Draft for Publish on 2025-11-03

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Thanks for having me.

Yes.

Excited to be here.

Welcome to the show. I want to start off with a question which is around the food system in America. I am curious based on your research as a science based dietitian, is our American food system setting us up to be healthier or more sick currently as it's set up?

Yeah. So I always talk about this. You can set systems up in order to see the most people succeed or the most people fail. And our food system is set up very much so for the most people to fail.

Really?

Yeah.

Why is that? Why wouldn't the system be set up for us to succeed?

Let's define what we mean by succeed and fail. We mean health, right?

Be healthy. Yeah, yeah.

Not be the most profitable because it is set up for the most people to succeed financially. But if we're talking about our health, it's certainly set up for the most people to fail. And the reason is because we've built the entire system from the food we grow to the food we market and sell for profitability at the expense of health. Not necessarily to make people unhealthy. That's not really the goal. The goal is just like, meh. Well, it may or may not make you unhealthy. Right. That's not really our primary goal. Our primary goal is profitability.

From all of your research in the last few years, what have been some of the shocking stats you've seen around our health system or around chronic disease and the health system?

Yeah, I mean, so what got me into this field was chronic disease. So my grandpa was, you know, really close to me, lived a mile down the road and he was in his early to mid-60s and, you know, his early 60s and was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. And then in his mid-60s, he was snow blowing. We lived in Michigan and he had a heart attack and passed away. And I mean, that's quite young to die of a heart attack. And so it just really. And he was over £400 at that time. And when he got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, we were basically told, and I was a kid, so I don't exactly know what we were told, but this is what was relayed through telephone to me, that he just needed to decrease his sugar intake. And so what we did was we just kind of started buying anything we could find that was sugar free. You know, they had like sugar free candies and sugar free donuts and these. And we always thought, like, we were so excited anytime we'd see those, like in a grocery store, it's healthy. Yeah. And perfect for him. Like they were made for him. So they'll get him healthier. And obviously that's not what happened and that's not how that works. But I think that for me, that's what really got me interested in chronic disease. And, you know, when you look at the stats of chronic disease, over half of American adults right now are living with some sort of chronic health condition. Many are living with three, three or more chronic health conditions. Because a lot of times, like my grandpa, right. You have multiple. And if you look at what plays into chronic disease, I mean, you have to look at our food system, you have to look at physical activity, you have to look at all these different factors that impact people's chronic disease. And if you look at our food system, by Some estimates it's 70% ultra processed food. And we can talk about what ultra processed food actually means. And the definition of that, but the vast majority of those are low nutrient, ultra processed food. And they're built because they're shelf stable. We don't have a great local food system or we don't have great local food systems. And so we rely on these heavily prepackaged, ultra processed foods to kind of like feed the country. And again, all of that is kind of setting us up for a situation where over 90% of Americans don't meet vegetable intake guidelines, over 90% of Americans don't Meet fiber intake guidelines, over 50% of Americans eat too much added sugar. You know, so when you're looking at the dietary patterns of Americans, we're not eating the dietary patterns that are what evidence would recommend that we should be consuming to decrease risk of chronic disease. And it's the same with physical activity. If you look at physical activity levels, over 80% of Americans don't meet physical activity recommendations. Right. So you're kind of pairing those two things. People aren't meeting dietary recommendations, they're not meeting physical activity, and we're seeing record rates and growing rates of lifestyle related chronic disease.

Wow. What is the root cause then of chronic disease?

When I talk about it, I usually talk about it from a systems approach, right? So biologically there's root causes and that can be like insulin resistance and high blood sugar levels. And it depends if we're talking about cardiometabolic disease, which is what I predominantly study. But if we look at a system perspective, which is what I like to look at as the actual root cause, you have to look at our food system, right? You have to look at our, our built environment. You have to look at things that we call the social determinants of health, which are these non medical factors that directly impact people's health. So they're things like the built environment. So do people have sidewalks? Are there parks that people can go to? Because if you just build in physical activity, like think if you've ever gone to Europe, right, And you've been in a city in Europe, you're walking 20,000 steps or more, you don't even notice it. Yeah, it's just like, and obviously you're on vacation as well. But if you live in a city like you go to New York, you're walking everywhere, you know, and so because that's just built into your life. Whereas most of America is built very much for the automobile industry, Right? So for cars. And so we don't have a lot, most of our cities and towns are not very walkable and bikable. And so because of that our physical activity is lower. So trying to think about, like, how can you design these systems? Things like education, access. Because, you know, you have to help us from like a nutrition perspective, you have to start educating young about like, what are some of these good choices, how can I improve my fiber intake, you know, those sorts of things.

Sure.

So all of those from a systems perspective are like the root cause. Essentially it's building systems for profitability at the expense of people's health.

Now I hear all this, that there's systems in place that aren't maybe conducive for inspiring people to live healthier. But isn't it at the end of the day, all of our individual choice that we get up and we move and what we put in our mouth, you know, and how much we eat every single day. Like, obviously there's systems in place that gamify us of being lazier and eating more calories, which is going to cause more chronic illness. But what about just personal authority over ourselves and saying, I'm going to take command over what I eat and I'm going to take command over how much I move, rather than letting a system dictate what I can and can't do? And I understand it might be harder to do that, but why is that a struggle for so many people?

Yeah, I think it's a great question. I think that this is something that I think about a lot and I think that we all make individual choices within systems and so both are important. So you need individual choice is important, but the systems that surround them, I would argue are more important. And data would support me on that in that if you build a system for the most people to succeed, more people will succeed. Right. And if you build a system for the most people to fail, more people will fail. And so if we want to think about how do we improve the health of Americans, how do we improve the most Americans, not just the select few? You have to think from a systems perspective. So I'll give you an example. Individually, we might be working together, right? And we're going to talk about what are the best things nutritionally that we can do to optimize our own health, our personal health. And that's going to be things like increasing the amount of vegetables you're eating and fiber and decreasing low nutrient ultra processed foods. Right. And making sure you're waking up and getting hydrated every day and limiting alcohol and other drugs and things like that. Those are all going to be recommendations on a personal level, making sure you're meeting all of Your nutrient requirements, physical activity, you're going to make sure you're moving your body every day, make sure you're lifting weights a couple times a day, make sure you're getting cardio in, so stress your heart a little bit. And so all of those things on a personal level are very important. So you need to motivate somebody to be able to do that. Well, you also can design systems to help people to be able to do that. So if I'm building a food environment and it's 70% ultra processed food, mostly low nutrient ultra processed food, and then I'm telling you to make half your plate fruits and vegetables and meet your fiber intake guidelines, it's not that you can't do it, it's just that it makes it way more difficult. And so if you can build a system to make it less difficult, you're going to have more people succeed.

100%. I'm a, a fan of that. I mean, when you have the ability to, to order any food you want at a finger on a fingertip now and have something delivered to you, it's also hard because that system just makes it more convenient and easy. But one of the things that I try to do in my home with my wife is like, we just don't have sugary stuff. Because I know, that's my advice. Yeah, I know it's harder for me to say no if I just see it. So I just don't buy it. I don't have it, you know, in the, in the fridge or in the home to try to set up my environment to have more restrictions because otherwise I can get weak and I can be like, ah, let me go have some more of this and eat sugary things. It's definitely hard, but at the end of the day it's also my choice and decision. And so I try to set up the systems for myself personally and try to just make sure I'm not clicking a button on a phone to get quick calories. Yeah, but it's so convenient. So how do we override convenience and this kind of, I guess, habits that we have built over years because the system has made it so easy for us to access ultra processed foods. How do we override that?

Yeah, I mean, I think that we have to understand why the system is built for convenience first. So I always try to look at these root cause analyses. Right. So our system, I mean, and you can go all the way back to like World War II. So after World War II is when this idea of convenience really started growing and we started creating these convenience foods and people. You started having two working parents and so time was shorter and so you needed quicker things like you didn't have all of this time to prepare food from scratch. And that's only gotten worse in our society in the sense that a lot of people are working multiple jobs and they don't have the time and resources to be able to make food. Even if they can go buy. Even if a bag of beans is cheaper than canned beans. Canned beans are far more convenient than what it would take. I don't even know how long it would take to make beans.

I think 30, 60 minutes or something. It took a while.

And so it's almost like you can't fault people. Not that canned beans are a bad choice, they're a wonderful choice. That's kind of a bad example. But it's just the convenient option. Right. And so I think we have to understand why this convenience happens and then also work in ways like, okay, so we have these systems built up for people to be reliant on these convenience foods or this more convenient choices. How can we maybe switch it up to make that a bit more of a healthful choice and those types of things and kind of do with what we're working with? Because right now, I mean, yeah, the system is really set up and I keep going back to the system, but it really just is, it's set up for profitability, not necessarily for what's going to keep the people healthy.

I'm curious then, what are the science backed research that you've seen that can help people heal from the inside out?

Yeah, I mean we have great data on this. Like we have very consistent data on what is on nutrition science data, on physical activity data. Right. Like we just need to get people to adopt the behaviors. So the thing is, is that when I first started my PhD research, it was really in chronic disease prevention. And I wanted to see like what, what could we do? I wanted to answer the question you just asked, like, what could we really do to optimize someone's health and be able to get them to heal from the inside out. And what I found was we have very good data and it's been consistent over decades on the best way to do that and reduce risk of chronic disease? The problem is behavior change. The problem is getting people to adopt those behaviors. And that's actually what got me kind of interested in. So my research was really on these things we termed easily adaptable, so strategies to reduce risk of disease. Right. Like what's the minimum Viable thing we can get somebody to do that can significantly reduce their risk of disease. And so those were things like walking after a meal or taking fiber. We used like a fiber supplement, but it was just like trying to increase your fiber intake. But when you start to do that, you start to see, okay. It's the problem with like getting people to adopt the behaviors more than anything. It becomes impossible to not look at kind of like the systems that are intruding and making people or making it difficult for people to adopt the behavior.

But even if we had the perfect systems, say there was no cars and people had to bike or walk right everywhere, and they got 10,000 steps a day minimum. And they're hanging out with friends and family all day. And their relationships are rich because their friends and family live next to them and they see neighbors and they're in activities and the only thing they could eat is they have 80% options of healthy food choices. Right. When you go to the store and you have to make your meals and all these different things, would there still have to be a behavioral change around quick, easy convenience? I don't know. Sugar, like we're just still need to change a behavior even if the environment and the system was set up perfectly to succeed for optimal health?

Yeah, probably. I mean, we're hardwired to love sugar, for example, right? Like that's just like a biological thing. We love sugar. So like if you have like sugar available, right? Like we're kind of like, oh, we want some more sugar.

Sweet, sweet, sweet.

Yeah. And again, not that a little bit of sugar is not bad. It's the over consumption of anything that's the issue. But to your point, if we did have a system like that, there would be far more people who were adopting the behaviors that are recommended versus what we see now. And so we still would all of the personal recommendations and personal developments and all of that would still be important, but you would have more people able to succeed within those systems.

Are you from Michigan originally? Yeah, it's too bad. I'm from Ohio, but it's okay. Actually, I don't mind that much, but.

I'm not a Michigan fan though.

Okay, that's good.

Michigan State fan.

All right, there we go. We could agree on that. Michigan's actually a beautiful place, but every time, you know, I've been in LA for 13 years now and I lived in New York City before that for a couple years. But every time I go back to Ohio or St. Louis or the Midwest and I land at an airport in the Midwest, I almost am shocked of how bad it can be at times because I'm in a little bubble here in LA and I'm around people that are pretty active and fit and more, I would say, nutrition conscious and movement conscious here. But when I go back and I land at an airport, I just see a lot of the physical pain and struggle and chronic disease in front of my face in Midwest cities. Maybe it's just in airports, but it feels like it's in a lot of the country is struggling with obesity, with chronic disease, like you mentioned, and it really feels like there's a health crisis. Is that true or am I just making it up when I like land in these cities and I'm seeing everyday Americans walking around?

Yeah, no, there's absolutely. We're experiencing a lifestyle related chronic disease issue for sure. And we see that in rates of cardiometabolic disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, all these cardiometabolic conditions. We're seeing them continue to increase and there's been a bit of a leveling off. But that's because they're so high. The rates are so high.

What are the rates right now of obesity or type 2 diabetes in Americans? Do we know?

I don't know them off the top of my head, but I know that over 50% of Americans have some sort of chronic condition that is mostly lifestyle related chronic disease. Really? Yeah.

Now, does that mean they're on medication or they're just dealing with a chronic condition?

Those are diagnoses diagnosed, yeah. So they're dealing with a chronic condition. It doesn't necessarily mean they're on medication, but many of them are, whether it's a statin for high blood pressure or metformin for type 2 diabetes.

And Jessica, it sounds like a lot of these things can be preventable or reversed, is that correct?

Whether or not they can be reversed, I think is still to be understood. But many of them can be prevented in the sense of reducing risk and at least prolonging. Because we should be clear that chronic disease is a function of age. And so as we have an aging population, which we do, we're living longer. Right. And we're living longer and longer. You're going to see increased rates of chronic disease either way. But we have an acceleration that is something that we don't need to have. Right. So there's a little bit of it that's just a function of age, but most of it, especially in lifestyle related chronic disease, is a function of our environment and kind of our lifestyle factors. And particularly like people getting chronic diseases earlier and earlier in life, which is what we're starting to see because that.

Didn'T happen 50, 70 years ago, did it?

Not as much, Certainly not, no.

And the main cause of that is food related.

Yeah, lifestyle related. So food, exercise, movement, stress. But yeah, a lot of it has to do with food and our food environment.

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Well, there's so many. Louis. Sure.

Where are few then? What are a few? What are a few that come to mind in the last six to 12 months that you're just like, ah, this is just a myth, or this is just a fad, or this is, I don't know, this isn't going to last over the next couple years.

Yeah, I mean a couple of big ones. One would be having to do with sugar. So the difference in cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Right. This idea that high fructose corn syrup is kind of poisoning us. And that's the issue. And this is one of the things that I try to do is help people to understand first of all what the science actually says about this and second of all what the actual reason for high fructose corn syrup being so prevalent in our food is so that we can direct our energy to changing the food system instead of just like making a swap in like Coca Cola, for example. So the idea that high fructose corn Syrup is uniquely harmful to us is just not. It just is not validated in the research, really, because. Yeah, really, it's not.

So high fructose corn syrup is not harmful to us.

Not uniquely harmful, but it's just harmful. It's a processed sugar. Right. Just like cane sugar. Just like sucrose. If we over consume either one of those, it's going to be harmful.

Got it.

But it's not uniquely harmful.

It's just harmful. It's not even just directly harmful.

No, I mean, again, this is all about toxicity, right? It's all about dose. Right. So the dose makes the toxicity. And so if you over consume it, which most Americans over consume it.

So what is over consumption of high fructose corn syrup on a daily basis, or cane sugar or any type of sugar?

The recommendation is less than 10% of total calories should come from added sugar.

That's still a lot, isn't it?

It's still a lot. And most Americans, couple hundred calories a day.

Yeah. And they're doing way more than that, right?

Yeah. Well, more than that. I don't know the exact numbers, but yeah. And so let me just explain this point really fast because I think this gets confused. Cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup, they're both made out of glucose and fructose. So those are the two simple sugars. They combine and they make table sugar or high fructose corn syrup. The difference is that high fructose corn syrup is sugar made from corn, whereas cane sugar is sugar made from sugar cane or sugar beet. And so we. Because in America, and this is the part where we have to understand why high fructose corn syrup is used here so much, because I think there's a narrative out there that it's like we are intentionally poisoning Americans and that's why we use this. But it's not that. It's that we're supporting our farmers, right? Because we have, through our agricultural policies, made it very cheap to grow corn because corn's a commodity crop. And so we grow a lot of corn in the United States. We grow it really well, but we also incentivize our farmers to grow it and to grow tons of it. And we have done that since the 70s. And so because of that, we've also put quotas on our imports, on our sugar imports. So this is all like economic policy, Right. So we've put quotas on that to protect our farmers. And because of that, because we live in a capitalist economy where we are trying to maximize profit, again, not to make people sick, just at the expense of their health. That's not a value that is up there with profitability. Because of that, food manufacturers who are trying to maximize profits are trying to cut costs. They're trying to get cheaper ingredients. Well, the cheapest ingredient, because we've made it that way in the United States, is corn. For sugar, it's way more expensive to use sugar beets or sugar cane versus in other countries. It's actually like in Europe, it's cheaper to use sugar beets because they've actually, they put quotas on the amount of high fructose corn syrup they allowed in because they were trying to protect their sugar. Wheat growers.

Interesting.

So anyway, all of this goes back to. We have created this system where high fructose corn syrup is just abundant. So it's used in all of these ultra processed foods, mostly low nutrient ultra processed foods. And so because of that, it's kind of gotten a bad rap of like being uniquely harmful. But it's just a sugar source that is harmful if you over consume it. Just like any sugar.

Is there a sugar that's better than another type of sugar?

Well, high fructose corn syrups, like it's a very processed sugar. Just like sucrose is a table sugar, It's a very highly processed sugar. You have other sugars like honey and maple syrup, that they're still sugar. You still don't want to consume them in excess. But they have some redeeming qualities, they have some other nutrients in them. So if you're on the margins trying to figure out which one's better, like those are gonna be more nutrient dense, but again, you don't wanna over consume.

Any of them, but you still only want a little bit of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay. And the more you eat honeybee eat honey all day, you're gonna gain weight.

Yeah. If you over consume the calories your body needs of anything, you're gonna gain weight.

Exactly. Okay. So it's not like you're healthier by having sugar or by having honey as sugar versus table sugar.

I mean, on the margins, like if you really look at it, there's probably, there's more redeeming qualities of honey because it's less process. Yeah, it still has some nutrients in it.

Got it. Okay.

You know, the bees helped to.

They helped do something. Okay. I mean, that's like shelf life stable for like a thousand years or something, right? Honey. Doesn't it like never go bad or.

Yeah, I think so.

So it's the ultimate processed food. You know, it's like, true. Right. It's like it never goes bad. Should that be something.

I don't know, something in there.

Is there a way in which people can enjoy sugary foods and still live a healthy lifestyle?

Of course.

Tell me, tell me where they don't get addicted to the sugar somehow. And they don't. They don't, you know, only do it once a month.

Yeah, I think that. So sugar is. I mean, sugar basically is glucose. At the end of the day, it all gets broken down into glucose, so carbohydrates. So when we're talking about sugar, we're talking about, like, sweetened things. But, I mean, sugar is consumed all across the world quite abundantly. Right. And not. And in countries that have far less chronic disease than we do. So, again, it's about the amount that you consume. And again, this will be individual for people, too. Right. Some people may be like, I can't eat one of those cookies because I'll eat 12 of those cookies.

That's me. I'm like, just one is hard to do.

Yeah.

Because once you get that in your. It's like the dopamine rush. It's like, I just want another one. So I just try to not do that.

There's a lot of people who aren't like that. And so, like, I think that will come into, like, kind of an individual thing. But the idea that, like, if you did just stop at that one cookie, that that's somehow uniquely harmful to you is not necessarily true. Right. You can eat a cookie in the context of an entire, like, nutrient dense, healthful diet, and you're fine. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just if you're over. If you're eating, you know, 30 cookies a day, probably not the best.

I used to do that. Man. It's so bad for me. Okay, Jessica, I'm curious. What is the thing in the last five to ten years as a, you know, a scientist, a researcher around nutrition and what you've seen in terms of policy changes or what's happening in the food world as well? What have you personally done to shift something in your lifestyle or food habits that have supported you being healthier?

Paid attention to my fiber intake.

Really?

Yeah.

Do you think it really makes a difference?

I think 100% it does, yeah.

Really?

For most people, yeah.

Why?

I think for some people. And again, this is like, not again, I haven't really talked about this, but we're going to start talking. There's people who have issues, Right. And they have, like, medical Conditions that more fiber would be potentially harmful for them and they should see a dietitian and that. But for the vast majority of us, yeah, fiber is great because it helps to, you know, detox is a big word in kind of like the social media space, but it helps to bind to things and like get things out of your body. Right. And so it also helps with soluble fiber, helps with your blood sugar regulation, which again, a lot of people have cardiometabolic issues and so increasing their fiber intake. Over 90% of Americans don't meet fiber intake guidelines. So when I've talked to people, because I talk about this a lot on my channels about the importance of fiber and I hear from people all the time who are like, I never even thought. I only thought about protein because that's the only thing that's ever talked about. I never thought about fiber. And now that I've started increasing my fiber, I feel so much better. So a lot of people anecdotally get a lot of energy from it.

What about people that swear by just going on single food or single food type diets like all meat and how too much fiber actually hurts them? And when they're on a meat diet, they feel actually better. When they have vegetables and fruits, they feel like it actually hurts their system.

Yeah.

What about those types of, I guess, fads or diets where it's all vegetable, all fruits, all meat? What do you think about those?

I'm not a fan of all of one thing. I think that we've had fad diets like this forever and they're not going to stop. I understand though how people can go on something like a carnivore diet and then feel good because first of all, especially if they're coming from a standard American diet and then they just switch to a carnivore diet because they're cutting out all of that kind of low nutrient, ultra processed food. Right. And so I think for a short amount of time that can really help somebody and they will feel good. I don't. They likely could have done that. Right. With just cutting out a lot of the food that they were eating and eating more of a varied diet. I think long term, we have yet to see some good data on long term health outcomes. But I mean, what the hypothesis would be, is it just what it's. It will likely not be great long term from a cardiovascular carnivore diet. Likely not really. That's what the scientists that I know who study this area have kind of said.

What is someone on a carnivore diet missing after. Instead of just like a 30 day reset of letting go the processed foods and going all meat, what are they missing long term? Year after year of only eating meat?

Yeah, I mean if they're only eating meat, they're missing fiber. They're missing, you know, like vitamin C. Where are they getting vitamin C from on a carnivore diet?

They get some vitamin C supplements. I don't know. Okay, what if they say, you know, I go to the bathroom regularly. I feel incredible. I feel like sharp, I feel awake. You know, I hear all these kind of.

Yeah.

People saying these things like I've never felt better. I, I don't have the stiffness in my joints anymore. The skin is clearing up and I feel like I have more energy than I've ever had in my life and I'm a year in. I'm not saying this is me, but I'm just saying people I've watched online, I mean, and they say I go to the bathroom twice a day or whatever it is, do they really need fiber if it's all seem to be moving well for them?

Have you seen it long term?

I've seen people talk about it after a year, but I don't know, I've.

Seen some people on it who have to go back and at least add in some fruit.

Really? Okay.

Yeah. Like the main guy who started it.

Okay. He's now doing fruit. Is that what it is?

I believe so.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah. I'm not gonna lie, like, this isn't my best area. I don't know a ton about the carnivore diet. And just in terms of, I'm just.

Thinking about all these kind of like.

So I'm open to the idea. As a scientist, I'm open to the idea that it would, that it's something that, you know, maybe there's something that we're not understanding about it and why all of these people are feeling so good on it. That's maybe even more so than just, you know, we cut out all the ultra processed food, but I haven't seen data on why.

Got it. So you're not seeing. So you would only go off of something based on long term data and.

Research as a recommendation for the population. Of course.

Yeah, I see. It makes sense. Yeah, but some people like swear by certain fads or I mean some people.

Swear by veganism, some people swear by fruititarianism. Is that what they call it? I don't know, they just eat fruit.

But there's no research or data saying that veganism is the best way, or only eating fruit is the best way, or only eating meat is the best way. Correct.

No. Yeah. Especially for when you're talking about a whole population. There's going to be individual variation. Right. We're all individual people. And nutrition is really interesting because some things that work for one person won't necessarily be the best and optimal thing for another person. There are some generalized truths that we've seen kind of like as general information, but. Yeah, like, there's going to be individual variability depending on who you are.

Yeah. Now you're more of a, you know, nutritionist, research dietitian. So I'm curious your answer on this, and maybe you don't have the best, you know, research on this, but how much do our thoughts and emotions affect the health of our body?

Yeah, I know that from the perspective of digestion, for example, if you are able to kind of like, sit. So a lot of people will go to Europe and they will say, I feel so much better when I eat in Europe. And oftentimes they're going on. They're on vacation in Europe, and so they're sitting for long periods of time when they're having their meals. And there's great data to show that when you actually sit and you digest your food and you experience what you're actually eating, that's much better for your digestion. Right. And you're actually, like, focused versus, like, in America, a lot of times we're like, eating on the go and we're running around, and so then it can cause digestive issues. So I think that from the perspective of, like, how you're feeling after you eat a meal, kind of being kind of locked in on what you're eating can be very helpful in terms of the digestion of it.

I was just in Spain a couple months ago, and I swear they have dinner for like, three to four hours. And they call it. What do they call it, man? I think it's called over table or something like that. Or it's where you're sitting there and you just eat and then you just talk for hours kind of over the table when you're done. And I'm like, are we. Are we supposed to go anywhere after this? It's like, no. We're just kind of hanging out and just have some more water, have a cappuccino, whatever it might be, and just like, hang out. There's no rush. I was like, it's really relaxing. It's actually really enjoyable to just connect with a group of guys and hang out and just talk about life and have nowhere to go. I could do it for about a month and then I was like, all right, I need to get back into the, you know, the life of like moving and creating something. But there was something to it that was so calming.

My husband is from Romania and so they have a very similar way of doing things as that. We go most summers back and they'll just. We had their whole family over last time we went. Cause we rented this house and we just sat there for like three hours chilling.

Just like you're like, what's going on here?

But it's been very interesting being with his family because his in laws live with us sometimes. And it's really like calmed me in meals. Cause I used to in the beginning I would be like, we have to get up and clean the dishes and like do all the things.

What's next?

Yeah, because I guess that's just our culture. I don't know. But yeah, so now we like sit and I've learned to be okay with like dirty dishes just sitting next to me at the table. So it's been a completely kind of like different experience. But I do think that there's something to that, like being calm and being able to like digest your food and.

Yeah, there's something to that in terms of your thinking and emotions around that where you're allowing your body to digest. But what about. I don't know if you've studied this at all, how our thoughts in general throughout the day or our emotions in general throughout the day affect our health. Have you studied or seen any research on that or is it more on the food based stuff?

No, I mean there's a ton of research on. Yeah. On the idea of like stress reduction and yeah. Like the psychology of how you're living. Essentially the psychology of food is a big one, but it's also just how you approach the day. I'm not a scientist in that particular area, but I was in a really unique PhD program where there were kind of people looking at all aspects of chronic disease prevention. So it was kind of like nutrition and then we had physical activity or exercise physiology and then we had kind of the psychology people and then the sleep people. So it was like all these different facets and they all play into our health, our overall health. So not just like chronic disease, but also just like optimizing your health and kind of like living your best healthful life, you know. So yeah, there's a lot to be said for kind of like our mindset in terms of optimizing our health.

So what I'm hearing you say is that you could eat all the perfect foods. You could have a whole food diet. You could, you know, eat perfectly. But if you're not sleeping well, if you're thinking really negative thoughts consistently and feeling stressed out emotionally and you're not moving your body, you could still become sick.

Yeah, and I think it's all related too. You know, it's like you could do all of the right things and then not do one of them. But most of the time, what we see with people is it's like you're not doing several of those kind of components of kind of healthy living.

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Oh, there's a lot right now.

Really.

Yeah, I am working too much. So it's mostly to do with sleep. I need to get better with sleep. I need to. And I'm like a huge proponent of sleep usually in my life. So I have two little kids too, which doesn't help matters. So sleep and it's probably sleep and stress reduction for me. I'm pretty. Exercise is a non negotiable for me. Eating right is a non negotiable for me. So I would say like sleep and stress.

So you're pretty strict with movement, with physical activity, with the foods you consume. You're like very on it.

Yeah.

You're working out hard every day or five days a week. You don't eat crap. But the other two things, sleep and stress, you're overworked. So two of the four are out of alignment, it sounds like. Right?

Yeah. And they haven't always been. It's just been this season. It's more. Yeah, it's a season.

With that information, does that stress you out even more knowing you're not optimizing as a researcher and scientist or are you just accepting it and you're okay and everything's gonna be okay?

No, no, I'm not accepting it. I will work towards kind of getting better in it. But yeah, I think, I don't know if it stresses me out more, but it's certainly something that I'm more aware of than maybe somebody else who doesn't know that it's like directly impacting your health.

I wonder if we know, like you hear about these stories of people that are like, you know, my great grandmother lived to 100 and she was drinking wine every day and having sugar every night and like whatever, sitting around all day and not moving or whatever. You hear these smoking cigarettes. You hear these like random stories of people. She smoked every day and had wine five glasses of wine and ate whatever she wanted and lived to 100. You're like, okay, well that's rare. Does it stress you out more knowing that the research you're studying of people doing certain things could actually hurt them long term or create this sickness long term rather than the blissful I'm gonna do whatever I want in my life and just live to a hundred smoking every day and drinking. Do you think the stress of the knowledge is more hurtful than the I'm just gonna live my life and whatever happens, happens when I die?

I don't know. That's a nuanced answer, I think, because I think that to your point, there is something to be said for that. The more you know, the more stressful it can be. I also think somet like the fear of the unknown can be stressful too. So because I have studied this area so much, I also know when things that are like fear mongering or something are not true. Right. And so that helps me to not get stressed out about things I don't need to be stressed out about. Whereas, you know, if you don't know that, then you could be stressed and be like, oh my gosh, this is so problematic. And like, you know, I'm eating all these toxins all the time, that sort of thing, Right? Yeah.

Why do you think there is so much fear mongering or fear related information on social media and in the news around nutrition, health and our food systems?

I think it depends on who we're talking about. But in general, like on social media, I think it's just content that does really well, you know, I mean, and you see it kind of like recycled the same content and people are looking for views particularly, you know, if you're trying to sell something on the back end, like you need social media content to do that. So I think that a lot of times people will see kind of what works in the algorithm. And it's not even that they're like necessarily. Many people probably think that it's helpful information. So I don't know that it's all just like this manipulative sort of thing, but I do think that people overstate things to play to the algorithms.

What should people be looking out for in terms of who they should be following for their information around health, food and nutrition? When it seems like every nutritionist is out there saying different claims about what's good and what's bad, everyone's critiquing other people online about what they say is good and bad or right and wrong. Everyone can find a research paper that backs their claims in some way somehow.

Yeah.

How do you know who to trust in the health world online, I think.

There'S a couple of things to look out for. I think the majority of people, experts in this area who are coming from a genuine educational place are not going to scare you. So if it is scary information or if there is something a new study comes out and kind of like it says something that's concerning, they'll always put it in context. So they're not gonna lead with some kind of hook that's like a fear.

Based hook, like if you eat sugar, you're gonna die or something like that.

Or like, are you poisoning your kids like that? Those are videos I see quite often.

Really?

Yeah. And yes. Yeah, absolutely. And they work really well. They go viral because then you show like an ingredient and then how your kids are eating that ingredient. And they're particularly with kids and like pregnant women and you know, that sort of demographic. It's really like a really vulnerable time in life that it's easy to prey on them because again, I mean, I just went through this. It's quite a vulnerable time and you just want to do what's best for your kids. Right. Especially even more so than yourself. And so I think that that content plays again really well into social media. Algorithms and experts in these areas are not going to do that. They're not going to scare you in order to then sell you something on the back end. They're going to contextualize it. They're going to talk about what a new study showed, but what the 47 other studies actually show that are in the same area. Right. Because we're looking at scientific consensus. To your point, anybody can find a single study to say anything they want to. But what does like the vast majority of the evidence say in a particular area? So look for people who will contextualize things. Look for people who will provide sources for what they're saying. Right. If they talk about a study, they should be citing that study, that sort of thing. And definitely look for people who are not again, trying to scare, scare you. And there's scary things. There can be scary outcomes or like potentially fearful outcomes, but they'll contextualize that because there's never going to be some landmark study that comes out just like this changed everything. Studies progressively change kind of like scientific opinion over time.

Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to be a parent here soon. My twins are. By the time this comes out, my twins are going to be in the World, So they're six days away until, you know, they come as the game plan. What should I be thinking about as a parent, you know, with my kids coming into the World in 2025, about how to raise them in the healthiest way around nutrition and food.

Well, congratulations.

Thank you.

I'm also answering this question for myself right now a little bit with a 6 and 2 year old because there's.

So many different, you know, formula versus food versus sugary snacks versus only give them whole foods. Like how do you what to give your kids so you don't screw them up?

Yeah. I think first of all, let's remember how we grew up.

I ate so much sugar and we're doing okay. Yeah. I was poisoned. Right.

Like unintentionally, like there's no way our kids will grow up like we grew up.

Yeah, yeah.

In the sense of like the amount of food that we probably ate. But anyway, I think that what. So actually understanding that is important because it can help to like decrease some of the guilt that you feel.

Like I'm not that horrible. I'm not that messed up at this stage of my life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I'm alive still.

Yeah.

I remember in the summer one time I used to have like eight Dr. Peppers a day in the summer. Just like working out outside, running around as like an 8 year old and just chugging Dr. Pepper like it was water.

Yeah.

And thinking it was good.

Also, like, we didn't have. At least I didn't. I never had a water bottle.

There was no bottled water. It was just like you drink out of the tap.

Right.

It was just.

Yeah. And I never like had water throughout the day. I don't remember it. Like, like get some water.

That was Milk and Dr. Pepper.

Milk. A lot of milk.

A lot of milk.

Yeah. But so I think remembering that's important. I also think that when you're thinking of like how you're going to raise your kids in terms of their relationship with food, what my strategy is, and there's some wonderful educators in this area and dietitians in this area, but my strategy has been really to not harp on like bad food, good food. It's more kind of like helping first of all, help them to get involved in the food. So like, even my 2 year old helps me. Like she makes a little smoothie in the morning and she'll like put that together. She helps when they feel like they have some sort of empowerment of how they're like preparing their food. My son and I built a garden this this summer, which was. Which was an experience because I am not a gardener. So we had, like, this little table, and we had. He. He got strawberries, and only one grew the whole season, and it was, like, the one that was already on the plant when we first got it. So I've heard from other people that it takes, like, two to three seasons. But anyway, helping them, like, with those types of things, like, if they're growing their food like that and they feel ownership over it. So I think, like, more of an inclusion kind of aspect, like including these foods and trying to figure out how to include some of these foods, rather than, like, you can't have that. You can't have that is really helpful.

Are you more of, like, you know, 80, 20, like, have 20% of the time, have some, you know, sugary, processed foods, have ice cream every now and then, cookies every now and then, or you try to be clean eating all the time for your kids?

No, I'm probably more 80, 20.

Are you?

Yeah. So they. We don't buy, like, a lot of it in our house, but if we're out and stuff, like, I never have an issue with them. If they're like, can I have these cookies? Like, yes, have the cookies. We are visiting my mom right now in San Diego, and she always gives them what she calls sita snacks, which are like gummy bears. And I'm like, it's fine. You can have, like, have the fruit snacks. You know, like, It's. It's an 8020 rule. Is certainly my approach. Yeah.

Yeah. Again, when all I had was sugar all day as a kid, it's like, okay, we're not that horrible. But I also worked out like crazy. Whereas a lot of people have all the sugary stuff and they eat more and more and more of it, and they stop moving their body.

Yeah.

And then that's where the obesity, the chronic illness comes into play, where you're just over consuming calories and you're not moving as well, I think. Right.

Yeah, I think it's a good point, especially for kids and adolescents. Like, movement is really important too. Just getting them out, kind of running around, getting them off the iPad and so.

Yeah, I mean, that's a whole nother topic.

Yeah. Because we don't really have that.

You don't. We didn't have that as children. When someone feels paralyzed by all of the food, health, and nutrition information that's out there, and it seems like new content being fed to them daily, what are a few steps that they can take to start feeling more at peace about understanding what is correct and what is misinformation.

I think understanding that the basics of good nutrition are pretty boring. And boring doesn't sell on social media.

No.

And so what is happening is if I come on, if somebody comes online every single day and says kind of like the basics, like, eat your fruits and vegetables, or your vegetables and fruits, meet your fiber intake, get a variety of protein sources. Right. Make sure you're getting adequate nutrients. That's boring.

Doesn't sell.

Yeah, I just lost half your audience.

It's kind of like Andrew Huberman where he's just like, hey, guys, wake up and get some sunlight. Make sure you get sleep, move your body and you're gonna be okay. It's like decades of research at Stanford, but he's just saying five core principles over and over again. And then he's backing with the research over and over again on why you need to do these things. Right.

It's the same with nutrition. Yep. Stay hydrated, get nutrients, you know, eat a variety of foods, eat minimal, low nutrient, ultra processed foods, and you're gonna be better off than 90% of the country. Right. So again, that doesn't sell on social media. So understand that a lot of what we're seeing is kind of like in the weeds. Like, it's in the minutia. Right. It's. It's the. Okay, if you're doing 95%, then maybe we can debate this particular kind of obscure topic. But what's happening is those debates of those obscure topics that might make a very marginal change are being debated kind of in front of everyone, making it seem like there's all this lack of understanding in nutrition science when it's not. It's like 90 to 95% of things are pretty well agreed upon and are gonna make the biggest bang. You're gonna get the biggest bang for your buck. Right. They're gonna make the biggest impact on your health. And then there's that 5% that we can go to conferences and debate. We can go on stages and debate. Right. And we can, like, kind of get in the weeds on it. But what's happening is that 5%, it's being kind of exacerbated. Like, it's like this huge impact on health, and it's just not.

It's not.

Yeah. And so I think understanding that, to answer your question, is like, the best thing people can do is just being like, what can I control? What can I actually, you know, what can I actually adopt in my life that's gonna make the biggest impact. And it's really those kind of core principles. The holidays are back at Starbucks. So share the season with a peppermint mocha, Starbucks signature espresso, velvety mocha and cool peppermint notes topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls together is the best place to be at Starbucks. Let's face it, everyone's juggling long, busy days. That's why Icebreakers gum is made for the go getters. With flavor crystals that deliver a bold cooling effect, Icebreakers keeps you refreshed and ready to take on whatever's next. And here's a bonus. The pack fits perfectly in your car, cupholder or bag, so it's within reach when you need it most. Grab Icebreaker's gum online or at a store near you.

What are a few things that people are talking about or debating about that are making these claims? Like, this is the greatest breakthrough in health and nutrition that you're seeing over the last five years, where you really don't have the research to back it.

I think it happens all the time with supplements.

Really?

Yeah. I mean, that's what supplements are essentially. They're like, you see a mechanism of action and it's like, okay, so if that's the case, then we can create this supplement and we can really maximize the effect. And it's just that's without the data to suggest that that's actually happening.

Is there research around supplements that actually are supportive for health benefits?

Sure, yeah. If you have a nutrient deficiency and you take the nutrient vitamin D, for example, if you're deficient in vitamin D and you take a vitamin D supplement, there's good data on that. I mean, there's a lot of these supplements, though. There's not the funding we were talking about research funding. You have to have funding in order to fund the research studies. And so a lot of them probably would benefit from more research funding so that we can study some of it. But for the most part, a lot of, because of the way that supplements are regulated in this country, which is very different than food and drugs, you don't have to show evidence of efficacy before claiming efficacy.

Right. Because I guess if you can see that there is some benefit in some research, I don't know, I'm trying to think of a, a supplement that can optimize for energy or for mood or whatever, then you just have to talk about the benefit. You don't have to make the research claim, I guess, of like, this has helped millions of people, I don't know.

But you don't have to have the evidence to make a lot of the claims. Yeah, as long as they're, like, structured. I mean, this kind of gets in the weeds. But yeah, you can make a lot of claims without actually having the evidence to make those claims.

What are the supplements that you feel really make a difference? Not the brands, but like, hey, if you take a greens or if you take a vitamin D or if you take. Take, I don't know, Resveratrol or whatever it might be, these things could potentially really help optimize your whole system.

Again, I think that the vast majority of people don't actually need to focus on supplements because we're not even meeting our core health recommendations, even myself included. I'm not meeting the sleep and the stress. So that's what I really need to be focused on. And I think a lot of people. Well, it's a lot easier to just take a pill. Right. So a lot of people will think that they can take a supplement to kind of counteract the negative effects of not following those kind of key pillars. And again, there's no evidence to suggest that that's the case.

Interesting.

So I think that for the vast majority of people, I wouldn't say that there's a single supplement that everybody needs. I think that there's some supplements that have stronger data than others. So, for example, like a vitamin D supplement, like Omega 3 supplement for people who are, you know, not eating fish, that could be beneficial. And getting dha, making sure that you're getting DHA if you're not a fish consumer or algae consumer, because that's really the only places you can get it. There's some good, you know, evidence for creatine, for example. Like there's some that have stronger. Yeah. Stronger evidence than others.

As a nutrition scientist, do you take supplements?

Yeah, so I take. Well, no. No. And yeah. So not. Not like every day. So it's not something. But I. I have used protein powder just like since I was an athlete. And so that's just. Again, it's not something that I recommend. Everyone needs because, like, you can get adequate protein without it. But for me, I just, I. If I'm like, working out pretty heavily, that's something that I'll take. And then outside of that, I don't really.

Protein, and that's about it.

Yeah.

No greens powder, no vitamin C. I eat a lot of vegetables. No creatine? No, no. You feel like you're good with everything, with whole foods.

Yeah.

Okay. Because I guess a supplement is really just coming from a whole food. Typically Right, Most of them. It's like if you eat the whole.

Food, most supplements are actually synthetic.

Yeah.

But yeah, there are some whole food supplements. Sure, sure.

What frustrates you the most as a nutrition scientist and researcher?

What frustrates me the most. Yeah, I think that the people kind of manipulating science. So you know, we were talking before how you can kind of find a study to say anything. I think it's very frustrating when someone will kind of go back and there'll be like a study from 11 years ago and it will show kind of like a correlation between two things and then someone will kind of like make a social media video about it. Like it's this bombshell and it shows evidence of something, hopefully relying on people to not understand that correlation is not causation. Relying on people to not understand. That's a single study kind of published in a mid tier journal and the consensus doesn't say the same. So I think it's like, I think what frustrates me the most is people kind of manipulating this lack of scientific understanding to then just kind of like get social media views and kind of like it's pseudoscience. It's using the language of science without actually doing the scientific process. So we see it a lot on social media. A couple of things to look out for too, in terms of this manipulation of science. They'll conflate correlation and causation. So correlation is just two things increase at the same time. The best example is shark attacks and ice cream sales. They both have this kind of curve and they go up in the summertime and then drop in the wintertime. And so they're very highly correlated, shark attacks and ice cream sales. But they're confounded obviously by the weather. Right. So as it gets warmer, shark attacks and ice cream sales increase. But the problem is that if you don't understand that that's just a correlation and you show a graph like that and pretend it's causation, you could create a policy like prohibiting ice cream sales in order to prevent shark attacks. And that's not going to prevent shark attacks. So that's why you need to look at causal data. Right. Because that's just a correlation. So you need to, then you can use correlation to kind of like observe what's going on. And then you need to design studies to actually assess causation.

So I guess, I think I saw you post about this on social media recently. How does that impact with the news about Tylenol, with, you know, women and pregnant women taking Tylenol and how that could potentially impact their kids.

Yeah. So there's. There's some correlational evidence. So like I said, correlation. Right. They increase at the same time. So there's some evidence that people who take Tylenol, it's correlated to higher diagnoses of autism.

Like mothers when they're pregnant. Is that what it is?

Mothers when they're pregnant. Now, that research is not strong. There's also several other studies that especially. There's a couple of studies that control for siblings, so they control for familial factors and genetic factors and then that relationship goes away. So right now it's quite mixed, that research with, like, correlation. And that's just correlation. There's no causal evidence, really. So we still need to look at, like, once you have correlation, you have to look at causal evidence because again, there's been a lot of, like, correlational data that has never proved a causation or shown a causation, I should say.

So they haven't shown data or research that this is correlation and causation. It's just been.

It's correlation.

We just think this is causing it. Yeah, we don't know for sure.

Yeah. And there's a lot of things correlated to autism.

Really.

A lot of things. Because autism has increased significantly over the last.

I would say anything that you're doing.

Autism diagnoses. I should say so. Yeah. To your point, anything that's increased at that same time.

My global warming is increased. Yeah, exactly.

My friend, who's a data scientist, she just put out a post the other day that showed a very strong correlation between Viagra and autism. There's a lot of things. And there's potentially a mechanism there too. Older sperm, which is true, there's some data to suggest, but at the end of the day, for autism itself, it's hugely genetic. The researchers in this area show that it's very strongly genetic and there's likely some environmental factors and those are still being worked out. And there's researchers who dedicate their life to this kind of topic.

But if it's genetic, why is there a rise over the last 20, 30 years, then? In kids.

Yeah, there's a rise of diagnoses.

Oh, so you think there was just as many before it just wasn't diagnosed?

We don't know 100%, but there's certainly a huge factor of that is diagnostic criteria which has been enhanced and expanded.

Got it.

Yeah.

What. What scares you as a mother then and what's to come in our systems, the food system, nutrition, health and wellness. What scares you?

I think what scares me is that's a big question. I would say kind of like the division that we're seeing right now is scary to me as a mom and just like a human living in this world. Right. And I think that, you know, I think that the vast majority of us actually have far more in common than what divides us. And again, I'm going to go back to social media algorithms. They really prey on this divisive kind of nature and rhetoric, and I think that that's kind of leading people to be in different camps instead of kind of like, coming to the table and having conversations where we probably would come out of it agreeing on a percentage, a fairly strong percentage for most of us. And so I'm worried about a world that so divided to kind of, like, bring kids up in. I know that that's not necessarily related to nutrition, but there is nutrition as well. I mean, there's a lot of divisive rhetoric in the nutrition space as well. So, yeah, that probably is my. What I'm thinking about, like, the most right now.

Yeah. Because your oldest is six, you said. Is that right?

Just turn six.

Just turn six. So, like, right. Right before COVID it was like you were in the divisiveness. Probably during COVID when you had your first kid.

Yeah. He was a newborn.

Yeah. Yeah.

When the lockdown happened, was that scary.

For you, or did you feel like you were prepared mentally, physically, emotionally for taking on that big unknown that we all went through?

I think it was a good distraction for me.

It was a good distraction, yeah. How so?

Yeah, because I was just so. I mean, you'll see how newborn life is, but it's just so. It kind of takes you out of the world a little bit. And, like, things that used to matter a lot don't really matter as much in that particular, like, time period. And so I was really focused on just kind of surviving the newborn stage in the early childhood.

Sleep, being present, doing your best.

Yeah. Barely sleeping and.

Right. Feeding yourself.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think for me, uniquely, it was kind of a good distraction having him at the time. I did.

Really?

But, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's certainly some fear to it with children because you want them to be protected, but I think the Lilac Town kind of made it a sense. Like, in the beginning, at least, nobody was really around each other, so you.

Kind of got to keep them safe and focus on that, I guess.

Yeah.

Were you living in Colorado at that time?

I was in Arizona. Scottsdale. Okay. Yeah.

I wanted to Ask you about the phrase food is medicine. What's your thoughts on that?

I have mixed thoughts on it. We actually, when I was in grad school, we did like a food is medicine conference. And it was like, it was just coming up like this idea of food is medicine and I was really on board with it. And I still to a degree am like, I, I love the idea of thinking about food in a healing way. Right. And not just healing, but in a preventive way, which is what I've always kind of looked at food through the lens of. And so I think that to the degree that it means that we should be looking at our food. For example, there's this push right now to be able to get food prescriptions in Medicaid. And I think that's an incredible idea. Let's be able to bring these healthy boxes, these healthful foods to people through Medicaid, which would be a great way to make food more accessible to people, particularly through Medicaid. And I think that when you look at it through that lens, like it's a wonderful idea and a wonderful approach. I also think that it's not a replacement for medicine. And so we have to understand that it plays a role and medicine is still needed. Right. It's not a complete replacement.

But if the majority of people were living a whole foods based diet, getting more sleep, you know, the right amount of sleep, doing their best to reduce stress, wouldn't that be a preventer to not needing medicine in the future? If you did that for most of your life, wouldn't food be a preventative thing to not need medication?

Yeah, of course it's gonna decrease the need for it, but it's not going to eliminate the need for it. So there's people who have, you know, I mean, I know several people who eat well, balanced diets and you know, high blood pressure runs in their family. Really, it's very genetic or particularly like hyperlipidemia runs in their family. And so it can't completely get rid of some of those factors that are just genetic based.

But the lifestyle based chronic disease, the stuff that's based on overconsumption.

Yeah. Will decrease our need for a lot of meds, but you'll still need, you get an infection, you're still gonna need medication. That's what I mean, it doesn't replace medication.

Not medicine, not replacing that. But I mean more like needing medication daily because of chronic illness.

Yeah.

Couldn't food prevent that from happening? And as opposed to, yeah, I cut myself, I'm going to need Medicine or if I get sick, sure, maybe for a week or something. But not needing to be on medication forever.

Yeah. That is 100% like the goal of what I've studied my whole life. Yes. Would be like to reduce risk as much as possible. You're never going to eliminate it. There still will be people who are going to need some of these meds, but it's not going to be 100% preventive. But we can significantly reduce the reliance on a lot of them for sure.

Should we be concerned about seed oils in our diet? Are seed oils bad or good for us?

So, yeah, seed oils are super misunderstood right now. I think they're quite villainized as like this reason for our health issues.

Everyone's like, if it's got seed oils, don't eat it. Right.

Yeah.

What is their actual research and science saying about seed oil?

Seed oils are consumed all around the world, to be clear, and they're consumed pretty abundantly all around the world. We've always called them vegetable oils here. So if you look at vegetable oils, seed oils are oil that comes from a seed. Right. They go through this refinement process. And the thing about them is they don't have really a lot of redeeming qualities in terms of nutrients within them outside of their fatty acid profile. But there is the polyunsaturated fatty acid. And when you look at the actual evidence on these polyunsaturated fats and you look at epidemiological data, you look at people who are consuming seed oils and their health outcomes, there is not good data that they're harmful to our health, really. And in fact, the research actually shows that they're potentially beneficial when replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats, particularly with people who are at risk of cardiometabolic disease.

Really?

Really.

Why are so many people saying that seed oils are like poison and you can't eat them at all?

I think it probably comes from a few places. One, I think it that got a lot of traction with the rise of kind of paleo and carnivore diets, you know, 10, however many years ago, seed oils are not. They're in a lot of foods that are pretty low nutrient, unhealthful foods. Right. A lot of processed foods because they're cheap and they're flavorless, pretty flavorless compared to an olive oil. And so these food corporations use them and they put them in their foods. And so we're over consuming seed oils in this country. We eat lots of them, lots of polyunsaturated fatty acids. And we don't really pair that with omega 3s, which come from fish and algae and those types of things. And so when that happens, when you're over consuming anything, it can be problematic. And so I think that truth exists and people kind of extrapolate that to mean they're super inflammatory and they're causing all, every issue under the sun. And we just don't have that data to suggest that. I mean, my mother in law from Romania, she cooks, you know, stir fries in seed oil most days. And that's pretty common elsewhere. Right. So if we're, if we're. And I guess my issue with it is if we're saying that's toxic, a lot of people, that's an accessible oil. Like if you look at Costco, for example, the price of the vegetable oil compared to an olive oil or an avocado oil, especially an avocado oil, it's accessible. And so if it's not actually toxic, and we're telling people it's toxic, it can actually cause real harm, not just in people's stress levels, but also in people's accessibility. And so I think that's the issue. We should be honest about the fact that they're in lots of, of low nutrient, ultra processed foods that we absolutely should be minimizing in our diet.

So correlation not causation.

Yeah. And even when we look at good studies that are done, when we look at people who are consuming them, we do not see that they're harmful to health.

Really?

Yeah.

So are there any studies that show that seed oils a little bit at a time are actually harmful for you or is it more just over consuming bad foods that have seed oils are harmful?

Yeah. And I think over consuming polyunsaturated fats can be harmful too. So if you.

What are those?

Those are like linoleic, alpha Linolenic acid. Arachidonic acid. Arachidonic acid.

And that's in oils or that's in. What is that in mostly.

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, I don't know. You didn't mean the fatty acid profile.

I don't need that scientific term. I'm like, talk to me like I'm a fifth grader, you know, what is this food group? What is this in?

What's polyunsaturated fats are like? They're omega 6 fatty acids is really what we're talking about when we're talking about the seed oils. And so they're high in omega 6, which are like linoleic and alpha Linoleic acid. And so the.

That's what's in the oils.

That's what's in the oil. So that's the fatty acid profile in the oil versus like a saturated fat from like meat or something has saturated fats. So these are polyunsaturated fats. And so again, you find them in a lot of foods that are. Are quite ultra processed, low nutrient.

Is there certain types of oils that are better than others in general when using for cooking?

Yeah. So olive oil is a good one. But also vegetable oils are fine to use for cooking.

Really?

So vegetable oil, that's what the research would suggest.

Vegetable oil is a seed oil is what I'm hearing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All vegetable oil is seed oil.

Yeah. So if you look at a vegetable oil, it'll have a bunch of different types of oil, and that will include seed oils.

Interesting.

Yeah, so it'll include like safflower oil, sunflower oil, canola oil. They call it rapeseed oil in other countries. So all of those are considered seed oils and also vegetable oils.

Gotcha.

Yeah. So if you look on a label, a food label, it's not gonna say seed oils. It's gonna say either the individual oil or vegetable oil.

Interesting. So based on research and science, right now, putting vegetable oil in your stir fry or in your food when you're cooking, it is not harmful. Is that what I'm hearing based on the research? Yeah, but everyone's saying that it's like the worst thing and you have to get it out of all your foods and protein bars without seed oil, it's like the greatest discovery of all time or something. But that's just not the case based on science right now.

It's just not. The evidence doesn't suggest that that's the case.

So you're saying that it might be in the future if there's science that's suggested, suggests. But right now there's no science.

It's not just that there's no science. There's science showing that it's not harmful right now.

Interesting.

So, yeah, so I think that we're getting in a little bit of a difficult area because of how much social media tells us that it's so bad.

We just believe it.

It's in our head. So then if we're eating it, we're thinking it's bad and the whole psychology aspect of it. And also I think that the problem is that when you're. Again, when you're consuming seed oils, if you have somebody who's like, I'm gonna get rid of seed oils. Right. And they're eating a standard American diet and they're like, I'm gonna remove seed oils. Cause that is the reason for all the health issues. What are they gonna get rid of? They're not gonna be able to eat most low nutrient, ultra processed foods anymore. Cause all your chips, all your crackers.

It'S a good thing.

Right. It all has seed oils in it. And so by nature of kind of like removing seed oils, you are kind of increasing the nutrient density of your diet.

You're eating more whole foods.

You're eating more whole foods and you're eating less low nutrient, ultra processed food. Exactly.

That has those oils in it.

And so by the nature of just focusing on seed oils, you're actually like improving your overall diet quality immensely for the most part.

But removing seed oil from your cooking is not going to do anything necessarily. It's more of like from the ultra processed foods. Removing the processed foods that have seed oils is what's harmful.

Yeah. Because especially for most Americans who are over consuming those foods. Again, 70% of our food environment is ultra processed foods. Right. And so if we are eating the majority of our food as these low nutrient, ultra processed foods, we are eating a lot of polyunsaturated fatty acids. And when you eat too much of anything, it's a problem.

I mean, it sounds like you got into this field because of, you know, a personal pain that you went through. Seeing your grandfather go through this experience when he was quite young, still, early 60s. Right?

Yeah.

Is that right? Where do you think the system failed him? Did he have the information? Did he not have the information? Was it, you know, was he just. Was there some other factors there that we could have done better as a system to support him?

Yeah, I think, I mean, I touched on it a little bit when we just like we thought we were doing the right thing by just kind of swapping out the goodies that he loved. Right.

For sugar free.

Yeah, yeah. We would just buy sugar free donuts. And so that was more of like an education deficit where we just kind of didn't know what the right thing was for him. I also think that he worked retail his whole life and then also worked a second job kind of like refurbishing cars. And so I think that it was kind of like a time deficit for him as well.

No sleep.

Yeah. And just like he didn't have a lot of time to prepare all of the meals. So it was, I think, a combination of those things. I think education could have played a role. And it's just kind of, again, an environment Midwest. I grew up in the Midwest. And, you know, we have kind of shaped through decades of policy, culture.

Yes.

And so culture can be really tough to overcome.

Fast food options and all that stuff.

And a lot of times when I talk about these policies that could help to kind of like, shift our food environment or any sort of public health kind of environment, people will push back and be like, well, this is part of our culture and it's a valid criticism. It's true, it is part of our culture. But culture changes over time, and it can change over time. So you're not going to see. It's not like you're going to change, like, one policy and then everything's going to change. But over time, we can start to make policy kind of push culture in a bit of a different direction.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Yeah.

Speaking of that shift over time, when you were researching and going to school on this topic, what has been the biggest shift you've seen in the last 10 to 15 years in nutrition and health that has been, like, a big breakthrough for you that they didn't talk about in school? Has there been anything or has it all been the exact same based on the books and the research? 10, 15 years ago?

Yeah, I'm just trying to think of a big breakthrough. I don't know if I've seen a big breakthrough necessarily.

Or is there something they taught you that you're like, oh, that's no longer true. Where they said this is the way. This is what you need to know as a Nutritionist. And now 10, 15 years later, you're like, actually, that's not the way.

Yeah, I think that there's probably been a ton of things, and for whatever reason, my mind is blanking because that's kind of the way of science. Like, I think that we're always learning. And nutrition is a baby science. Like, I always like to say, it's a baby science. We just, like, we just discovered vitamins at like, the beginning of the 20th century, the first few decades of the 20th century. And, you know, before. And so we were really doing nutrition science research to prevent disease for the longest time. And then obviously that has shifted now because now we're not really trying to prevent acute disease anymore. And we're not trying to prevent things like scurvy with a vitamin C supplement or with lemons. We're trying to figure out what are the best dietary eating patterns to prevent disease. And I think there's been some Very interesting work in metabolism and ultra processed foods. And so thinking of when I was coming up, we didn't really talk about ultra processed foods a lot. We talked about them in the sense of minimizing them, but we didn't really understand what. And there's been some very interesting work. Kevin hall at the NIH did a lot of work with ultra processed foods. And looking at just by the function of them being ultra processed, which I can define, which is basically in the nutrition science research, it's just an ingredient, like a food item that has a. An ingredient or a processing method that you don't have access to. So the best way to explain it this is with the NOVA classification and this is how we've explained it in nutrition science is unprocessed. Would be something like corn that you pick from the garden. Processed would be. Or minimally processed would be like frozen corn. So just like frozen corn kernels, minimal processing. Processed would be canned corn because they add some salt into the can. And then ultra processed would be a Dorito chip. Right. So you can't replicate a Dorito chip in your kitchen because they use ingredients and processing methods you don't have access to. And I think we've learned a lot about kind of like the idea of those different kind of methods of processing over time and how like, process is not necessarily bad. I mean, just adding salt is processing. Right. But this idea of like low nutrient, ultra processed food, where if you include salt, sugar and fat. Fat in any combination of those, it makes it hyper palatable and hypersatiating. And so Kevin said some work at the NIH that showed that just by the function of foods being ultra processed and going through this processing, people would overeat those foods. So when you were kind of like left to your own volition and you could eat either the minimally processed or the ultra processed, they would overeat the ultra processed. And in his experiment, they overate 500 calories a day. So over the course of, you know, a week, they, they gain two pounds.

One week, they gained two pounds.

Yeah.

Holy cow.

Yeah.

This is why it sounds like behavior change is, is also one of the big challenges for people. It's like even if you have 80% of the good foods here, but you see these satiating kind of ultra processed foods, you still have to make a decision, you know, even if you only see a little bit of it here. Yeah, that's why I try to eliminate it from my home. Because it's like the brain is craving that so much. Unless you override it for so long that you just have zero temptation.

Yeah. And I think the problem too with ultra processed is that there are different degrees of what ultra processed. So again, the definition that's used in nutrition science right now is just this idea that it has ingredients or processing method you don't have access to. So within that definition, that's why I kind of distinguish low nutrient ultra processed foods versus there are some like nutrient dense foods that just happen to be ultra processed. So, you know, even like protein powder is ultra processed. You can't make a protein powder in your kitchen. And that's why right now there actually there's like a request for information out to try to put a better definition on the word what ultra process actually means. Because currently that's not the best way to define food.

Interesting.

Because again, like there's a difference between a Dorito chip and a scoop of protein. Right? So yeah, so that's like one of the things that I'm watching right now. That again wasn't even really on my radar when I was going through school. I wasn't really thinking of processing. I was strictly thinking of the nutrients in a food. And I think that more and more research is coming out about the processing method and how it impacts our health.

I've got a few final questions for you before I get to them. I want people to make sure they check out your content because your social media is really powerful.

Thank you.

So It's. Is it Dr. Jessica and then Nurik with a K. Yeah, K N U R I C K on social media. But also jessica nurik.com you've got a substack as well, which I think you do a lot there that people can check you out. Dr. Jessica Nurik on substack as well. And a lot of helpful information backed by research and science. You're always trying to find the science around any claim out there, which I think is really cool. Speaking of the impact you've made, what do you think would be the greatest change that could happen over the next decade in nutrition and food in the health system if we were able to make in the next decade? We're 10 years out in the future, 2035, and there's a big breakthrough that you'd love to see happen over the next 10 years. What would that be or what do you think is possible for us to create?

I think right now we're in this very unique opportunity. We're in a very unique time that presents an opportunity where a lot of people are starting to think about our Public health systems and our food environment. I mean, we have this Maha movement that's really happened and they've brought attention and light to something that wasn't on people's radar before. And I think that presents a real opportunity to help people to understand what has gotten us to the place that we're in. So I think a lot of us, most of us are concerned about the state of lifestyle related chronic disease in this country. We're concerned about our food environment. We want to help people get healthier. And I think helping to channel that energy in the right place to make effective change is what I would love to see over the next decade. And so what that would look like was understanding why our food environment is the way that it is, understanding what policies. So a lot of this has to do with policy and how policy has really again, first of all, corporate interests have a lot of say over our policy right now because of how campaign finance reform, because of how campaign finance laws are. So looking at campaign finance reform, a lot of people will be like, what's the first thing you would do? And I'll say that. And it doesn't really make a lot of sense. How's that going to improve health? And it's. And it's because right now it's really hard to get public health policy passed in this country because public health policy doesn't tend to make corporations money. If you have a lot of corporate interests fighting those policies, it can be difficult. I think if we want to see a change in our food system, it has to start with policy. We have to look at our agricultural policy. We have to start incentivizing local food systems and giving grants to local farmers to produce food. If you have the means. I like to separate this because if you have the means and the ability, trying to support local can be a really helpful thing to do and help like joining a CSA with your local farmer and like a meat share, you know, people share a cow or things like that, and that's one. But also just kind of investing from a systemic perspective, investing in local food systems so that we can start to kind of change our food environment so we're not so heavily reliant on these prepackaged ultra processed foods that have to sit on the shelf for a long time and we can start kind of reinventing our food system. I think that that's a big one. And so channeling people's energy to be able to kind of make that effective change, I think is something that I would push for over the next decade.

That's beautiful. Jessica, I want to acknowledge you for the work you're putting out there. Again, you've been pretty consistent over the last couple years of just putting out great content and backing it by science. And again, in a world where so many people are confused about the information of all the different diets they could do, what foods are healthy, which ones are poisoning you, all these different things, you're bringing clarity to chaos in this nutrition health world. So I want to acknowledge you for your research, for your science based content, and for trying to not scare people, but educate people on what's helpful, what's harmful and what not to worry about. So I really acknowledge you for constantly doing this and I hope you continue to do it. It's helping a lot of people.

Thank you.

You're welcome. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end called Three Truths. So imagine you get to live as long as you want to live and you get to accomplish all of your goals and your dreams. You get to see things change in the health system for the, for the next 50 to 100 years. But for whatever reason, it's your last day and you have to take all of your work with you, all of your content, books, videos, anything you create, it's got to go to the next place when you pass on. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three truths. What would those truths be for you?

One is to build bridges because again, the vast majority of us are fairly similar in terms of what we want and think about who is benefiting from the division. A second one would be that a lot of when you think about wanting to create a system and a country that is, you know, the best for the most people. A lot of that has to do with public health goals and making sure that we are, you know, thinking of policy that helps the least of us because that's going to help rise the boat for all of us. When you think of chronic disease, for example, you have to look at who's most impacted by it in this country. And we didn't really touch on that, but it's overwhelmingly low income in minority populations. And so you have to understand you need to design policies that kind of help lift those people up to lift all of us up. And then probably the third one is it's not that complicated. The way to kind of optimize your health in terms of nutrition and physical activity, for example, and sleep and stress reduction, it's pretty boring. And so kind of focusing on if you really want to make lasting change, focusing on those pillars of health and the few things in each one of those pillars, the few things in nutrition that are going to make the biggest bang, they're going to get you 90% of the way there, focus on that instead of the smallest 10% and getting kind of bogged down by that 10%.

I love it. And Jessica, what's your definition of greatness? Final question?

I think my definition of greatness is building bridges, not barriers. You know, building bridges. Understanding that if like again, we're all quite similar in the terms of like if you just sit down and you have one on one conversations all the time, when you sit down one on one with somebody, even like somebody who maybe you think you disagree with wholeheartedly, you're gonna find so many things to agree on. And if we could focus more on those things, I think we could make a lot of lasting impact that's gonna benefit all of us instead of kind of what we're seeing right now with the division.

Bill Bridges Jessica, thanks so much for being here. Appreciate you.

Thanks for having me.

Amazing.

Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

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