Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] David Good: Most of microbiome research contains data derived from populations that are from Europe or United States . So what can we say is healthy or unhealthy if our reference point is very limited. So scientists are saying, okay, how can we find a, quote unquote, a wild type microbiome?
And that's what makes the Yanomami so unique. Perhaps they may represent one of the world's last populations that could have a microbiome that is largely intact. What I mean by intact, that is a continuation of the longstanding co-evolution between their microbes and the surrounding ecosystem.
Whereas we have disrupted that very much so Western society.
[00:00:37] Mizter Rad: Hello, beautiful humans! Today, I have the absolute pleasure to have David Good in the Mr. Rad Show. Now, who's David Good and why did I invite him to my show? Here's the thing, David is a microbiome researcher with a one of a kind life. He's half American, half Yanomami. You heard it well, Yanomami. The Yanomami are one of the last indigenous groups in the Amazon that still live by hunter gathering and small scale farming. And also seem to have the most diverse gut microbiome of any human community across the globe.
Today, David and his team of researchers at the Yanomami Foundation are going into the remoteness of the Amazon rainforest to study why these indigenous groups seem to be so successful at preserving a very diverse gut. Now, remember, as far as science shows today, The more diverse your gut microbiome is, the healthier you are.
Unfortunately, studies show that our current lifestyle and foods we eat, the toxins we're exposed to, have disrupted our microbiome, and this seems to be directly linked to an alarming increase in autoimmune disorders and chronic inflammatory diseases. David, Bienvenido! How are
[00:02:24] David Good: you? Hi, thank you for having me again, for that, uh, morning introduction.
Very honored and happy to be on the show.
[00:02:36] Mizter Rad: So David, let me start by asking you, do you also speak Yanomami language?
[00:02:44] David Good: No, I, um, I can't say I speak with absolute fluency, but it's an ongoing process. You know, I, uh, the, the funny story is when I first went down as an adult, I only knew two phrases. That one was yeah, from my childhood, and one was Yahi, which is I'm hungry, and the other is , which is my butt really itches.
So, wow. How does that. So those are the two things, I mean, they're applicable in the jungle, right? Those two things can happen, but, um, no, but since then I, I picked up a lot more Yanomami, understanding it more. And obviously it's a, as many languages are, it's, it's one of those things you have to learn when you're immersed in that society.
And it's an exciting adventure. And I can certainly speak a lot more than that today.
[00:03:30] Mizter Rad: That's so cool. David, let's start by please you telling us. More about you, who you are and start from the very beginning. From your father, how he met your mother, how he went down to study, to research the Yanomamis down in the rainforest in the Amazon.
[00:03:48] David Good: Yeah, sure. So my story, I like to begin with my parents and you know, my dad was in the seventies, was a graduate student at Penn State University doing his PhD in anthropology. And he had studied under the great anthropologist, Napoleon Shagnon. And he was tasked to go to the Yalamani people, and one of the more remote communities in the upper Orinoco of Venezuela, to study their diet and to kind of get an understanding of their culture and their sort of violent patterns as it relates to diet.
And this was especially in the 70s of Particular interest is social scientists because the yellow mummy at the time were kind of characterized as one of the world's last relatively isolated indigenous groups, isolated indigenous groups that have retained much of their ancestral way of life. And so for a social scientist, this was like kind of getting a snapshot of how perhaps hunter gatherers or, or in small scale gardening societies like the Yanomami have lived before they were either radically changed by Westernization or the influences of outside Western culture.
So my dad went down to Venezuela and because half of the Yanomami territory is in Venezuela, but not only are they in Venezuela, but they're in one of the more remote areas of Venezuela, which is the Amazon region in the Abro Orinoco. And my dad lived among a community known as Hatsapouteri, and that is where he made his basis of his research.
And my dad, coming from, you know, from Philadelphia, found himself in a, in a, what we call a culture shock, living in a, in a, And in a society where you live in this communal roundhouse structure, a communal society, you sleep in hammocks, everyone is basically half naked, there's no means of telecommunications or contacting the outside world.
The counting system was one, two, and many. They were a non literate society, no concept of the calendar, Gregorian calendar as we know it. So for my dad, it was like, wow, you know, really special for him to get an opportunity to live in this very unique indigenous society and to get an opportunity to understand their way of light and how they interact with the Amazon rainforest.
He didn't more than just find it exciting. He fell in love with their way of life that he found a society that was Essentially in his experience, in his opinion, free from, from the stress and woes that afflict us here in modern Western societies. And he found people that really lived in harmony with each other and with the surrounding rainforest, and they were truly happy.
And he, he described it as this is the way humans were meant to live. And so what was supposed to be a 15 month research program ended up being changing his life forever. He ended up staying there for over the course of 12 years. Wow. And, um, 12
[00:06:34] Mizter Rad: years, did he like stay 12 years there without getting out?
Like all in a row or he
[00:06:40] David Good: would go back and forth? Yeah, of course he had to renew his permits and his visas and his pass. So yeah, I mean, obviously he had to go back for his research purposes. And then, uh, during that time period, that's when he met my mother Yadima and Yadima was the youngest sister of the headman of that community.
And what started out as sort of a friendship in that Yanomami village over the years, I fostered into a romance. And of course, this isn't exactly my story to tell. I wasn't there, but I can say that after I have lived among my family and the Yanomami for a while and done all these trips, I can almost, I can see how this friendship and this, and, and romance has had materialized.
And so they got married according to Yanomami customs. And, you know, my dad. Was adopted into the community and he learned their language, hunted like them, walked like them, trekked like them, learned to speak Yanomami fluently. And however, you know, they are a marriage and a relationship that is part of two radically different cultures.
So one of the, uh, you know, the Yanomami and one of Philadelphia. And just as much as my mother and her family had showed my father the world of the Yanomami, the world of the Amazon. Now that they're married, he wanted to, um, show her his world. And she was interested to, to see his world, his society. And it's customary among the Yanomami, where actually the, the, the woman moves into the village of the husband.
Needless to say, I don't think my mom had any idea what Philadelphia was going to be like.
[00:08:16] Mizter Rad: She thought she was going to the village of her husband. And then she realized it was not really like a village. She didn't expect that basically.
[00:08:24] David Good: I mean, her world and her understanding of her, of the world and her reality was confined with her experiences in the Amazon.
So she thought she was just going to another Yanomami village, you know. Um, so you can imagine the huge shock that she had experienced. And you know, not, not all of it was negative, you know, a lot of it was positive too, but you could just imagine the immense stimulation of the senses, I guess you could say.
When she arrived, you know, in Caracas seeing a car for the first time, which isn't how that works, you know, concrete buildings. mirrors, you know, the food, the clothes. So it's just already, already in Caracas, already in Caracas. Yeah. Yeah. And then Caracas and then United States.
So, yeah. So what, when my mom arrived in, in the United States, I was born shortly after in Philadelphia. I'm in 86. And we kind of became this really unique intercultural family and, that was sort of a one of a kind that kind of grasped or captivated the hearts and attentions of millions across the world. We were, um, uh, I guess I was just a baby, but we were, you Featured in different, news outlets, CBS, Good Morning, Philadelphia, People Magazine, and so on.
So it was kind of like a very unique story. And that is how it originally started. And however,
[00:09:48] Mizter Rad: David, what, what, let me, let me get, let me get into that. But did your mom speak, speak English? Like, how did your mom communicate with all this media attention, everything, how? What do you remember of that?
[00:10:00] David Good: Yeah, no, no, good point. So she didn't speak any English, of course. She was learning. English, but I think more, more Spanish than English, right? Because Spanish from Venezuela. Because my dad had all intentions of living in Venezuela at the time, but just needed to find a way to, to find resources and funding to do so.
Anyway, she started learning a little bit of English, but no, no, the only person she could communicate to was, my father, her husband. So you can imagine the difficult situation that, um, that immediately one could see, you know, with this, this intercultural marriage, not, not difficult in the fact that, you know, they love each other, you know, love is love, they love each other, they want to be with each other, but how do you reconcile these two really different, cultures, and then raising a family together?
And, After a while, you can kind of understand how my mom, felt kind of, you know, strange, alienated, lonely, you know, she, in, in, in the United States, she couldn't call upon her sisters to go fishing. She couldn't go, you know, work the gardens or collect firewood because in the world of a Yanomami, she was a full competent, you know, individual person who knows the, the fluctuations and the cycles of her ecosystem.
But now in Philadelphia, she can barely operate a VCR. And I think after a while, you know, things got pretty lonely for her and she felt very sad and depressed. And, and obviously just weighed heavily on my father and he tried everything he could, you know, to, to, to return trips.
And we did make return trips. We spend time In my village and, spend time in Venezuela, but after my sister and brother was born, things got really difficult, really expensive, you know, trips start costing tens of thousands of dollars to be able to, go back to the jungle.
So, unfortunately, after six years, my mom had to make a very difficult choice. And one of those choices, you know, does she stay in the United States with me? With, you know, her kids and her husband, who she loved, but, you know, faced this very challenging, way of life. Or does she stay in the jungle?
And, and in the moment, you know, she made that decision to, separate from the family and she stayed in the Amazon. And I stayed in the United States and that would be the last time I would see my mom for, for 20 years.
[00:12:25] Mizter Rad: So that was what year again?
[00:12:28] David Good: I was in 92.
[00:12:29] Mizter Rad: 92. So 20 years later, you met her again.
[00:12:32] David Good: Yeah, so, um,
[00:12:36] Mizter Rad: but wait, before you get into that story, tell me what is the main things you remember when you grew up with your mom and then, In the moment where, where she left, what, what kind of memories, emotions did you have. Were you angry, were you sad, were you
surprised. Did you wonder where your mom went?
Did you know where your mom, like, what do you remember of her?
[00:13:01] David Good: Yeah, of course. Yeah. So up until my mom left, you know, I didn't, it's, it's funny cause I didn't really see my mom as this Amazonian hunter gatherer, indigenous woman. She was just, she was just my mom, you know, she's there to take care of me, there to, scold me when I get in trouble.
And, I didn't really, recognize this really distinct, characteristics or this difference between her and my other friends moms. And, I spoke Yanomami. I was learning Yanomami, and then, um, but I recognized that after, as we got older, our English surpassed our English. But I do have many memories of laughing and playing with mom and, and, and spending, you know, times in the park with my dad and the family. And, we were, you know, despite our challenges, we were a happy family. And then as I mentioned in 92, for all the reasons I mentioned before, she's We broke up as a family, and when I was five, I didn't quite understand why she left, and you know, I didn't even know she, you know, this was going to be the last time I would see my mom, and I don't think any of us, um, it's just the way things had turned out. And as the years went by, I started realizing that my mom was not coming back, and Didn't know how to cope with that.
And as a young child, five, six, seven years old, I internalized it as abandonment. You know, I felt like that something about me as a, as a child, it wasn't good enough for her to stay, to want to be with me. So you can imagine, the heartache and being six, seven, eight, nine years old. And then, light goes on and mom just sort of became kind of like this mythical story in her household.
You know, we knew she's there. We knew she, we knew. You know, she's who she is and, and how she came about, you know, being here in the United States. But after a while, I just kind of lived, moved on and, had, no contact with her for 20 years and didn't know where she was. I didn't know she was alive,.
[00:14:54] Mizter Rad: Not whatsoever. Not possible to ring the phone or nothing. Like, of course, she's completely off the grid,
[00:15:00] David Good: completely off the grid, deep in the Amazon rainforest. Yeah. Um, and so I grappled that, you know, uh, in those 20 years of wondering. Why mom left and, and, and also, you know, who I am as an individual, especially during your adolescence, as you're trying to understand your world and who you are as a human being and a person and your individuality.
And like, there's this whole part of me, that's Yanomami and I'm just thinking, well, you know, growing up, I play baseball, I go to the movies, you know, I do all these American things, eat burgers, french fries, I'm like Yanomami, you should like, I don't have any cultural connection to that. I didn't really feel like that I'm a warrior of the Amazon or that I eat snakes and shoot monkeys and sleep in hammocks and eat plantains. But it was deeper than that, right? You know, I felt that my connection, or at least my inherent connection, biological connection to the rainforest was my mother.
And I felt like, how could I be proud of being Yanomami. My mother, my Yanomami mother left me. That's how that shaped my adolescence and younger twins. But of course, every step of the way, I missed my mom and I, you know, as, as much as I felt angry at her, I loved her. And because at five years old, before she left, she was my mother, she took care of me, she was my source of security, and she was my source of happiness, and, and fed me and took care of me.
And, and then she just left. But I still miss her. And it wasn't until in my younger twenties when I realized that I can't live like this forever. This battle between, you know, of who I am as an American as a Yanomami, and this constant state of anguish and anxiety hurt. So I decided That, I needed to go on a quest, on a journey back to the Amazon, back to my ancestral homeland to see if Ma was alive and if she's alive to, uh, reunite with her once again.
[00:16:50] Mizter Rad: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. So tell me more about that first journey when, when you met your mother and tell me how was that first contact with the Yanomami people?
[00:17:01] David Good: Yeah, it took me like two years to prepare because nobody, nobody knew anything, you know, about her and obviously, um, the, the path to My, my village is very complicated, right?
So it's not like I can just go online and buy a ticket to Hasapuo Teddy. And also navigating sort of, um, the challenging times of Venezuela, and what they're going through as a nation also was a big part of, preparing for this expedition.
So, uh, needless to say, you know, I had to, uh, I had to fly to Caracas and then I met up with Hortense Caballero, a Venezuelan anthropologist, uh, at IVEC, who I'd worked with, you know, along for 30 years. And she took me under her wing and, and she kind of really laid the path to finding my mom. And so from there we flew to Puerto Ayacucho, which is a capital of Amazonean State in Venezuela.
And then we got on a boat from some Maria port town and took the, uh, it's about two, two days. Two nights, all the way to, La Esmeralda. Which is , the main hub of of that territory. And then we got on a boat and then let's say over the course of three, four days, it took as we passed by villages going up the Orinoco river, and then you have to cross the Guajaripo rapids.
And then from there, you don't know where the Yanomami communities are because there's semi nomadic people. And they never, you know, they, they could be on the river. Or they can be inland where they can be really inland. You know, that can mean one day trek through the jungle, three days trek through the jungle, five days, you just, you don't know these things until you get there.
And then finally we arrived at Hasapuateti, that community. And, it was a big, big commotion, right? With my, my animal high family. They're seeing me for the first time. And then when I got off the boat, I was immediately mobbed by, by, I guess you could say my family. They had their hands up my shirt, you know, down my pants, touching my nose, touching my beer, pulling on my hair, and, um, and they were just, you know, shouting things in Yanomami. I have no idea what they're saying. No, you know, it was really, really emotional.
And before I met mom,
[00:19:04] Mizter Rad: I didn't know who you were at that moment.
[00:19:07] David Good: They didn't know who I was. They knew because we arrived and we, I presented, we presented me as the son of Yarima. And of course the story of Yarima, you know, I'm sorry, Yarima is my mother's name.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That went, that left the forest and, and married a Naba, you know, it was the first of its kind of that, that region, you know, so it was quite a, we were quite a kind of story for them as well. Right. But. You know, to the Yanomami to see me come back and return, it was very emotional. And I remember looking into their dark brown eyes and realizing that I'm not going to a foreign land.
I'm not like a scientist or an anthropologist or biologist that's trying to study people. It really hit me that, wow, I'm going back home to my family. And that this jungle, this rainforest is also my home. And I really felt like I was, rediscovering, my heritage and my, and my roots in the Amazon.
And so, after about an hour and a half, of being mounted by my family, my mom walks into the village finally. And, everybody got quiet. Everybody kind of paved the way and mom, I knew it was her, recognized her, you know, from, from the memories of being child and also the pictures I knew it was her and, and I, I got out of my hammock and I walked towards her and she walked towards me and, you know, I couldn't speak, Yanomami. She couldn't speak any English. But that didn't matter.
All that mattered was that I found her and she was alive and we were together. And all I could do is put my hand on her shoulder and I said, Hey mom, I made it. I'm home. And we go down just crying, you know, embracing each other.
[00:20:43] Mizter Rad: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. How old is your mom right now?
[00:20:48] David Good: Yeah. Yeah. So there's no birthdays or, or, or birth certificate or anything like everything is undocumented or recorded. However, I can make a guess at probably upper fifties, you know, maybe close to 60. Yeah. Okay. Okay. You know,
[00:21:02] Mizter Rad: and do you have any, do you have any, any, any Yanomami siblings?
[00:21:06] David Good: Yeah. Yeah. So after this emotional reunion with mom and, like I said, of the 20 years I spent, you know, grappling with so much, turmoil in that moment, it was all gone. It was all gone. I, I didn't have a single ounce of, hate or grudge.
I was just so happy that she was alive, you know, and I was focused on now. The past is in the past, can't change it. What I can do is have a new relationship with my mom, a bright new future and, and, and rekindle what we had. And pick up where we left off. And so, um, and that felt so, wonderful to me.
And, you know, I had, you know, was worried, like it's my worries of my childhood that my mom would reject me. Or that like I wasn't, Yanomami, I mean, you know, yeah, of course. Yeah, and who knows, maybe I would've still continued to reject her. Maybe I would've, still, but I knew in that moment, I was so happy and proud to be Yanomami.
And then, after that, uh, I met my half brother, and his name was Rikki. And uh, he goes, Rikki Martin, Rikki Martin. Just, he he he he he he he he he he he he. Okay, okay. I still really appreciate you, Rikki Mar. . So it was really cool to have a half brother, you know, well, just call him brother in Yanomami culture, and he was really excited to meet me.
[00:22:25] Mizter Rad: , you said something interesting there. So in Yanomami culture, they're just brothers. There's no half brothers. So the women and men, they basically, they mix up without the necessity of being sort of what we call in the modern world, loyal to one person for the rest of their lives kind of thing.
Is that how it works?
[00:22:47] David Good: No, I think the thing, familial life is a little bit more communal. Yeah. And we'll have, I mean, obviously there's this. There isn't kind of a nuclear family, but like, you know, each hearth, you know, you have, they sleep in hammocks and they hang the hammocks around a fire, right? Then each fire designates a family unit, but it's not as nuclear as we, as it is in Western society.
And it's, it can be blended and, I call him , which is brother Yanomami. You know, there's no like half brother or brother, he is just my brother. So for intents and purposes, you know, he is my full brother and, uh, his children, they are my children, so I, oh, really? I call him my kids.
And
[00:23:26] Mizter Rad: so are kids raised by the whole community somehow, or?
[00:23:31] David Good: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
[00:23:33] Mizter Rad: So it's very different to what, what we, how we raise kids that is basically mother and father raising children.
[00:23:41] David Good: Absolutely. And, and so, you know, what I quickly discovered in 2011, when I reunited my mom is, you know, just sort of this family structure and house structure and yeah, it's very communal.
A whole village raises, raises a child. And what I love about, Yanomami societies, they, you know, Live a life based on reciprocity, you know, you don't there's no such thing as keeping things to yourselves, you know You share everything oftentimes a hunter will kill something and share all of his meat first, before he eats or gets any at all.
And of course it's expected or just in a very natural way that when somebody else hunts or gets something that's to be shared with him. And I found that very, very beautiful aspect of Yanomami society.
[00:24:23] Mizter Rad: That's super, that's super interesting. So, so when that hunter goes hunting on a journey to get food, do you, did you also go in those journeys, did you also go hunting? Because as far as I know, they're nomadic people, right?
[00:24:37] David Good: Yeah, we say semi nomadic, semi nomadic because, yeah, they, they, they do cultivate food, right? So, and in my community, the main cultivation is plantains. And um, however, the Amazonian ground is, is not fertile.
It's not, not suitable for long term agriculture. So they practice what's called slash and burns or sweat and horticulture. Where they burn the underbrush to fertilize the ground, and that allows for them to grow plantains, um, maybe other crops, tobacco, and so on.
[00:25:09] Mizter Rad: Can you elaborate a bit, a bit on that?
I don't understand how it works.
[00:25:13] David Good: Oh, sure. Yeah, so what they'll do is they'll find, first of all, they need to find a good spot to clear in the jungle for to make a garden. But the ground is not, not suitable to grow, crops. Because most of the nutrients, like biomass. Or most of the nutrients taken up in the biome.
So when something falls, or something dies , the surrounding foliate, or the surrounding plants and so on, quickly take up all the nutrients. It's not like in the northeast in Pennsylvania, for example, a log that falls down could stay there for a very long time. So anyway, knowing that the Amazonian ground is, uh, fertile, they, they burn, so they burn the underbrush and, uh, ash, right, rich in nitrogen and other, other elements that can be used as a fertilizer.
or the ground and that fertilizers what helps them grow their plants. However, that is not sustainable because, you know, especially with intense rain, a lot of those nutrients will mutuate rather. But, you know, based on what I understand, other, other, you know, ethnographers, their crops generally yield enough, you know, to feed a community depending on the size of the community for two to three years.
So they're always making new, clearing new spots or making new gardens. So they can never really Settle permanently in one area because their principal crop is, the principal diet is, um, plantains. Well, if that, if they start losing plantains, they're going to go hungry, but also the surrounding game starts getting depleted.
So because of those, influences, they move around . And sometimes there may just not be enough food. And what they'll do is they'll kind of revert back to, I think, would be their more traditional hunter gatherer lifestyles where they go on a "Wayumi". And they just kind of, kind of pick up and abandon their, they abandon their village and just kind of go on this sort of open ended journey through the jungle to either find a new place to make a garden or to just to, you know, find food, cause when you go deeper into the jungle, you go into areas where there's more game and more opportunities to forage nuts, berries, mushrooms, you know, so it's really, really cool.
[00:27:25] Mizter Rad: So did you go on this journeys as well, yourself? No,
[00:27:28] David Good: not, not Wayumis. I mean, I've trekked between different...
[00:27:30] Mizter Rad: what is "Wayumi"?
[00:27:32] David Good: a wayumi is that extended trek through the garden when the Yanomami community will abandon their village and go on this extended trek through the jungle to uh, for various reasons.
[00:27:42] Mizter Rad: I understand. And, okay, so you said they eat plantains, that's maybe the main thing of their diet. Is that correct?
[00:27:50] David Good: Yeah. So one thing I need to note is that, you know, my characterization of What the Yanomami eat and how they behave and their structure is, is, you know, it's based on my experience of my family.
Right. So we need to understand that the Yanomami have varying levels of cultural differences depending on what country they're in. Brazil versus Venezuela. Also, their geography, Padima Highlands versus the Oroonoko, uh, versus this, you know, the plains. And also the, the level of integration with the nation state.
So, the Yanomami of my family, I would consider minimally Impacting because there's so deep and so remote. So they've retained and engage in much of their traditional behaviors. Whereas the Yanomami that live near La Esmeralda or perhaps near, um, Christian mission will have more access to the influences of the outside world.
And that means some of them learn how to read and write in Spanish. Some of them purchase food and goods from the merchants in the markets and some of them have motors, their mobility is different. So I just wanted, the point I'm trying to make is that I can't ride and what my experience is, is absolutely the same through all of Yanomami.
[00:28:59] Mizter Rad: Right. Okay. No, but let's talk about your family, your, your man, the part of you know, that part of your experience. So their main food source is plant based.
[00:29:08] David Good: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:11] Mizter Rad: Okay. And how often do they eat in general? Like how many meals do they have per day, for example?
[00:29:16] David Good: Yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing I learned is there are no meals.
There are no meals. Oh, good. Actually, you don't even just, you don't eat when you're hungry. Sorry, that's actually a Western thing. You eat when there's food. That's the, yeah,
[00:29:28] Mizter Rad: you eat when there's food. Okay, and so how often, in your experience, how often is there food? Yeah.
[00:29:33] David Good: So, um, yeah, there's no meals like breakfast, lunch, dinner, but there's always food at some point.
And sometimes it can be just a few plantains and a crab. Other times someone can come home with a crab. Yeah. Freshwater crabs. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. The women loves, yeah, that's what kind of like, um, what the women do. They like to go out to the nearby creeks and underneath these big rocks or these freshwater crabs.
Yeah. Nice.
[00:29:57] Mizter Rad: And do they cook them? All right.
[00:29:58] David Good: Yeah. Yeah. We cook them. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Or sometimes, um, Hunter will bring back an anaconda or maybe capybara or peccary or maybe a logi. Um, Oh, wow. Maybe the fishing that day is real good. We brought back 20 piranhas, or maybe we only brought back two little tiny fish, or maybe a nice big catfish.
It all depends, right, on the nature of ours.
[00:30:20] Mizter Rad: But would you say it's more vegetarian than meat based, or is it half half, or what would be your
[00:30:26] David Good: Yeah, no, it's interesting. So we're opportunistic foragers and hunter gatherers, so someone could come home at two in the morning.
And you don't wait till breakfast time to eat. You get out of your hammock and you eat, you eat.
[00:30:38] Mizter Rad: Are they sleeping at 2 in the morning? That's the question.
[00:30:41] David Good: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're sleeping. But you know, sometimes hunters will come back, you know, they can come back at any time. So when they come back, you've reaped the bounty for sure.
So I would say I would characterize their diet as high in fiber and resistant starches. Right. So they eat the green plantains. So when they eat plantains, for the most part, it's green. And when it's green, it's not, it hasn't ripened to become that sweet, simple sugar, right? Like a banana, like a ripe banana.
So the, the green plantain is still considered a resistant starch. And what that means is that the complex carbohydrates that make up the banana are resistant to digestion in the small colon, I'm sorry, the small intestine. So a lot of that molecules, the complex carbohydrate molecules reach the distal colon.
And, and sometimes those complex carbohydrates can behave or be metabolized similar to that of fiber. So I think it's safe to say high fiber, high resistant starch diet. But they also are opportunistic forages. So, um, there could be times where they eat a lot of mushrooms, mushrooms as a lot of other different kinds of complex carbohydrates, like height, and also their seasonality to their fruits.
So palm fruits, right? Like edibeshi, um, uh, Moriche, I think in, yeah, in Venezuela. Uh, Moriche, I never, Yeah. Yeah. It's a, a palm fruit. And, um, cause those are often harvested at different times of the year. And then, maybe, uh, we eat grub worms, caterpillars, termites. So, um,
[00:32:07] Mizter Rad: interesting. Yeah. So, so how do they prepare?
Like, okay. So I understand most of it is cooked, right? Like the, the veggies, the planters, they, they cook them in water. They put them in a, they have a pan and they put them in water. They boil it. Sometimes they set a fire or
[00:32:23] David Good: more often they, uh, in a fire, they, they, um, so you have this bed of coals, right?
Uh, in ambergris within the fire. So we take off the green peel and you just put the plantain on the coal. So you roast them over the fire. I found that's the most common way to cook them.
[00:32:38] Mizter Rad: How about the fish? How do you, how do you guys prepare the fish, for example, or the Anaconda?
[00:32:44] David Good: Yeah. So oftentimes, that kind of meat is, is wrapped in, in, in plantain leaves or banana leaves and you put that where the coals of the fire and you roast them that way.
[00:32:54] Mizter Rad: Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. You said that there's no really like meals and they, they, when there's food. How much do they eat?
When there is food? Do they eat until they're like completely full or, uh, do you feel like they stop before they're full?
[00:33:08] David Good: Or what's your feeling here? Yeah. Yeah. Well, man, Bo money could eat. I've never seen someone eat so much like the Yanomami . So, um, and uh, yeah, I mean, you know, I just wanna get full for sure.
And how much is eaten, it also depends on how much food is available and they want to make sure it gets shared with your family and other members of the community and it's a little bit of a feast or famine, right, mentality. So, you know, there's,
[00:33:36] Mizter Rad: there's a, there's a, it's a, it's a happy moment, it's a moment of celebration.
[00:33:40] David Good: Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's so cool. It's like, you know, you're, you know, it's funny here in this culture, we eating rather than go or. Eating is so, gosh, it's so, are
[00:33:51] Mizter Rad: you watching TV and you're just eating? You don't even know what you're eating.
[00:33:54] David Good: You're not connected. You know, you're not, you have to think, you know, the food that the Yanomami eat, they, they're so intimately connected with that particular animal or that crop, right.
Um, in a very spiritual way. And because that spiritual connection is shared among the community when you eat, you know, with the Yanomami, you're very connected to the food, to the rainforest. I'm not really thinking consciously like, Oh, today I feel so connected to the Amazon.
It's sort of like part of their everyday understanding of who they are as a people and their connection to, you know, their community. And, you know, last time I ate a cheeseburger, I don't think I found any spiritual connection to it, so, um,
[00:34:36] Mizter Rad: Absolutely. Yeah. No, absolutely, and do, do, do they have any kind of ritual before they start eating, or is it just like,
[00:34:42] David Good: No, no, yeah, no, no, it's just, yeah, yeah, and, and, you know, and so, and sometimes the men or whoever would talk about when it was like hunting this animal, or while I was like fishing, or whatever, And sometimes, you get an opportunity to share your food with other people, which I think kind of helps create that deep, you know, social cohesion among the Yanomami.
[00:35:01] Mizter Rad: What would you say about sort of like the typical fiber, protein, carb intake per day. If you would have to divide those in those three categories.
[00:35:12] David Good: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's really hard to say, cause it really all depends, but, cause the Yanomami, you don't choose to eat what they eat.
It's what's available, right? However, we can, we can, confidently state that, you know, 80 similar to my father's research, right? Like 80 to 85 percent of their dietary intakes attributed to plantains. And, and based on my experience, I can certainly attest to that. What's really interesting about Yanomami culture is that it's taboo, absolutely taboo to eat just meat.
They can't eat just meat. So if you're given snake or if you're given, you know, monkey, Or whatever, you can't just eat it. It has to be accompanied by plantains or some kind of starch. Right. Which is really interesting because, you know, we argue that the American diet or Western diet or industrialized diet is made up of high fats, high protein, you know, and not enough fiber, low fiber.
Whereas the Yanomami diet is high fiber, in comparison to ours. So it's really interesting because they're doing their health, the great service, you know, uh, the benefit by eating plantains with meat. Cause, we know that fiber is very good for your health, keeping you healthy in, in your immune system.
[00:36:19] Mizter Rad: Do they drink a lot of water as well with those meals? Uh, what kind of drink do they consume?
[00:36:25] David Good: It's just water drinking water from the water from the river. Yeah.
[00:36:28] Mizter Rad: From the river. Okay. Okay. Let me jump on to, I would like to go back to this topic of foods and everything maybe in a bit, but I want to know how are their cleaning habits?
Are they always like concerned about cleaning their hands like we are in the modern world or are they more like easy going? How is that?
[00:36:47] David Good: Yeah, let's just, let's just say germ theory hasn't quite reached the Yanomami, you know. So what's interesting is that , so they don't engage in these traditions of using soap and yeah, like stripping away of your body of all these soap and oils and stuff.
And to the casual observer, they may look dirty, but I come to understand what does it mean to be clean, you know? And so they do go to the river every day, basically to bathe, to bathe and by bathing, they just kind of jump in, right? There's no soap or anything or, um, and they use it to cool off.
[00:37:21] David Good: But I, I've come to understand that their skin and their body is a unique interface between their biology and the environment. So they're completely immersed with their surrounding ecosystem and their body in terms of their hair and their skin reflects that surrounding ecosystem.
And to me that doesn't mean you're not clean to have dirt or microbes that are picked up from the surrounding ecosystem. To me, that's not unclean. In fact, I think in a way they're more clean than we are by not using soap.
[00:37:56] Mizter Rad: That's interesting. That's interesting. Tell me a bit more about their social community structure.
Do they have a leader? Are women and men like having the same roles? How did they structure their communities?
[00:38:15] David Good: Yeah, you know, some of them describe them as egalitarian like society. Some of them go as far as egalitarian, but it's not completely egalitarian, uh, because there are strict roles, right?
The men are the shamans, and the men chop the trees, but the women collect their firewood. It's egalitarian like, and so there are these kind of, you know, scripted gender roles, but it's not like it's, enforced or anything. And what I like about the Yanomami Society, which I found interesting, is that there is a headman, right?
Sort of a leader, right? I guess you can say. But he's not a leader in a sense that he was elected or that he kind of, you know, usurped power or anything. He's only a leader because the people like him. He may be a leader because he is a great shaman or he's a great hunter or he's very savvy and engaging with intervillage politics and making choices and decisions that benefit the community.
And also being a leader, he doesn't have any sort of extra perks, right? He still has to hunt. He still has to fish. He still has to take care of his family. If you walk upon, if you walk in the Yanomami village. And you look around, you would have no idea who the leader was or who they had met, you know, so that, and that's a little bit of that kind of political structure.
And, and each village is, it's own autonomous unit. So it's not like there's a consortium or a governing body that speaks on behalf of all the, all the Yanomami communities. So what's interesting is that every community is its own political unit, autonomous unit, and they engage with other Yanomami villages as other autonomous units and they can engage in warfare. They can engage in political alliances. They can, you know, so on. So, um...
[00:39:48] Mizter Rad: they have their own democracy.
[00:39:49] David Good: Yeah. Democracy in a way, in a sense where, every community is it's on, you know, makes their own decisions on their own behalf.
They can't really make ranks. It's on other communities behalf.
[00:39:58] Mizter Rad: When it comes to their, their population, do you have numbers on whether the population is declining or growing?
[00:40:05] David Good: Things growing, um, at least from the numbers that I've read. Yeah. Confactoring in Venezuelan and Brazilian numbers, years ago, I thought it was at 30, 000. Now people are putting at 40, 000. And obviously with increased, satellite technology and the ability to conduct census and field work as that improves and gets better and more accessible, we'll have a better idea.
But as far as a population, but Yanomami village, that can range anywhere from, I seen it as low as 20 to 25 to well up to 200. And then there's our, there's some very unique, very, very unique, outliers that have 800, a thousand, you know, in there. Okay.
[00:40:44] Mizter Rad: Yeah. Those are quite big then. How old do they live in general?
I mean, I know that it's, it's hard to know. But have you ever questioned that and have you ever tried to understand that?
[00:40:56] David Good: Of course, as a, as a scientist, as a biologist , that looks at the effect of their microbiome and their health, lifespan is also a factor in that. And what I've been thinking about is like, okay, well, what is their lifespan as a Yanomami that has access to Western foods? And then what is the lifespan of a Yanomami that, like my family that lives deep in the jungle , that still lives the traditional kind of way of life. And, uh, so it's hard to say because there's no, there's no ages. There's no death records or birth certificates or anything.
And you can refer to a Canadian demographer, John Peters, who did some work with the Shidiana, which is a subgroup of the YanomamI. But, you know, I don't know how much, how relevant that data is today. So, I've seen elders that could be in their 60s. There's some communities that, their lifespan is 50. It's very, very dynamic.
So, I just don't want to speak out of turn because I, I just don't.
[00:41:54] Mizter Rad: Can you measure their biological age somehow with tests and biomarkers and stuff like that?
[00:42:01] David Good: Good question. Yeah, I know you can measure their biological age, taking what forensics does, you know, when trying to take someone, in terms of their, their teeth, I suppose.
There are some anatomical ways to measure the age of, you know, a child. But also these are estimates, but I don't really know if there's a way to differentiate between someone who's 60 or 55, 65 or 57 or 63, you know. Right. But
[00:42:25] Mizter Rad: I think I know a little bit, tiny bit more about the Yanomamis now and
now I would like to jump on your work with the microbiome and what you guys are doing with the Yanomami Foundation, specifically related to studying the microbiome, the gut microbiome from the Yanomami people.
[00:42:44] David Good: Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
[00:42:46] Mizter Rad: And I want to know, I want to know exactly, David. Why is it important to have a, just to begin with, why is it important in your opinion to have a diverse microbiome?
[00:42:58] David Good: Yeah, so, microbiome research, we're just, we're just kind of scratching the surface, right? And understanding the interaction between these microbes and our human health and immune system. And how that plays in our development of the immune system from birth. And the argument that's made is that we have lost, by we I mean like Western industrialized societies.
Societies that are characterized as being, , uh, uh, populations that have used or overused antibiotics, eat processed foods, very low fiber, high fat, high protein, high sugar, sedentary lifestyles, extreme sanitation practices, pollution. Okay. Sorry. The list goes on it. Let's just say that this has all, uh, in one way or another, in some form or another, has affected our health.
And more specifically, we've wa realized that there's been, a reduction of, of microbial diversity within our microbiome. And the microbiome is a collection of all the microbes and their, and their genes and microbes include bacteria, viruses, fungi, and even some, small cellular organisms like produce and so on.
That live in and on our body and, and speaking specifically to bacteria and the gut, you know, a lot of these microbes have co evolved with us and to the point where they need, you know, a human host to live. And we also need them to help us live, healthy lives. So by losing perhaps some of these very kind of important microbes we are now seeing a correlation with the rise of chronic inflammatory diseases, autoimmune disorders , GI issues, and we believe that by losing a lot of these microbes and seeing a massive reduction in microbial diversity, we've lost our ancient allies that played an important role in keeping us healthy.
So, in a broad, broad stroke, we argue that diversity is what builds resilience and that goes with the Amazon ecosystem and the ecosystem within our gut.
[00:44:54] Mizter Rad: And so first of all, I want to ask why, why are you focused on the gut? Because I understand that microbiomes, they exist in different parts of your body.
You're probably also everywhere. Basically you have bacteria on the skin, in your eye. In your ear,
but why the gut?
[00:45:13] David Good: Yeah, well, you know, the gut contains trillions upon trillions. There's more microbes in the gut than any other location or body site. And I guess we can argue, that in the gut, there's nothing more active in terms of your immune system than, than the gut, right?
So there's more, more nerve endings in the gut than I think in your central nervous system. And then that goes along with even sort of the traditional sayings that you'd hear like the gut is like the second brain or the gut brain acts and so on and so on. So the gut plays a very, very important role and not, I'm not diminishing the roles of the body size.
But the reason why I focus on the gut is because I believe, if you look at the numbers, a lot of the chronic inflammatory disorders and autoimmune disorders can be tied to the gut. And we're not talking about, little things. We're talking about, disorders that really compromise quality of life.
And, to the point where you see, food allergies related to the gut. You see, chronic inflammatory conditions like Crohn's disease or MS, which can be late to the gut, you know. So, um, anyway, it's just because it's kind of like the tropical, it's like the tropical rainforest of the human body.
[00:46:28] Mizter Rad: Interesting. That's an interesting analogy. And,
um,
so I find, I find very interesting that you say that there's a lot of nerves ending in the gut. And that makes me think that maybe, or at least probably, and there's, I think there's a lot of studies around this as well, that the gut is affected not only by the foods that we eat, but also the kind of feelings we have and how those feelings affect the nervous system.
Would you agree with that? If yes, what have you learned from kind of society that the Yanomami live in, in terms of their feelings or their fears, if there is any fears and how do you think that would affect their gut?
[00:47:16] David Good: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and feelings and fears, I think, you know, are social constructs and, but I, I follow you.
In the gut brain axis, right? Not really in my area, but you know, the research has shown that, there's little immune cells that are constantly sampling , the bacteria that are in the gut and, and the type of bacteria or type of the byproducts that bacteria are producing can enter, the immune system or can enter the bloodstream and some of those molecules materials can actually reach the brain.
And depending on the type of molecule, it could actually, you know, cause a particular, effect on yours, on your behavior. And while this is early research and it's all correlation, but you know, as we advance and develop better tools and better methods of, of linking our data to, you know, cause and effect. You find those that suffer from depression, for example, um, deep depression, or Down syndrome, or, or, uh, ADD, you know, for example, these are just some examples from my research from what I've read. You, you sample their gut, and they actually have a very different microbiome profile than individuals that don't suffer from depression.
And a lot, a lot of times it's often marked by lower, diversity. So it's really interesting, right? The gut plays an important role in your immune system, but also plays a very important role in the gut brain axons because of that very, unique and special highway between the brain and the gut.
And so, I mean, this is a stretch, but I mean, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna actually make a statement that I'm tying this to their microbiome. But when I live among the Yanomami, and I remember the stories my father told me, what you see among the Yanomami is you see This really, you see happiness, you don't see abject loneliness, you don't see depression, you don't see PTSD, you don't see any of these things, these mental conditions afflict Western society, industrialized society, and, you know, suicide is just unfathomable to them, and, and here it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's an alarming rate, you know, very sad how many Individuals will take their lives here and young people too.
So that can be attributed to their special, social structure. But maybe research can show that food is medicine and it can play an important role in keeping them healthy, not only biologically, but psychologically as well.
[00:49:43] Mizter Rad: But what, so I'm trying to understand something here. Do you think a food affects the gut and then the gut affects the mood?
Or do you think the other way around? Do you think the mood affects the gut? And then the gut sort of lays the base on whether foods pump in well into your body or not? You know what I mean?
[00:50:06] David Good: Very important question. And that's, that's a question that we're trying to answer every day.
Like a chicken or the egg, right? So, you know, someone with colitis, right? Did the colitis Cause the, cause the inflammatory conditions within the colon and thereby affecting the, the profile of the microbiome. Or was it the profile of the microbiome that caused the colitis? and there are certain variables and factors, right?
Where eating, you know, a poor diet, I guess we could say, contributes to inflammatory conditions, right? But we can't, you know, correlation does not lead to causation. And that's what we're doing in our research, you know. It's a very important question, but, so there's
[00:50:48] Mizter Rad: your research No, go ahead. Sorry.
[00:50:51] David Good: You don't mind me saying is that, you know, a lot of our research and our data reference points, you know, includes people from a very limited, you know, the scope of the data Right.
Is very limited because it comes from a very limited range of populations. So most of microbiome research contains data derived from populations that are from Europe or United States or Canada. So we start, using that as a baseline and you start recognizing that these societies, right, with their poor diet and all the other factors, right, that affect the microbiome.
How can that be a proper model? How can that be a proper reference point? So how can it if if because how can that be representative of what a healthy microbiome is? So what can we say is healthy or unhealthy if our reference point is very limited, very, you know, not representative. So scientists and researchers are saying, okay, well, how can we, how can we find a, quote unquote, as we say, a wild type microbiome?
And that's what makes the Yanomami so unique, you know, in that perhaps they may represent one of the world's last populations that could have a microbiome. That is largely intact. What I mean by intact, that is a continuation for the most part of the longstanding co-evolution between their, their, their microbes and the surrounding ecosystem.
Whereas we have disrupted that very much so Western society and as why tell, that's why it's important. What the study, the .
[00:52:24] Mizter Rad: Okay. Understand. But tell me something. When you study the microbiome of the Y, like how big is the sample?
[00:52:34] David Good: So the, so let's just say the gut, right? Uh, and because there's different, bigger ways.
And so to really truly know the gut microbiome, the best way is to do a biopsy, right? But obviously we're not gonna go into the lar start biopsy. It's invasive. Well just not, it's just not practical, right? Yeah, that would be tricky. But the best way to get represented like a bio. comes from their feces, so we collect skull samples, um, and uh, and that's really funny because, you know, in my team village, they just, as I, as we try to explain research, and this is something new to them, right, as well, and we're trying to explain to them, in the best of our ability, to why this research is important, and what it means to, not only scientific community, but can help us understand health, you know, Rungling and Olami, and of course, I can take it a step further, where, you know, they're biological Brazilians, and You know, and who they are is healthy and happy and strong people is a very important thing to protect.
And, you know, so science can help, help spread that message. But still, nevertheless, they see me as this like crazy alcohol that comes into the village and says, okay, everyone's really good to see you. I love you. And I miss you, but it's okay if I can get a stills hit for penance. It's definitely. Yeah.
[00:53:57] Mizter Rad: So how, so how does that work?
Take us through the, through that journey.
[00:54:01] David Good: Yeah. Well, I have to be honest with you. This is unprecedented in doing this type of research. And, and, and let, and let's face the facts, you know, prior scientists, prior researchers have, have less left us with a very checkered history than, uh, with biopiracy exploitation, unethical research, um, you know, uh, look at, uh, the darkness and El Dorado controversy.
And that could, that would certainly give you more insights on what I mean. To come in as a scientist, as a researcher, you're already coming in with a very meaningful lot of baggage. So,
[00:54:35] Mizter Rad: but wait, wait, wait, just, just briefly explain people. What is that? The darkness of El Dorado? What, what is that?
[00:54:42] David Good: It's just the, the, the, the effects of scientific, well, the effect of researchers and outsiders have had on the Yanomami, ranging from, you know, geneticists to anthropologists and whatnot.
And how, in the name of research, how they've exploited the Yanomami or have not, um, provided, you know, meaningful, you know, benefit share to the Yanomami. So let's just say scientists would come in, parachute science, collect samples, and they would publish, right? And through their publications, they would, they advance their careers.
They increase their salaries. They get more well known. Let's just say they benefit. Let's just put it that way. But the benefit has not exactly reached, you know, has not been proportional and it's not been shared in, in a very fair way.
[00:55:29] Mizter Rad: And are they aware of this? Are they aware of this?
[00:55:32] David Good: They've become more and more increasingly aware.
Yeah. And, and especially since the Yanomami face very difficult challenges today from, you know, anywhere from like climate change, deforestation, evasion of legal goldmine or spreads of disease. And they need help and they need support, but you can't. You know, you can't fight these things unless you have some kind of economic, you know, engine to help power them.
But then they see scientists and biologists and researchers and they have a hard time understanding how does research benefit us? We give you, you know, the Yanomami are co producers of knowledge. And because they're co producers of knowledge, they're not being granted the right recognition, nor are they being granted, you know, equal benefit share when it comes to, uh, research.
It used to be, I think, you know, scientists feel that they're on the right side of history by saying, look, we're just here to collect, collect data, we're just publishing, we're going to release all the data. You know, we have the IRB, we have your consent, we can wipe our hands clean and then, you know, we're on the right side of things.
But I argue that's not the case anymore. You can't just come in and say, hey, I'm just a researcher. All I want to do is publish. And feel like, you know, you're doing the right thing because that in of itself adds exploitation, you know, that's biopiracy. And so, you know, we want to do research in a way in which the Yadomami are research participants, you know, the research partners, you know, they are granting us knowledge, they are granting us their biological legacy access, you know, and their, and their, and their microbiome.
Right? And something that we scientists really want to study is a result of thousands of years.
[00:57:15] Mizter Rad: Right. They've built it up, right? You cannot just go there and steal information without, um, sort of compensating that work of generations.
[00:57:26] David Good: Absolutely. Yeah, sure. They don't know how to extract DNA and sequence, you know, DNA and analyze and develop R blocks and things like that.
But I feel like that's the easy work. They've done all of the hard work. They are equal research partners. And that's,
[00:57:43] Mizter Rad: but do they have, sorry, tell me something. Do they have any sense for commerce or sort of valuing that asset. Do they know that that's an asset for them? And do they know that they can sell it?
Do they have, do they have sort of capital?
[00:57:59] David Good: I, I
[00:57:59] Mizter Rad: imagine the answer is no capitalistic mentality, or are they, are they changing with the years?
[00:58:06] David Good: Well, yeah. So again, this all depends on which community you're speaking to, right? I'm talking about your community, your experience. Sure. Sure. Yeah. So I, I would say no money has never been.
Money is useless in that village, you know, what's, what is money to them? This doesn't, it holds no currency, but at the same time, there is a potential economic value that can be derived from our research. And I argue that we have a very important responsibility to be stewards, good stewards of this research, to not only do we need to do everything we can to conduct best possible science, but to ensure that any economic And it's, it's derived from research goes back to the Yanomami community.
So my family, you know, give them a million dollars.
[00:58:58] Mizter Rad: They don't, they have no idea what to do with it. I wanted David for you to take us through. So let's go back through the process of taking the samples. You telling me how big those samples are and what do you compare those samples to?
And then what do you do with the samples and how do you, in the end, finance that work? Because I guess you take the samples for research and, and then how do you finance that research and how do you want to bring back sort of like, what's that return on that investment that you make?
How do you refinance the projects that you have for your foundation?
[00:59:41] David Good: So one thing to recognize is that the foundation is actually not conducting research. We are a international multidisciplinary team. Institutions like EVIC, the flagship research institute in Venezuela. We team, you know, with various, uh, universities in the U.
S. Uh, my university, at University of Guelph in Canada. So the foundation is a supporter of this research and helps facilitate it, putting together a team so that we can carry out expeditions to Yanomami territory to achieve certain goals and projects. Does include biocultural research, microbiome research, but other projects too, like education projects or health and so on.
So I just wanted to make that clear. It's not like, we are the only actor in this research. So we collect samples, stool samples, right? And, and what's hard about stool samples is that in order to, uh, um, not only study the gut wicked biome, but we need to culture them, right? And to grow the microbes and, and, and to really understand them.
And so in order to grow the microbes, uh, you need to preserve it. In order to preserve it, you need to keep those samples cool. Preferably, you would want to freeze them, but bringing a freezer or nitrogen tanks to that little area in the Amazon is just not practical. So I've kind of developed my own microbiome, where I have solar panels and batteries and a refrigerator to help keep the samples cool.
So then I transport them to a point where I can freeze them in a, in a negative 80 degrees Celsius freezer, which helps preserve the microbe. And then those microbes, uh, then that still samples can get back to my lab in Canada. Now, the financing comes from all directions, you know, universities, it can come from, you know, grants.
Now the foundation itself will fundraise to help, so, you know, crowdfunding. We even apply for grants, even through like, for example, the Explorers Club and sponsorships, you know, for example, through Dakotia Lithium, who has sponsored us some, heavy duty batteries to be able to carry out our research.
So it's really, what I love about this research is there's so many multidisciplinary, you know, so many people involved, to help materialize this research. And then I also have, through the foundation, a partnership, right? Partnership through, uh, about, uh, a biotech company, uh, called Weiss Bioscience.
And what they do is, uh, not only do they help finance, provide funding to be able to do the expedition, but, as good stewards of the, uh, microbiome research, they have also helped, uh, provide funding so that, help, you know, so one year, for example, they funded for 3, 000 mosquito nets for high risk.
And, uh, in communities for malaria, you know, their job, and I see as, and their role, uh, in this big network of individuals and institutions that are involved in this research is that if they can find any economic benefit or value to our research, there's a contract where we don't, it's, it's a legally binding contract that they will provide revenue share to the foundation to help us do our good work.
[01:02:41] Mizter Rad: Okay, that's interesting. You lopped them
[01:02:44] David Good: in like that. Yeah, so it's a long winded answer. No, no, that's clear. Yeah, yeah. So what I'm trying to do is be good stewards because I think we have a responsibility to do good ethical research, but we also have a responsibility to ensure that any developments of these samples, and especially any monetary benefit derived from these samples as a result of that, it goes back to the Yanomami. Whereas before, I argued that by simply doing research and just publishing your data and releasing it to the world, while it's legal, I just don't think it's the most ethical thing because anyone can access it. And anyone can benefit from it, but that doesn't mean they have to get back to the Yanomami.
And that's the idea by Stuart. Right.
[01:03:34] Mizter Rad: Okay, but you haven't told me how big the samples are.
[01:03:37] David Good: Oh, I'm sorry. What? More or less. Depends on the Depends on the size of their belt, I guess. I can't tell if
[01:03:45] Mizter Rad: it's a ship. No, no, I'm getting a sample in terms of people. Like, how many people have you sampled?
[01:03:50] David Good: I'm sorry, I misinterpreted it.
Um, yeah, well, that's the lim the sampling, um, side, or the, um, the number of samples is limited to how many that can fit in the fridge. So, um, I've found in one expedition able to collect about anywhere from 20 to 30 individuals. I just recently got back from a research expedition in Brazil and I was able to collect 35 samples.
Um, yeah, I mean, community, uh,
[01:04:21] Mizter Rad: is, is the goal to collect many, many more? Or what are you trying to do in that sense?
[01:04:26] David Good: Oh, yeah. You know, so I, I, I see this as a perspective from a scientist, but also as a yellow money, you know, and it would be an injustice if we make this very difficult, long journey to only collect a few samples and a few.
The more samples you have, the better data you have, the better research you can have, the stronger your research is. So obviously, I think, you know, it behooves us to collect as many samples as possible. My goal someday is to study longitudinally, um, the microbiome, uh, individuals from the community. Now, what that means is studying their microbiome when they're born and when they're one years old, five years old, 20 years old.
Um, to really get a good understanding, you know, the development of WackerPi. Hmm.
[01:05:13] Mizter Rad: Do they, are they, do they collaborate with you? Do they understand what you're doing at this point already?
[01:05:19] David Good: So good, good point. You know, when having these discussions with the online communities, uh, especially, uh, You know, with the backdrop of all the controversy, the bad things that have happened to them done by some, I found that there's three, three main points.
One first main point that always happens, how does this research benefit us? That's the first thing, because they know it benefits you, right? And for us to say, Oh, well, you know, this research is going to benefit all of humanity, that's a bunch of crap, right? Because humanity in New York city, it's very different humanity.
The jungle of the episode. So, uh, so they want to know that. So we, we argued that microbiome research is more than just do no harm. You have to do good at the same time. And that is really where the Yanomami Foundation kind of comes in and helps facilitate that, right? We've delivered on there. So we installed solar panels in areas where they needed it.
We, you know, we were able to coordinate, you know, um, health teams to be able to provide much needed medicines to high impact, high risk communities. Right. So that is something I think, you know, and don't get me wrong. I don't have, I don't, I'm not saying it's perfect, but what I'm trying to do is start the process to right the wrongs.
Okay, so that's point one. Point two is that the yellow money, they want to be involved in research. You're actually really, really interested, really, you know, engaged. And they said that, you know, they don't like the idea of somebody just coming in for two weeks and then leaving it. They never see them again.
It just feels like they've been, they've been just dismissed. They've been objectified, right? As a, who they are, you know, a source, a source, a source of samples. They want to learn. They want to know. They, they even ask, Hey, can you please do your research here in the jungle? No, so they're curious. They're curious.
You know, they want to be included in what they want to know this process. And they have a right to, and we should, we should actually foster that curious. Obviously, I can't bring a negative 80 freezer and DNA sequencers, but, you know, I tell them that, you know, that we won't, you know, this won't be the last time you'll see us.
We'll come back. We'll share our results. We promise to give you updates. And the idea is that they, it's not that, you know, they want to control, they want to foster relationships. And that's more important, you know, is fostering relationships and, and building trust. Do you train someone
[01:07:53] Mizter Rad: that is part of the Yanomami family that lives there constantly to help you out in your research as
[01:08:00] David Good: well?
Yeah, it's not, you know, obviously we've, we've, we've done many, you know, um, samples from many different communities, but yeah, we, we, we actually have, you know, we always find one or two, you know, individuals that are just there with you all day, every day, you know, and it's so interesting and they help, you know, our research could not, it could not work if they weren't for their help and their support.
Okay. So
[01:08:22] Mizter Rad: now you do your research, you collect your samples, you take them to Canada, you study them. Now you have some results. What's next? What do you, what do you do next? Like, you tell them, like, you go back to the community, you share with them what you found. What did you find so far?
[01:08:39] David Good: Yeah, well, yeah, so far, well, I mean, what we're finding is, um, It's like you're exploring a new ecosystem where you're seeing all these things for the first time, you know, like, like if you can imagine an explorer going, you know, well, let's say someone from Philadelphia going to the Amazon for the first time, you're seeing plants that you've never seen before, birds that you've never seen before, animals, fish, you know, all kinds of flora and fauna that you've never seen before.
And, and, and so you can look at these things isolated in a very individual way. But what's important is what's the interaction? What's, what is this system? You know, understanding what is their role in this entire system. And that's similar to what we're finding in the animal we got like the fire. Like seeing all kinds of new bugs or bugs meaning bacteria and strains.
we're seeing diversity levels, you know, they're very different from what we see in Western society. And lots of times, we see these strains that are very rare, we call them vanished microbes, you know, microbes that have vanished in Western societies, but these are not more than just vanished, but they, you know, play an important role for keeping you healthy and helping you.
[01:09:49] Mizter Rad: Are these, are these, are these bugs or this bacteria, have they been found before by someone or are you guys the first ones seeing them?
[01:10:00] David Good: Yeah, so a lot of them have been found before and you can, you can find similar you know, genus, I guess you can say, if you think of the categorization of classifying organisms, so, you know, we see similar genus between, let's say, for example, the Yanomami and the Hatsa people, um, or other indigenous groups in the Amazon, and we see similar species as well.
However, There are not two, not every species are the same. You can have the same genus species in the YA Monte in the hot cell, but they're not entirely the same. They, because these particular species have specifically evolved within this ecosystem, with this particular individual. So you have strain levels, so I guess you can say strain levels.
And so, yeah, we're seeing all kinds of cool strain levels. Um, and also we are seeing as of now, very, very, this is very preliminary data, but even new species described.
[01:10:54] Mizter Rad: That's super interesting. So I'm thinking from, from a business, because you mentioned that, of course, ideally whatever returns you get from your research or your partners get from the research you're doing.
And part of that will get invested into improving the lives of the communities and helping them with whatever they need. And I'm thinking some of this bacteria that haven't been maybe found before replicable to be then inserted, let's say, in the gut of modern world citizens to test whether they have positive effects in our guts, let's say, is that, is that also part of the plan?
[01:11:41] David Good: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I feel like, you know, research, there's, there's ulterior motives, right? And, and, you know, we, we want to do good science, but we want to know how does this benefit humanity overall? How does this benefit society? And, and my, I mean, my particular goal is that if we can study, you know, the microbiome of the Yanomami people who are healthy and strong, um, and adult have any indications of chronic inflammatory, states that we have here.
And perhaps, research could help, benefit our people here who are suffering and help us understand. And what that looks like I don't know. I mean, again, I, I don't, I don't carry out this research with the, the goal of, you know, what was, was the thought of like, what is, how can I, what is the economic value of this research?
I just know that if there is economic value, we need to ensure that it goes back to money. But my goal is to understand human health and its relationship with micro. Now. One thing you need to understand is that these bacteria, you know, as in the yellow mummy gut have co evolved with the yellow mummy within that particular ecosystem and requires a particular diet because the bacteria need to eat too.
Well, what we need is what the bacteria eats. And if they survive on a high fiber diet, or high plantain diet, you know, if you take that particular bacteria and transplant that to someone in New York City, we don't know what's right. You know, right. Well, it would die out because the diet of a New Yorker is surely not the diet of a Yanomami and their ecosystem is surely not that of a Yanomami.
Secondarily, we need to be careful about this type of claims, you know, this idea of rewilding, right? So, that microbe in that very intimate relationship that it has with that Yanomami individual. Could be dangerous to a New Yorker, you put that in New Yorker, maybe this microbe will just bloom and take over the cut and now you have a new kind of you know, disease or disorder.
So I just want to say coming to very rip kind of oversimplifying how to use the research to benefit. It can be dangerous. However, if there's opportunities to where we can further dive into this research that could provide insights into benefiting and advancing. Or re establishing health and wellness in our society
what does that mean? Who knows? Maybe it's a probiotic. It could be a probiotic. It could be. Yeah. Or maybe it's not actually the bacteria itself. Maybe it's some kind of metabolite that the bacteria is producing that could benefit.
[01:14:11] Mizter Rad: Or some kind of lifestyle or some kind of diet.
[01:14:15] David Good: That's funny because, you know, we're always trying to find a magic pill, right?
But you can't just, you just can't put a Yanomami intrepidemum bacteria inside the New Yorker and say, okay, you're, you're going to be cured, you know, not that simple, right? Not that simple. Yeah. You must change the diet. You must change their lifestyle. Um, and, uh, it's easier said than done, right?
[01:14:37] Mizter Rad: Right, right, right.
When you, when you talk to them and explain them what you're doing and you tell them about the bacteria and the microbes that live within us. Do they understand that? Do they know that their, their bodies are full of microbes? Like, what do they think about that?
[01:14:55] David Good: Yeah, well, that's an ongoing dialogue, you're sure.
And I can't come up with a conclusive answer now because it's, it's a conversation, all I can say, it's a conversation that we've started. And, it's a conversation in which, you know, we kind of presents information, right? And now we need to understand how did they perceive that? How does that information, how is that reconciled within Yanomami ontology, right?
And their understanding their book. Do they reject, do they accept it, you know, or whatever. And obviously there are Yanomami individuals that do have an understanding. Those that have been trained as medics and those have been trained, you know, understanding, you know, and, and germ theory and Zs. But, you know, as far as like my family, I don't know.
It's an ongoing conversation. And that's what I love about this research, right? It's all about creating dialogue and fostering relationships. That's beautiful.
[01:15:49] Mizter Rad: Tell me something. If you were to choose three things, That you have learned from the Yanomamis that you think would help our human civilization as a whole to thrive in the years to come, in the decades to come, that you have, you know, 20 years, 30 years from now, what would be those three things?
[01:16:09] David Good: A thing of a lot. Um, and that's just based on personal experience based on your experience. Yeah. Yeah. Well.
[01:16:20] Mizter Rad: Like realistic things that we can like apply
[01:16:23] David Good: realistic, right? Because well, it's yeah, and I'm saying we should, we should all, you know, be naked and, and, and run into the forest and Where
[01:16:31] Mizter Rad: we could, but I think that's kind of complicated.
It is complicated. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:16:38] David Good: Well, you know, the Anomaly I have to help are such a resilient and happy people And, and you wonder, you know, who's the more advanced society, right? I mean, the animal only are just as a contemporary as a people as we are but they had done it without cell phones.
They've done it without technology . So it makes me think that they are so far more advanced . And I'm quoting a friend who just released a paper, like the idea of a Venezuelan, the idea of a Brazil, the idea, uh, they're, they're all just new experiments, you know, whereas the Yanomami have been societies there for thousands of years, you know?
And so they know the cycles of the rainforest, better than any other researcher scientist. I would argue, or at least I would contend that, wherever you are, wherever you live, try to get outside of your box and just go for a walk and park, go for a walk in the woods
and when you look at a tree, when you look at an animal, think of the cyclones, that particular animal or tree goes, and I, you'll feel more connected and by feeling more connected, the feel more given. I think so that, that that's, that's something that the young mummy has really alter my way of life, you know, being connected with the surrounding nature, I guess you could say, you know, yeah.
So the second thing is, the Yanomami, you know, they really are such jokesters. They can really make light of any situation. If there's anything that you could ask for, if you're left stranded, what you keep in the jungle is just the Yanomami.
Not because they know how to survive, but it's because they're There's, there's so resilient in facing such difficult situation and not that they are dismissive, but they can know how to make light heart you light of any challenges. Um, and like, for example, you know, when they, when someone dies in the community.
It's just very intense, emotional, ritual and everyone's crying, but by the next day, it's like collective amnesia , they wear their hearts on their sleeves.
So I would argue that try not to bottle things up and let yourself be human. And, and, and when bad things happen, challenging things happen, be angry, be sad or whatever. But don't bother your emotions and obviously that is a, it's a much more deeper significance to that and at our complex society, but.
[01:19:06] Mizter Rad: No, but that's a, that's an interesting point because I feel like we clinch to possessions that we have.
We, we don't, we don't let go.
[01:19:13] David Good: We don't, uh. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, a lot of it's structural, right? The way we're allowed to feel, the way we're allowed to behave is sometimes defined by, you know, structure, rigid structure of our society, you know, the way men are allowed to behave and feel, the way women are allowed to feel, and it's just, you know, wrong.
And you don't see those type of things among the other bodies . It's this, that's more of a, I guess, a social change, a call for a social change, I suppose, you know, we're living with. And I guess third, gee, the third one, the third one, you know, I'm guilty of this. And not that, you know, I, again, I could think of 10 other things, right?
But the one I'm thinking on the top of my head is, enjoy your food, . Don't try to watch TV or do your work. And, you know, when you're eating you know, first of all, try, do your best to try to, you know, find a lunch part, eat some, and really bond over the food, because that food is, more than just giving you calories. It's playing a very important role in, in your, in your microbiome, which in turn protects you, and, and one thing that I tell people is that whatever you eat, just know that you're feeding a very important organ, the gut microbiome.
And that organ will take care of you, but it can only take care of you if you take care of it. So, and I feel that food, right? Diet is more than just this object of sustenance, right? It's, it's a reflection of your culture. It's a reflection of your identity and culture where you are in a social species.
So food, I believe, should be done within a social context.
[01:20:45] Mizter Rad: That's super, that's super interesting. I think that's a very good point. And that's an easy, maybe for some people it's not that easy, but practical thing to do, to stop watching TV, stop looking at YouTube and just, focus, enjoy your food each time you chew.
David, it was a pleasure to have you. Is there anything else you want to share with people? Where can they find you? How can they support you?
[01:21:12] David Good: Yeah, absolutely. And I thank you a lot for having me. I feel like we could talk for three more hours, but I just hope that through this conversation, you know, we pique an interest of your listeners.
Um, you know, appreciation for who the Yanomami are, the diversity of human cultures, and you know, the Yanomami live in the Amazon rainforest, which is under threat. The threat of the Amazon threatens the stability of our planet. And so, if you're in New York City or Canada or Russia or wherever, everyone has a particular stake, in protecting the Amazon.
And who better to protect it than the Yanomami people. And so that is sort of what drives our mission. And if you, would like to learn a little bit more about why we're doing our work and what we support, you can visit yanomamifoundation. org. You can certainly make a donation there or reach out to us on our contact page.
We're always looking forward to the next trip. And what we learn, you know, what's special about these expeditions every time you visit the Yanomami and what we've learned from them, we're eager to share with the rest of the world.
[01:22:07] Mizter Rad: Beautiful. David. "Oshe", hermano, it was good. It was beautiful to have you here.
Thank you so much for your work. Thank you for spreading so many good news and I hope you succeed with your endeavors. It was an honor.
[01:22:24] David Good: Thank you.
[01:22:25] Mizter Rad: See you next time, man. Ciao, ciao.
