other kind of practice, whether it’s yoga or meditation or any kind of spiritual practice, it even, it adds more to it.

So we’re not just doing this for ourselves to be physically grave and to our friends and neighbors. But we’re here for the environment also for the animals, for the earth, for our neighbors. You know, I see, I see people in the gym and II, I used to go over, I’m, I’m, I’m trying to be better now not to go and tell people what to do. I don’t mean exercise wise, but I feel better when I see these people, how they can be helped.

And, and I know I want to help everybody. That’s my thing. And a lot of times I’ll go over to people because I go with my parents. and I grew up in New York City and they moved to Florida and they lived in a high rise high rise apartment house and also over the years, but she didn’t mention I also got a, a license to counsel people. I and the State of Florida, I’m licensed to coun council people.

So I would see, I’m not saying thousands of people over the years, but certainly hundreds and hundreds of helping with cancer, diabetes, heart. I’m pretty good at it and I’m not good, necessarily diagnosing, but I’m very good at giving people encouragement and giving people the will to live, giving people they wanna take care of themselves.

So I’d be, I’m, I’m tying this back because I’d be on the elevator with my, my parents building and one of the neighbors has come on and I would look at their condition, I would look at their face and I would say, oh my gosh, this person has a heart condition or kidneys or this and that. And I would tell my parents that guy gotta watch it.

He’s gonna have a heart attack or something like that because that’s what I did. I don’t do it now because on the cruise and in the hotels, I let other people do it. I only do it now if somebody really has to do it because I don’t charge anybody. I charge if they can afford it. But if they can’t afford it, I don’t worry about it.

Giacomo, Sandy

I think you said cruise was initially called Taste of Life that I remember of Taste of.

Giacomo

Thank you, walk me through, like imagine if I was on the ship walking through on the very first cruise that you had that. What, what was that? Like?

Sandy

It was like we had, three meals, you know, three breakfast, lunch and dinner. We had exercise classes in the morning. Like we have now and we had yoga classes and bodybuilding classes. We had cooking classes and I, I bring up cooking classes because I just was on an interview with chef AJ recently. And at hot cooking classes, we used to get 400 people who in the world has ever taught a cooking class with 400 people.

I would say no. And if I’m wrong, somebody can shout out to me and tell me. But she said that it was incredible to her when she would be there 400 people in her cooking class. And we served everybody tastings. So that was what we did. So we have cooking classes, then we have multiple lectures at the same time. So to be somebody talking about diabetes, maybe somebody talking about general health and vegan lifestyle, animal rights people.

Like we’re having like we’ve had Ingrid Newkirk from Peter. We’ve had, fortunately, as I said, I’ve been very blessed. I’ve had the whos who of everybody that’s want to be part of the cruise. So I’m very, I’m sitting there as you say, I’m the connector call, whatever you want. I’m smiling, I’m blessed. I’m grateful that all of these people are willing to do that.

And so that’s what happened in the beginning and we had people that, that came and we had parties every night. We had classes every night. So, but I’ve learned over the years because in the beginning we had classes from seven in the morning till it end at 10 o’clock at night. And people used to, they didn’t tell to me directly. They told my staff, can you tell Sandy?

Not so many classes, we’re on vacation. I said, so my attitude was you don’t have to go to classes. You don’t have to go. But their thing was they’re afraid they were missing something. They’re paying for it. They wanna go. So after a while, we, when we’re in, we’re in, we’re in port. We don’t have classes in the height of the day. If we’re in Jamaica, we don’t have classes, say, you know, when we land like 56 hours, let people get off the ship.

I don’t have classes. But in the beginning we had classes all the time and even at night, 8 to 10 at night and then even yoga, we had yoga in the morning or, or exercise classes. And people said Sandy, what? They didn’t tell me, I told my staff or I don’t wanna go up seven o’clock in the morning to do yoga. Can we have another time? So then we added second yoga classes.

So at one in the morning and one in the afternoon. But the same thing, meditation classes in the morning and in the afternoon, so we try to listen to our audience. Sometimes I listen. Hopefully I’m not arrogant, too arrogant that I don’t listen. But so it’s evolved, we learn from each other. We learn from the audience telling us what they would like to see happen.

So our first cruise was and, and what happened is that as you all know, in the world of vegan education, women are much more involved than men are. So we get two thirds women and one third of the audience is men to trying to figure out how to get the men to come. We got two thirds women guys, but they don’t come. So in the beginning we did a, we did speed dating.

We did speed dating even on the cruise. I’m, I’m fast phoning it because we’ve had marriages. We’ve had babies over the years. I call it the love boat. I call it the vegan love boat. We had babies on ship. No, not born on the ship with people they met on the ship. They have come back.

Giacomo, Sandy

Yeah, it’s incredible like they have a birthday room on the ship. Is that right all the time, please?

Giacomo

Like if someone has to give birth on the ship.

Sandy

Yeah, they can give birth on the ship. I, I’ve married people on the ship. Some people have been on the ship before they decided to wait for the next year and they said, Sandy can you marry us? And even though I’m not legal, so the captain made the sign but they did a whole, they invited the whole thing and the whole ceremony with the whole gowns and the whole thing.

And I did the ceremony. I was honest, it’s not like I even knew them as best friends, but they were happy that I was there. They met on the cruise. It was their honor to me and I was honored back to them to perform the ceremony.

Giacomo

Yeah, we were pretty incredible. The first time that Dan and I went on the cruise, I don’t know, 5, 10 years ago, the whole experience, it’s one of those things where it’s, you want to be a part of that experience year after year. You know how sometimes people like different experiences, they don’t like to repeat the same thing twice, but sometimes when the experience is that good, you wanna repeat it because you want to go back and, and relive it and have a different, slightly

different experience and that’s what I see happen with the cruise. It’s just that enjoyable. And from the second you step on the ship and everyone’s together and it’s just a large, it’s like pretty much every

cruise go all at once and everyone is just super welcoming all the presenters and instructors are there and then you have, you know what I like the most about you, Sandy is the fact that you take education and entertainment and you put it together because, right, because too

much, too much academia can be a little boring and drive people with too much entertainment and now you’re partying hard and the whole idea is to be healthy and to learn and I feel like you take these two things and you bring them together and you bring people together like that. And I just, it’s really cool hearing all of your stories about how that has been built up over the years and how it’s still going off ship because I didn’t know that I didn’t realize you were doing seminars and

your, your team out in Europe in different parts of the country and this and that and all that. So, it’s a really nice network of people and community and it’s, it’s neat to see it all come together every single year that it can. I know we had a couple of years where it wasn’t possible to be in the ship during COVID. Yeah, I remember the, the online stuff where, where we kept it, where your team kept it going. And now you have your 20th year anniversary coming up in March of next year.

Sandy

You have the exact date March 8th March 8th March 8 to 15.

Giacomo

Is it sold, it’s not sold out yet, is it?

Sandy

No, no, we’re still, hopefully we’re gonna sell out every year. We’ve been very fortunate. We’ve had waiting lists some years most years we’ve had a waiting list. So it’s been great and, and this year we’re bringing back again, many years, we had CMES and CE us for those who don’t know what that is. That’s continuing education credits for doctors or nurses or, or dieticians.

So this year now we’re working again to do that to bring that back again. And we’re close to making that announcement that we’re gonna have that again, which is really great. And, and to me also we get letters. It’s a life-changing week. People write us letters. You don’t know what it does because in the beginning, so in the beginning, we used to say the people who came on the cruise were hardcore vegan into the lifestyle or they were sick, they were seriously sick and they were told

to go home and die and they said they heard about this cruise and we’re gonna go on this cruise and get better. So the cruise line used to say to me, Sandy, they never dealt with a group before when no one cancels because I said to people who are sick, they’re not canceling because they want to get better. And again, everybody was hardcore. Well, a vegan cruise, of course, it’s changed over the years, but we still get a lot, a lot of people that come, you know, for the education and I call

the recovery panel, the heart. We have a recovery panel where people share their stories of cancer,

diabetes or heart conditions or cerebral palsy. And it’s, I call it a three handkerchief. It’s a tear jerker. When people get up there and share their stories, we videotape it, it’s to give encouragement to other people to see it and then, and the audience they go, wow.

You mean it could really work, you could get better by adopting a plant-based lifestyle and do exercise and, and network with people because that’s what it’s about. So people have wrote to me, Sandy, you changed my life. The cruise has changed my life and I’ll give two personal funny stories about not funny but two real stories. A woman one year I, I couldn’t tell, you know, on the cruise there’s a couple of 1000 people.

I say hello to everybody. And thank God we were name tags, but I don’t know people per se. And this one woman one day out of the clear the sky, get a check in the mail and says Sandy in my church, we believe in tithing and what you do is wonderful. And she sent me a big check. She says this is for you as a thank you for what you do. I was like, wait taken back obviously. And another lady who I tell she was, and she’s been on the cruise many times. She was our first billionaire person.

She was a certified billionaire and I helped her, you know, personally with health issues and I don’t, I don’t expect any money from her or anything like that. I just, I help. It’s my thing. I help people. So I’m leaving and she says to me, Sandy, come here and I said, what are you doing? She takes out a check book because I don’t need any, I don’t need anything from you. Whatever it is on. She’s Sandy.

Giacomo, Sandy

I’ve been blessed that my family, we’re wealthy and why not share with other people and throw me a check for the most money I’ve ever gotten from anybody by fall and what you’re doing because it’s because money comes and goes, it just flows.

Giacomo

What you’re doing is you’re bringing together sick people who want an answer and want to get well. You’re bringing in people who want to have a good time. You’re bringing in people who want to learn, you’re bringing in people who are seeking community. You’re bringing in people who want to enjoy good food that’s healthy for them and you’re bringing in their network of people in their community so that they can have that kind of social proof and that kind of support so that they can

help inspire others. So when you think about that melting pot of people on this ship, it’s an incredible unique kind of experience because I think about other kinds of cruises that are thematic, the vegan world and it doesn’t, it nothing compares to what you’re doing because you’re more than focused on health and wellness, you’re looking to get people to another place that are unwell, but you’re

mixing it in and everyone’s having a good time and then there’s all these incredible professionals and what not in the vegan sphere that are, that are there to help, right?

Sandy

It really is. And, and, and I, I have to tell you every year, every single year there’s maybe five or 10 people, regular passengers on the cruise, not part of our program come over to us and say, can we join your program? We wanna pay and join the program as part of what you’re doing. We didn’t know that you existed and we want to be part of it and learn for the week every year.

So it’s pretty incredible that that happens also. So, you know, I’m very, as I said, my whole thing is to put out the biggest net you can to attract the widest audience you can because once you have them on board the ship, they’re gonna say, wow, this is pretty nice what you have going on here, you know, they might be a little skeptical or whatever in the beginning, but it’s pretty, I mean, honestly speaking, it’s pretty incredible experience and then to get to meet somebody that said,

singles, you know, if you’re into a single person, what better place to meet somebody similar lifestyle, you’re not gonna be sitting in a, in a class with somebody who’s a drunk or is gonna be doing cocaine or something like that. Hopefully the lifestyle is similar. You wanna surround yourself with people with similar lifestyles.

Giacomo

Exactly. Yeah. And you never know. I mean, people come back from that ship. They, they’re not forgetting about life. They’re thinking about what they can do when they, and what they can take back with them from the cruise. Whereas I think of a typical cruise where someone goes because they want a vacation where they just want to pretend like their routine and the reality ain’t there. They want to have a good time, which is great. But surprise when you hop on the holistic holiday of

sea ship, you take back the experience and then you start to make changes, hopefully when you get back on, on land and I think that’s just wonderful. I, I know for certain Dan and I are coming back one way or another, we’re going to be a part of this thing. And it’s been honestly, it’s been an absolute pleasure over the years instructing and doing classes and being on that side on the ship.

Giacomo, Sandy

It’s the gift is we, we appreciate you very much, very much.

Sandy

You know, it’s true. It’s good to have that by the way. Just as a side note, I raised five Children this way, I have nine grand. I’m the strictest out of everybody, but they all eat well. But I’m the strictest and, and growing up in the house until they went off to college. There wasn’t a choice. This is how they ate in the house. That was it. And when they went off to college, this is another side fi story.

Some colleges you have to eat in the, you have to live in the dorm and the f as a freshman and I would write to the school and say my kids and eat can’t be, live in a dorm. They’re gonna starve to death. What are you gonna feed them? What kind of food do you expect them to eat in the dorm? Because, you know, my kids are in the forties now, whatever it is on what they weren’t serving options of vegan

foods every day.

What I consider good quality foods. So we always got exceptions that they could live off in their own apartments and I would send them, they would come home for vacation time. We’d always send them back with food or they go shopping because they grew up this way because I had a big, besides everything else. Had a very big natural food. So, which I mentioned.

So they grew up knowing how to eat well. So they have, with the five kids, they now have nine grandchildren between them all. And are they same way they eat? Everybody eats well, everybody’s very conscious. Are they strict like me? No, but that’s ok. They know. They know and they certainly know what, what to do. They certainly tell. other stories.

I’m gonna, I’m gonna give you another cute story. Am I allowed to give you another cute story? I love cute, cute story. So I’m in the, I’m in the store and this and my daughter is maybe three or four years old going to a Montessori school. And this woman comes into the store and she says to me, are you Amber’s dad? And I said yes, she says, well, my daughter, Samantha as friends with your daughter and your daughter says to her that she doesn’t have to eat sick.

She doesn’t have to be sick if she eats. This is my daughter is three or four years old at the time. Tell this other three or four year old daughter, other girl how to eat well, the mother came in to find out and look how it works out. Became friends with the mother and the father, the father happened to be the president of one of the largest radio stations in Miami. And he, when we did those taste to help those things in the park, his radio station supported the park and everything that we

did. So you don’t know where it’s gonna go, how it’s gonna happen, who you speak to. And this is, you know, it’s pretty incredible. So that’s how I look at it. I don’t care whether you think, you know, some people, I hear people, I cancel my class. Only two people showed up three people. You don’t cancel your class if you are there, it’s your responsibility to teach the class.

Giacomo

It’s true. I’ve had different kinds of, I’ve seen stuff like that where someone has an enormous audience and there’s a lot of pressure on them and they have to frame in a certain way to make sure that they have something to capture when they go somewhere. But they’re trying to speak to an audience and there’s just no one there. It’s just not the type of place where someone speak.

I’ve seen other things, even us. Like when we first started coaching, we would have nobody or one or two people in the room. And you know, you feel embarrassed, you worry, you’re like, hey, you’re going to find success, but now then you turn around, it’s a decade or two later and you have a strong community. So it’s tough, it’s tough in situations like that because it’s hard to speak to empty seats.

For example, you know, those seats, even when those seats should be filled, right? I’ve seen other kinds of celebrities speak to empty seats too because it’s like you never know who you’re gonna inspire or influence and sometimes that one person does sit down and then you could sit down next to them and you can make a difference in their life and that’s, and you never know where conversations like that can go.

They’re hard conversations, they’re hard scenarios to be in, but you stand your ground and something comes out of that eventually. sometimes it doesn’t, but often it does.

Sandy

Yeah. I know, I’ve talked to audiences where English is not their first language and they’re doing the translate. I hope they’re saying close to what I’m saying, you know, whatever. But that’s ok. And the day after I give my talk they’re calling me, say Sandy, you don’t have to stay around anymore for the question answer. Not gonna understand anything anyway. Yeah.

Giacomo

Yeah. But some of our athletes with plant built when they come to from overseas and there’s such a language barrier and you’re literally like, well, you have to find another way to communicate just like with my nephew when he was a kid, when he was a baby like he couldn’t speak. So now we have that bond.

He’s I don’t read lips but I can read his lips because I was forced to find another way to communicate with him even though I can’t people’s lips because when there’s that bond there or when there’s a need to communicate, you, you find a way so you never know where things like that go.

Sandy

Yeah. My biggest issue, I have to learn how to talk slower because I talk too fast sometimes. So when I go talk to audiences like in Europe and I do these programs, they, you know, say Sandy English is not necessarily necessarily everybody’s first language. So please talk slower.

Giacomo

We have that New York kind of way where you get it. many words out. It is possible. It’s, yeah, I, I feel, yeah, sometimes I try to slow myself down too. Then I realize, oh, it’s a little too late. That’s ok. So, one other question I was curious, I don’t think we touched upon what got you into exercising.

Sandy

I guess a friend of mine told me, you know, I, I was always, I thought I exercised but I realized I wasn’t and I had a little bit of a belly. I wasn’t in such good shape or whatever it is on it. And I started, my closest friends who I work out with almost every morning. He’s a triathlete and, and he’s, he comes on the cruise, Larry re sometimes. And so we, we work at the gym almost every morning and then a couple of mornings a week we, run on the beach and we swim in the, I, we swim in the ocean.

I say he swims, I frolic. So I, I’ve been, so I’ve been exercising and I, I feel good about it and everybody,

everybody always questions me that I get up and I still do it. And I said, yes, you know, even on Sundays and he said, even on Sundays, what’s the difference? You know, I, as I said, if I’m in town there’s a gym, I go exercise and if I have to, I, I switch around my hours cause I don’t sleep a lot of hours.

People that know me. So when I used to the head chef on the cruise lived in Europe for the 1st 10 years. And so there was a five or six hour time difference. So I would be up speaking to him and be say eight o’clock in the morning. It be one o’clock or two o’clock in the morning, I’m up and people used to come around me and they say Sandy, are you getting up or you’re going to sleep?

They didn’t know because I speak to people in California, I speak to people in Europe, so no one knew and I never told them what I was doing at the time. So, and I find that exercises, you know, breathing, obviously oxygen, you know, you have to breathe, you know, everybody has to be able to, you know, II I kid around with everybody. But one of the most important things you do in your life is chew your food really well and breath and breathe and breathe.

We take breathing for granted. But it’s not such for granted having, having good breath work. And you know that because you, you have to do that in order to be the, the situation you are in the shape that you’re in. People forget, people forget to breathe, you know, and people forget to chew, they swallow their food. And that I, so my, my message always is that everything should be liquefied when it leaves your mouth.

So you gotta chew to make it liquefied. And then your body says, thank you very much. Your kidneys go thank you. I don’t have to work so hard. My heart says, thank you very much. You don’t have to work so hard because people think their kidneys are made out of cast iron and they could put anything in one there. And the women, especially when they get, you know, breast cancer or they get these blockages and they get.

So if you chew really, really well, you don’t eat dairy products, you don’t have vaginal discharges, you don’t have cysts. Am I promising that to everybody? No, but I’m promising that if you follow what I’m saying, you’re gonna see incredible differences. So, but it starts with chewing. So chew your food. Really, really? Well, that’s incredible.

And also you appreciate your food better. And so people, you, and, and if you, and if you’re not, if you’re not gonna chew, get up and leave the table, sorry, you can’t just swallow as by bites, it’ll be there. Come back later. You’re not doing a service to yourself if you don’t chew your food. And so I always tell everybody to do that. Do, of course you have conversations and you don’t chew as well.

But when I counsel people and they had cancer as an example, I, I tell people I should chew 3040 times liquefied whatever it is on it. People with cancer, I tell them they have to chew 200 times, at least 100 times. And I say, you know what you want to get? Well, do I care about you getting well, what you care about getting well, I’ll be here to help you if you wanna get well and you want to cure yourself because I’m just a, I’m, I’m just a cheering squad. It’s your body. You got to guess my

philosophy is you get yourself sick. You can get yourself unick. You didn’t why? Every so often somebody catches something. But you know what? Getting back to the whole philosophy, you don’t catch anything. You make yourself a, a welcome host, an unwelcome host of disease. Just like that woman said, the very first day you attract certain things in your life. Now people are listening to say,

what is this guy crazy? What’s he talking about? I am crazy. But that’s ok.

Giacomo, Sandy

That’s my message, you know, and there’s no guarantees.

Giacomo

You definitely, you want the best probabilities possible to be an unwelcome host for a disease.

Sandy

Yeah. So I, I tell people, you know, come on. So if you got yourself sick, you did it. Who are you blaming it on? Don’t go blaming it on your neighbor. You person sneezed on, you give me a break. If your immune system is strong, it doesn’t matter. Right. Sure. So that’s the key is to get a good immune system, the key to all health is an immune system.

Giacomo

Gotcha. And final last minute thoughts or words you want to share.

Giacomo, Sandy

And can you let our audience over here know how to book their trip for the, my, my pleasure to share that with you.

Sandy

It’s home.com is the best way you could book right online. And if you mentioned Giacomo right here, you get a $50 envoy credit and we, we, we gratefully thank him all the time. But you get to sh shop in the bookstore or a consultation, whatever it is on it. So just look at the website holistic holiday at c.com. All the information will be there.

And there’s a place where it says, how did you hear about the cruise? And it’s a required field, you have to fill it out. So mention geo mention Danny and me and everybody. It’s a win win situation. So a win win situation for everybody who’s listening is you take care of yourself and as you take care of yourself and you a good example to your family, your family then takes care of the neighbors, the neighbors, take care of their neighbors, neighbors, take care of the town and we all

together take care of the world. And that’s what it’s all about. You want a one peaceful world where everybody gets along together, everybody’s healthy and happy and the environment, everybody’s

smiling, the animals, the plants, we’re all here together to make it a happy life.

Giacomo

Thank you so much for sharing some of your stories, your wisdom, your experience giving our audience a good impression of what the cruise is like. We all hope to see you there. All right, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of vegan proteins. Muscles by Brussels radio. Stay in touch with us at vegan proteins and at muscles by Brussels on the socials hit the contact button on vegan proteins.com and you’ll hear from one of us right away and we hope to see you on the

cruise. Go to heal at sea. We’ll leave that link in the notes as well and hopefully we’ll catch you in 2025. Thanks again for tuning in. My name is Giacomo and we’ll talk to you soon.