The Food Doctor: "Extra Protein Is Making You Fatter!" The 6 Food Lies Everyone Still Believes! (Brand NEW Food Science) - Tim Spector

29:44So I think we need to learn from the populations that are doing it right. And this is a really easy thing to do. and I think it's a great exercise in teaching, because if you think what's going on, this is mirroring what's going on inside your gut. If you had that rich diversity of plants in there, you can get many microbes to proliferate. And once you start seeing the bubbles forming and the amazing change in taste and texture that you're getting, you've got to remember this is the difference between a grape and an amazing vintage red wine. It's just the effect of those microbes, in the fact, you know, on that grape skin, just changing it over time, increasing that complexity and producing chemicals.

30:33It's basically a sort of chemistry lesson. When I'm in the supermarket, there are lots of things that now have labels on them saying that they're great for gut health or they're low sugar or they're low fat. I brought everything that I could find in the supermarket that was making a claim that it was good for me. And I want you to take a look at it. These are some of the most popular things that people pick up in the supermarket that make these claims that they're low sugar, low fat, low high protein, great for gut health. So the first one I've got here is Actimal, which says it's got Vitamin D, B6.

31:06It's great for immune support. Zero added sugar, zero percent fat, rich in vitamin D, that, Tim's vector. is definitely healthy or not. So yeah, these claims, some of these claims they're allowed to put on the packet, they're very restricted what they can actually say in terms of health it can do are date back 30 years and no longer really valid, but they have to do it because they're not allowed to, if mentioned, the word probiotic on a packet interestingly. So So they're trying to attract you in with things that would resonate with the consumer. So they do these massive surveys to say, what's going to resonate with you, Steve, when you go and you say, oh, what's going to make me buy this rather than one of the other ones?

31:58And so vitamin D, we've been flogging vitamin D for, forever, you know, 10 minutes in the sun will get you all the vitamin D you need. And it's in most foods anyway. You don't really need it in addition in these things. 0 % added sugar, and 0 % added fat mean that it's highly processed. So the combination of health, what we call health halos, saying it's super healthy, with rich in this vitamin, no sugar, no fat is very old -fashioned science. No one believes that that zero fat is any good for you anymore. And there's some actual data showing that low fat foods actually make you overeat. Really?

32:46Yes. What does the data say? So when compared, I'd sort of identical meals to people in lab conditions, those eating the low fat foods, the high carb but high processed foods like this will actually overeat substantially over the next day or so. So it's actually making you overeat quite significantly. So, and there's no advantage to your body in terms of heart health by having this. Because to get zero fat and make it taste good, it's got lots of extra sugars and starches in there. Otherwise, you just couldn't eat it. Fat is really important naturally to make you enjoy food. And so it takes a lot of careful chemistry to mimic that fat.

33:34So I would always avoid anything that said, you know, zero sugar, zero fat, rich in vitamins. Despite the fact that this probably has something good probiotics in it. So you're getting the good probiotics. It's only one, lactobacillus, but that's counteracted by all this negative stuff, all these chemicals, which we know are bad for your gut microbiome. So that's not going to be good for you or it's not going to be good for me either. So I would avoid that one. Always go for any yoga that really has minimum contents, just milk and microbes. That's all you need. Can you bring me the bin? This is going in the bin.

34:16Give me just a drop. In the bin. I did scan it on the Zoe app as well and my relationship to it was about 35, which is not a health food. Which is not a health food. What about this? This is definitely healthy. Dr Tim is back to. Activia. Deliciously good for your gut health. Okay, so I know this one's going to be good. What else does it say? We believe that a happy gut is a happy you. When you love your gut, it loves you back. It sounds like you wrote it. What other claims does it make? we ferment our unique blend of five active strains for up to eight hours. So every little pot is packed with billions of live cultures.

35:07Loving the planet to love our gut. Activia, great for the gut. Healthy. Well, so far, you know, everything looks good, doesn't it? But let's have a look and see what extra things they've added to. it, which is always hard to find in packets, you often need a microscope to see them. So for it to be good, it just needs microbes and milk, and that makes yoga. You just change the temperature, that's what you get. So here we've got lots of ingredients, we've got flavorings, we've got concentrates, we've We've got a bit of carrot for some reason. We've got lemon juice, we've got stabilizers, we've got tapioca starch, we've got sugars, and it claims to have strawberries without when they last were picked from the earth, I'm not quite sure.

36:05So it's not as bad as the other one, but basically we're looking at a highly processed product that has many chemicals you don't really want in your gut, because they will counteract the good effect of the gut microbes. slightly better than the other one, but I would still not eat it myself. Okay. And the fact that it's processed, does the fact that it's processed alone make it a bad food, or is it because the process of processing causes a loss in the good stuff and addition of a lot of bad stuff? When we say pro, because this word process foods has become just like a blanket term. So in my brain I get if it's processed it has to be bad, but is that accurate?

36:50Well we need to separate virtually all the food that we eat and I eat as well is processed. Yeah. But we need to separate that from ultra processed. So plain yogurt, nothing added, nothing you know changed is processed because you're mixing a basic ingredient milk with microbes. You're actually creating something that's processing. But it's when you take it to the next stage and you would make that same product from say milk powder and then you would add various starches and stabilizers, emulsifiers, concentrates, artificial sweeteners, flavorings, that same yogurt becomes ultra processed. And it's that extra step that is the main problem.

37:40Nothing wrong with processed food. Cheese is processed. There's nothing wrong with that. Most of the foods we eat are some have had salt added or oil added or something like that. But it's when it's chemicals that you don't find in your kitchen being added to foods that have been stripped of all their goodness. So they wouldn't just use cow's milk. It would be dried extract of casing or, you wouldn't take wheat, it would be the stripped out in a part of that wheat, and then that's temperature treated to melt it and change its composition. And to put these things back together, you need all these glues, like these emulsifiers, you need stabilizers, you need flavoring, sweeteners, colorants, all these extra things to make it look like food again.

38:34So I think we shouldn't be calling ultra -process food food, that's a misnomer, we should call them edible food -like substances that are industrially made. And if we start to realize the difference between these, we can start to make smart food choices. We now know that many of these ingredients, there's been lots of even research, since we last talked about things like a spartane has come out, which is artificial sweetener, has been linked to many health problems, including increased risk of cancers and heart disease. We've got emulsifiers have come out recently in a number of studies to show that they affect mental health, and they also affect heart disease.

39:22even when you are just for the whole diet and you take just that component of the food. So we know that ultra -processed foods are probably the worst things we're doing for our diets. And then in the UK, the average person is saying about 60 % of all their food is ultra -processed without knowing about it. We're eating four times more than healthy European countries who are often poorer than us. So it's not just a question of money, it's just become this battle of us poor consumers against these massive companies with billions of pounds to spend on marketing that have told us this stuff is healthy because of these fake health halos, bitamins, no sugar, no this, no fat, confusing the consumer, and all the time giving us foods that not only give us disease but importantly, make us overeat.

40:18So we pick that stuff, does mother it, says, even if it's just low fat, or it's got lots of other chemicals, both make you overeat by a quarter. So you'll be hungrier after eating that than you would be if you had a completely plain yogurt with none of those extra chemicals in it. Okay. Okay, so I've got three different drink -like foods here. I've got my oasis, citrus punch. On this one it says natural flavorings and real fruit. So that must be healthy, real fruit. If it says real fruit on it, you should be very suspicious. Okay, that's the first thing to look at it. And natural flavors, that really means nothing.

41:07And this is natural is a great word, means nothing medically, scientifically, but it's been a buzz word for me, getting people to buy stuff. So basically this is a mixed blend of citrus fruits, which means the mixtures of all kinds of different fruit extracts that's combined with sugar and artificial sweeteners. They're, again, highly processed fruits. They're not fresh fruits. And it's got a mixture of those. It's got citric acid, it's got sugar, orange flavorings, it's got stabilizers, polyphosphates, glycerol esters, it's got, looks like wood resins, acidity regulators, preservatives, it's got some potassium sorbit, potassium benzoate, it's got the sweetener's aspartame and ACEK.

42:09Aspartame's what you're just talking about right? Yes, that's the one that WHO have just put on their warning list. So yes, it's packed with things that you wouldn't expect if you disqueased a bit of juice and it was healthy. So this is a good example of a totally fake ultra processed food that makes it look like it's real fruit and it's going to be healthy for you and it is just a mix of chemicals. It's just going to mess up your gut microbes and make you feel hungry. Okay, but this one here, this Philadelphia, says light. So it says 100 % of the taste, but 40 % less fat. So if it's a little for your light, surely that's good.

42:59Well, it's got cheese in it. We did do some tests on this a while ago. It does have microbes in it. If it's low in fat, they generally added something else to increase the mouth feel. And indeed, we see here it's got stabilizers, it's got emulsifiers, all these things that we know have effects on you, got microbes, make you hungry and can affect your heart as well. So yeah, I would avoid that one. What do we have to, I've got a few last things for you there. What do we have to look out for on the packaging of these products? Because interestingly, the one you have in your hand, the bar there, the snack bar, on the back of it, they do admit that it's a little bit processed.

43:37They actually, there's a sentence on the back of it. I'll read it out. It says, I was reading it as you said it. it says, well, clearly it would be wrong for us to claim that everything in this bar is 100 % natural and simply grows on trees. Obviously, some ingredients need to be cleaned, dried, and roasted too. And therefore, to some extent, processed, it's just that we believe the less we mess with it, the better it tastes. That's why we never add any artificial flavors or colors or any preservatives. Yeah, well, I mean, natural bar. I mean, ingredients. This, you know, that's a good thing to say.

44:13It's quite hard to produce some of these snack bars without having things to stick it together or gums. Glucosirup, soy approaching, crispies, isolate tapioca starch, salt, dates, almonds, salt, salted caramel, musco, video, sugar, buttermilk, powder, natural flavor, and cream, powder, milk, rice, flour, carbo -flare insult. Yeah, it doesn't, when you read it out like that, it doesn't sound quite as natural as the label suggests, does it? Because you've got all these ingredients that are, you know, again half of them you wouldn't find in your kitchen. And it's partly to, you know, protein packed.

45:00You know, if you just need the nuts and the seeds, you wouldn't have to add in all this other stuff from soy and other beans and things, which are ultra processed. They're just taking that bit of it, combining it together. So some of these are better than others. But again, this is ultra processed. And you know, these all these snacks, interestingly, are really often the downfall in place like the US and the UK, where we're just eating so many, so much our energy is coming from these snacks, which wasn't the case 20 years ago. So on that point of snacking, snacking good or bad and what impact does that have on the overall nutritional and profile of an individual?

45:45Because a lot of people snack, right? Nearly everybody snacks. I think that's right. Over 90 % of people snack. So it's become normal to snack. In this country, in the US, it is the norm. It's not the norm in other countries. So you can see much less snacking habits in southern Europe than you do here and much less in many Asian countries as well. A Zoe study found that 95 % of people were snackers. Yes. And 25 % of people are undoing the benefits of healthy meals by unhealthy snacking. Yeah, so 95 % of people we found that Zoe study us are snackers and most of them are unhealthy. So just by reaching for a snack, unless you're really careful, you're going to be having not only extra calories, but unhealthy calories that's going to undo many of the good things you're eating.

46:42So we found in the Zoe survey that people would be really focusing on their main meal, saying, this is a really healthy meal. I mean, plenty of plants and vegetables. But oh, well, I've got to have my snack. And so they'd be undoing all that good by having something that would then a couple of hours later really upset their metabolism and make them hungrier and so mess up the idea and make them hungrier. So in the UK and the US it's around a quarter of our calories come from snacks if we were able to even to reduce that a bit or just change that snack to a healthy one or So ideally, move that snacking time to the meal itself.

47:26Most of these would be much less harmful if you had them at the end of your meal. When your body is starting to do all this work, breaking down the food, it's gearing up for this high activity. Virtually all the snacks that people have late in the evening are bad for you. And that's because you're getting a sugar spike just before going to bed. your body is not ready for it, your gut microbes are not ready for it, it doesn't give them a rest, and so you actually end up hungry the next day. So we're starting to realize that it's not just the food, and we've seen that most of these snacks are very unhealthy.

48:04It's going to make you hungry, but the timing of it also messes up your circadian rhythms, so you're not recovering, and the next day you're going to feel hungry, and then you were, if you didn't, snack. So it's like counter -intuitive. You think, oh, if I have something for again, a bed, I'm not going to be as hungry tomorrow. And this is what many people get into this this common mistake. So we need to start changing people's attitude in in this snack epidemic about snacks and say, you know, you don't need them. And if you do have healthy ones and you know, nuts and seeds and fruit are are perfectly healthy ones.

48:44And we showed in our study, which we published recently, that people who do have those healthy snacks are really hardly any extra risk of health problems committed to those that people don't snack, as long as it's not late at night. So if you eat within that sort of normal eating window, and you know, some people are natural snackers. I don't know if I'm not, but I know many of my colleagues at Zoe can't go two or three hours there at eating. They really find it hard. But just by thinking more about that snack and saying, well, I know I've got this tendency. I'm going to eat something that's healthy.

49:25I'm not nuts or something. Yeah. Just a handful of mixed nuts, an apple, or a pair, something that's not super sugary or super fat, but importantly, not ultra processed. Not something that's got this health halo that says, eat me, I've got iron protein, I'm gonna, you know, eat me and you'll get bigger muscles. No, eat me and you'll get fatter. Those health halos then, what are, just so we've summarized them, low fat is a health halo, you're saying, no sugar, real fruit, can I remember all the ones? extra vitamin. Vitamin labeling on products. Natural flavorings, I think it said. Yes. One of the products.

50:05Those are the main ones, have I missed any there? I think we've covered, yes. So claims about low fat, low sugar, nothing artificial. Hypotenobotus. Natural. Hypoten. Some would be gut friendly. Generally, their warning signs that this food is to be avoided, finds something that doesn't need their health claim. You never see a whole real food with a health claim. They don't need it. You've got an apple, doesn't need a claim. Contains vitamins, contains fiber. Real foods don't need health labels. I've had a confused relationship with bread. I look at bread all bread. I think that's bad. This is cheating on my gut microbiome.

50:52Is that the truth? Is bread bad? Most bread is bad. Most supermarket bread is ultra -processed sugar and contains many other chemicals you don't really want in you, makes you hungrier, and the general perception of the public is it's a healthy food. I found this myself when I started doing my glucose levels. even brown breads were all over the place. There are some breads that I can eat in small amounts that are still healthy, things like rye breads, and if it's sourdough that also improves it. But I think in general we're eating far too much bread for most people. There might be some people who can support it, and that's why it's good to test your glucose responses to it.

51:37But most bread has too much sugar, not enough fiber, too many chemicals in it, and we should be looking to other things for our nutrition. Have it as a rare treat, have it just when you go to a restaurant or whatever, but for most people, you know, it's a real red flag for me. The other red flag that shocked me was my relationship with white rice because I'd grown up eating white rice and I thought white rice was a great thing to have after I'd been to the gym with some chicken. So I used to, whenever I had to sell white rice, I thought it was great. And then I looked on Zoe and I had a 15 out of 100 relationship with white rice.

52:14And I think my girlfriend had a five out of 100 relationship with white rice. So I no longer have white rice. I've swapped it out for, I think, quinoa, it's usually what we have in the house now. Nearly any grain is better than white rice. It's got more fiber, it's got more protein in it, it's got more nutrients in it. And rice is the most overrated food, I think, even more so than bread, because yeah, people think it's healthier than, you know, having potatoes or pasta. They associate it with healthy things, because often sometimes because the rest of the meal is actually quite good and in a vegetable curry or whatever it is, often quite healthy.

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54:06much healthier. When you talk about your habits being so important, I, when you're eating and what you're eating and making sure that you carve out time to have your meals, because I was telling you earlier, I think before we started recording that, I'm in a bit of a pattern at the moment of eating my first meal of the day at like 4pm or 5pm because if I'm recording podcast or I'm doing something in the media or on TV, I don't like to eat before then. What is an example of great food habits? I want to know what your food habits are on a perfect day. So, you know, this was your 10 out of 10 day.

54:38When would you eat, how many meals would you eat, and what times would and wouldn't you eat? Okay, so like you, I have very busy days where sometimes it goes out the window and I think we've got to realize that you've got to try this sort of 80 -20 ideal. You know, you're trying to stick to something 80 % of the time, knowing that 20 % it's out of your control, don't worry about it. And if you do that, you can do that sustainably for decades. It's the people who obsessed and say, I mustn't break it, and if you've broken it one day, okay, end of my brilliant experiment. That's daft. So if I'm at home, for example, working at home, I mean, it control of things.

55:20I will not eat anything before 11 o 'clock. I will have a black coffee, because I know that wakes me up and I like it and it's also good for me but I wouldn't have anything else until 11 o 'clock. I'll go down and I fix myself my bowl of full fat yogurt and I'd put my diversity jar sprinkled in there and I'd see what else is in the fridge so I might have some berries if they're around at the moment plenty of seasonal berries might get some from the freezer if we're in the mid, you know, we're in March or something, there's no fresh berries. Or I might just chop up an apple and put it in there.

56:00I'm getting my protein, I'm getting fat, you know, I'm not feeling hungry and having a dip in energy in the middle of the day that I would probably have if I had neat anything. You said coffee, I have my coffee because I know it's good for me. Last time we spoke, you were kind of on the fence about coffee. You were two trains of thought about whether it's good for us or not, you're now saying you think it's good for us? Yeah, well I must have given the wrong impression to you, but the coffee is definitely a health food. Interesting. Okay, there are some people who don't tolerate it very well, they don't tolerate the caffeine, a few percent of people, but even if you have de -caf coffee, it's decent quality because there's different ways of taking the caffeine out, all the studies are now showing consistently that you will have less heart disease and you'll live longer if you drink coffee and are having sort of between one and four cups of coffee a day.

57:01That seems to be the sweet spot. A bit more than that, you've probably got some problem. Coffee is actually a fermented plant. So people don't think of it that way. They think, oh, it just comes in a jar, you know, I don't need to worry about it. But actually, you know, it comes off a tree, you get this pod, there's bean, you take it off, break it up, it then gets fermented on the floor of usually, you know, wherever it is in Africa or Asia or where it is. It's humid, the microbes are working on it, breaking it down, then you go and dry it and roast it and that ends up being the coffee we have.

57:40So the microbes are playing a role in that. It's also a source of fiber. So three cups of coffee gives you around five grams of fiber, which is about a quarter of the average UK or US amount. So it's not the main source of fiber, but it all helps. And in the US, it's often the main source of fiber that they get. So polyphenols, the fiber, also for many people it gets them awake and alert, has that effect of stopping tardness. So if you, if you're careful with it, you don't overdose on it and you know it doesn't give you heart fluctuations, it's going to be actually beneficial for you long term.

58:24So this is a great example of a food that we've totally changed our minds on over the years. I initially, my first research paper I ever wrote was that coffee causes cancer. Okay? So when I was a, I was actually a medical student. I was very proud of my paper and this was great. And it was based on very poor studies done in the 1980s and it was completely rubbish. So I'm very happy that to go and correct that mistake and tell people that, you know, you much better to drink coffee than say orange juice. And orange juice tends to be in the health section and coffee definitely and there's a recreational section.

59:13And they really should be changed over. Most orange juice we have is ultra -processed, high sugar, very bad for most people. Coffee is good for the vast majority of people. What else have you been wrong about? What else have you changed your mind about over the last couple of years? because of the research that you know have, you know, the data you know have access to and the research that you've done. Well, I was keen to avoid fats for a long time. I cut back on cheese because I thought that's high in saturated fats that can't be good for you. I would have bought low fat products before. And so that most doctors were indoctrinated with that.

59:54Many doctors are still in that mindset that But that is bad and carbs and starch are good. Drinking lots of water was good for you. And I now, having researched it for the book, no hard data that you should be drinking eight glasses of water, for example, a day, which is what most of the recommended government sites tell you. And obviously the drinks industry is very keen to support that because you know the big companies that the coax, the Pepsi's are moved into the water business and they're trying to sell everyone plastic bottled water which is terrible for the planet. The idea that we're all deprived of hydration and having all kinds of problems with it is really made up.

1:00:45There's no hard evidence at all. And if you look at doctors who work on marathons, they see that far more people die or have health problems from over -hydrating in the marathon race than dehydrating. So the human body is really good at some things. You think about our ancestors. They kind of knew when you were thirsty, right? It's like, hang on, this is quite a, you know, and the idea that, oh, we've got no idea if we're thirsty or not. We need to be eating, you know, have a stopwatch to tell us to drink every hour on the hour. Obviously nonsense when you think about it. That's so true. From my birth, they just gone.

1:01:28Someone brought me this massive, like, what's the way to describe it? Barrel, water bottle. And it has like eight liters marked on the side of it. And they said to me, when they gave it to me, you need to drink that every day. And so the idea was that I put it on my desk as a reminder that I need to drink that whole barrel before I finish work. Oh, I mean, you just think about it. Well, you know, we've been evolving for millions of years and, you know, you can't live long without water. So clearly, we are a pretty good mechanism we've inherited to tell us when we need to drink water and when we don't.

1:02:08And I just think that's a, again, marketing concept, all the soft drink, all this rehydration, these electrolytes, all this stuff, it's largely nonsense. And it's just, again, like the protein marketing idea is that, and we're very susceptible to it, because we like a quick fix or, and there'll be a few people that say, I feel better when I drink lots of water. Sure, but the idea that, We're so out of control that, you know, someone needs to bring us water every hour, is madness. And there isn't this variation. We got up to your lunch. So we did your breakfast, sounded nice, your lunch. What time do you typically eat lunch and what you typically have on a 10 out of 10 day where everything's going to plan?

1:02:59I mean, it all varies. I don't want to give the idea. I'm always having the same lunch because I do try and vary it. But if I'm on my own working, I'm not with friends or whatever, it would be a fairly quick affair and it would probably be a salad. And I would get a lettuce or a grated cabbage, I would throw whatever happened the fridge in there and I would add some protein to it. So I would add some beans. I always keep cans of beans around. They cost nothing. They're a huge source of fiber and protein. Tip those in. There might be lentils. They might be chickpeas. Might be standard mixed beans.

1:03:48And I'd put them in. If I had some cheese, I might chop that up. Might put a bit of mozzarella in there. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar. that would be it. If I had had some sour crowd or something I might have that on the side, but a ferment, and I've increasingly recently since I've been doing more research on this, I might make my salad dressing actually with some fermented milk, some kefir, and you just mix up all in vinegar and you just at the last minute add in your ferment so you're and my hurry, that's probably what... Yeah, it would be a reasonable, but it would vary depending on what I was taking, what fruits, what vegetables, and yeah, I would have fruit afterwards.

1:04:39What kind of fruit do you like? I noticed on my Zoe app that bananas ranking incredibly low for me. I think my ranking on a banana out of 150. Now I've been eating bananas like a monkey. I've always thought bananas were just fantastic. So I thought unlimited bananas were a great idea until I saw the Zoe app and it said my score is 50 out of 100 Now I've used up on the bananas and I'm having much more berries because I do really well for red berries in particular in fact the order that I the Zoe app had fruits in is raspberries were number one Cherries were number two strawberries were third then pairs then peaches then apples then kiwis then blueberries then grapes and then bananas were like 10th, 50 out of 100.

1:05:25Well, I scored even worse than you, you'd be pleased to know. I really, I used to eat lots of bananas. And it was the thing, you just put in your backpack, comes at your own packaging, have it when you want. I thought this is super healthy. So I've seen Roger Federer, ate lots of bananas, he's been pretty fit. And that's why we associated with the marketing thing, oh, lots of potassium, must be good for us. really lots of sugar and they're not great for us. My score was about 30 or something. So I still have them occasionally because I enjoy them occasionally but I don't have them every day like I used to.

1:06:04So I now swap them out for pairs. We have some great pairs in this country and they're always good apples. And again I'll have my berries if I've got them. So and and Kiwi fruits I had to also give up grapes. I used to eat lots of grapes and I used to love them, but He got huge sugar spike with grapes which I know then you know would make me hungrier for the rest of the day. So And I have them as a treat, you know, might have some grapes once a month that's still fine So I think we shouldn't ever say I'll never have those again. It's just like what's your staple? what do you have most of the time?

1:06:46Should you be swapping that for something just as tasty or nice or a mixture of things, but get out of that rut just because someone told you that, you know, bananas good has potassium in it and it makes you play tennis better. You know, it was, it's that kind of mindset that we really need to change. And I guess it depends what else is on the plate. I remember Fridrica who's the head of nutrition at Zoe, her telling me that The plate itself has its overall score. So if I had, you know, maybe something that wasn't so good in isolation, but with a couple of other things that are really high ranking in terms of health and got microbiome, then the overall score comes up.

1:07:24And it's really the average of the whole plate. Yeah, it's exactly. I don't... The idea's been, I don't want to demonize one little thing. So you might be obsessed with mayonnaise, for example, you know, and I'd say to you, Well, you're going to have a small amount of mayonnaise if it's going to make you eat a salad. And if that salad is high fiber and nutritious, it's got plenty of good things in it herbs and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Or, you know, a tiny bit of ketchup or whatever. You know, I'd still be saying, yeah, you can try something else instead of those, but don't get hung up about it.

1:07:54And I think it's absolutely true that, you know, nutrition has gone into this idea of this, this is wrong, this gives you cancer, this is bad. and meat is a great example of that debate. You know, people ask me, are you, are you for meat, are you against meat? And I've sort of changed, I flipped on this as the evidence has changed. I'm definitely against process meats, ultra -process meats, which are low quality stuff, put together in ready meals, et cetera. You know, you'd be much better off just having mushrooms or beans instead of that mixed with it, a vegetarian version of it. But real high quality meat in small amounts, nothing really wrong with it, as long as you have enough space on the rest of the plate to make up for it.

1:08:42What about the carnivore diet?

1:08:46Well, I keep getting probably like you, you know, people can say, you know, I heard you talking about, you know, not eating plants is bad, but I've been living for two years on the carnivore diet. I feel great. And I say, fine, there might be one in 10 ,000 people that can exist with zero fiber and zero plants. And in the North Pole, etc, there are people who exist on high fat and high protein diets that have evolved for it. But vast majority of people will suffer greatly by having denuded gut microbiome. And just eating meat is not what our ancestors did anyway. I've lived with the Hads a tribe for a week, and they had a lot of vegetables and fruits and berries and nuts and seeds.

1:09:44And they still meat is a treat, and three months of the year they have no meat, because it's hard to catch, but they've got all this other stuff. So the idea that it's natural, that's what we did, is really wrong. And something you might feel better briefly. You know, there's a difference between how people respond to fats, particularly, and carbs. So you might lose a bit of weight. A lot of that's actually, they've done some studies showing people on high keto, high fat protein diets. They'd lose weight quicker, but a lot of it is water. Oh, okay. So they're sort of drying out and in a way sometimes bodybuilders do that to make them look more toned but actually long -term they don't lose that and it comes back and the main problem is they've got microbes are really crying out for food.

1:10:34So you're starving or gut microbes if you're just on a meat -only diet. So there's no evidence that that is healthy and lots of evidence that lack of fiber is really bad for you. So remember that statistic we went back to just a 5 gram change in fiber. So if these people, you know, so if the average is 20 grams a day and a kind of a diet person is on 5 or less, then we're talking, you know, 50 % increases in heart disease and reduced longevity. So, you know, people do what they want, but the data absolutely doesn't support it. Another thing that I have every day is chewing gum. And I was in the car, because it's in the center console of the car that I'm driven around in the driver's zero car, we call it.

1:11:24And there's like seven different types of chewing gum. Now, when I eat this chewing gum, it's, there's this explosion of sweetness in the first couple of bites. And I was thinking the other day I was driving, I was thinking, I think I'm becoming a little bit compulsive. like I didn't need the chewing gum for any other reason. And then I think there's this, so it's doing something in my brain. I grab it, I put one in, I throw it in the bin, I grab another, I throw it in the bin. And I think I'm just doing it for that sugar burst. My question is broadly about chewing gum, but are these artificial sweeteners that exist in the chewing gums that I'm probably eating worse than just normal sugar?

1:12:01They're better for your teeth. Okay. So you will get less tooth decay. Yeah. by having the artificial sweeteners. But most of them will be causing problems to your gut microbes. OK. And not your mouth microbes as well. So anything you mess with in your mouth and your saliva, it seems like mouth washes as well, all these artificial ones. They're all shown to reduce your natural gut microbes and actually cause more problems, so that you're more prone to infections, and actually more prone to get overgrowth of bad microbes giving you bad breath. So, you know, you have this initial hit, which, you know, often the mouthwash is a similar in a way to that sort of instant gratification of the chewing gum, because it feels fresh and tangy in your mouth, but you're often killing off the good guys that are protecting your mouth.

1:12:58And the worry I have is about this sweetness, is it's sensitizing you to want more sweet foods. So it probably makes you hungry for more carb foods later in the day. So I don't think there's any particularly bad about chewing gum, per se, other than if people chew a lot of it, it's sugary, you know, it will give you more dental decay. But the artificial sweeteners are probably worse because they're having a negative of effect on the gut micro. All the microbes from your mouth down to your gut. Mouthwash. I'm a prolific mouthwash user. Oh dear. I know. They've done actual studies on this to show that, yes, customers, consumers like it.

1:13:42So you probably like that feel of being fresh and doing something and having a tang in the mouth, a tangy chewing gum as well, a mint or, you know, there's something nice in the brain that says this is good, but if you do it too much, you start to de -fort, you know, destroy your natural defense mechanism and microbes in your tongue and your saliva are there to fight off other bugs and you're more likely to get overgrown for the wrong ones and, you know, you may actually end up a worse smelling breath long term than if you weren't using these chemicals. The topics I'm about to throw out you are very complicated and you're very good at simplifying things.

1:14:24So everything I'm about to throw out you typically has a whole industry of people behind it that have overcomplicated it and are selling courses about it in different hacks and tips and tricks. If you could, I would ask you just to give me a simple solution to the things that I'm going to throw out you. The first one is weight loss. There's not a simple solution. You have to do something that's sustainable for long periods of time. So forget the idea that it's really important to lose weight over a few weeks. You want something that can maintain your weight at a good level for decades. And if you have a problem with It's really excess weight.

1:15:10You're extremely obese, morbidly obese. You need something radical. Darts are not going to do it. You need one of these new drugs. The GLP ones, these injections, these M picks, the Wigovies, or you need bariatric surgery to get you down to that level. Something dramatic for most people. What do you think of those new drugs, the M picks? I think they're amazing. really for people that really need it. Not for you, not for you. Well, I've got lots of friends that are in seemingly great shape that are taking these new weight loss drugs, the Zem picks and all that stuff. Well, they're mad. Why? There are lots of side effects that aren't worth the benefits.

1:16:00Not the benefits if you have any minor weight problems. the benefits outweigh the risks if you are so obese that you're 50 -50 chance of having a heart attack in the next or stroke in the next five years. So people with morbid obesity have a worse prognosis than people with cancer. So it's like I've got cancer, what do I do? I'll take a drug. I'll accept that it's got some side effects, but I want to live. And they do work for mass majority people. For people who have only minor levels of obesity, just some love handles or whatever, to cut out all your appetite signals in your brain, we don't know what that does long -term.

1:16:46We do know that it has, can affect your pancreas, it can cause some rare cancers, it can do other stuff to your digestive system that we're still a long way away from knowing. So it's a drug for extreme abuse problems that we've created through ultra -process foods and people with terrible diabetes, etc. It is not something for the general population. So for those people, it's firstly improving the quality of your diet. It's number one. So get down from an average of 60 % ultra -process food to something less than 20%. find a consistent way to... That's the first thing to do. Then the next thing is to change your mindset about things don't get obsessed with calories, start thinking about eating your 30 plants a week, because that will naturally give you all the fiber and change your appetite signals as well.

1:17:55The fitness community were quite disgruntled last time We just gruntled again. When you said what you said about calories, because a lot of people do rely on the calories in calories out, system for weight loss. Yeah. Well, a BST expert's don't. So it may be fine in gyms to talk about that. That's old science. We now know that this calorie model, from a practical point of view, is completely broken, because we've been not talking about the quality of food, the structure of food, all these different effects, these inter -individual effects that we're talking about. Many that counting calories is for vast majority of people, impossible or meaningless.

1:18:41So it's, and it's the marketing and the companies who are selling us these low -calorie products, this idea that it's really simple. All you got to do is X, Y and Z, you'll lose weight. that's what we're fighting here. And they may have influenced, you know, the gyms with their special drinks and programs and people wanting the crash course of come in here, you'll lose all this, you'll gain muscle, you'll lose weight, you know, it's easy. The evidence is very clear that if you restrict calories, you will lose weight, but 80 % of people regain it pretty quickly and will actually go over the other end if they haven't changed their the dark in terms of quality and taking care of what they're eating.

1:19:26And there's good evidence that people that follow a program where they are not focusing on calories, but they are focusing on food quality. They're looking at their sugar peaks, they're looking at their fat levels, they're looking at their gut microbes. They are looking at the time of day they're eating, they're looking at how to eat just thoughtfully and not talking about fat levels and avoiding all these foods that we've been talking about, they will consistently lose small amounts of weight, not large amounts, but small, consistent amounts that don't make them more hungry. And the key is do things that don't make you hungry.

1:20:05The reason calorie restriction doesn't work is our evolution tells us to ramp up the hunger signal. obvious. It's the same way if you do exercise and makes you hungry, we have this inbuilt mechanism. That's why the only drugs that where methods of work are these drugs like Ezempic -Wigovie that act on the appetite, they act on the brain. They just from the gut sends a signal to the brain switches off the appetite signal. Otherwise, you just reduce calories or you increase exercise, that appetite signal is just going right up there. And you can carry on resisting it for a while. Most people have tried this.

1:20:49They know, and it gets harder and harder every week. And then suddenly you crack and then you say, oh, I've given up now. I'm back and often you swing above it. You know, yeah. And that, and that, you know, you're going, it's probably the worst thing you can do, because it just makes you're, you know, you've got no consistency. On that point of exercise, there was a lot of contention last time we spoke around the subject matter of exercise because a lot of people go out and do cardiovascular exercise, they run on a running machine in order to try and lose weight. But you and many other people that have spoken to have said that that's not a great strategy for weight loss.

1:21:26Yes, lots of studies have done and said people are trying to lose weight, conventional, by conventional means. We're not doing the Zoey method, but the old fashioned ways of calorie restriction or changing to keto diets or whatever it is. If those people are put on exercise or no exercise at the same time, does it help them? And generally, it doesn't. So, and if you do exercise alone, then there's no evidence. There's many Many people gain weight as lose weight on exercise. So you think, why is that? Well, if you think it through exercise, I'm not knocky, because I exercise every day. I love it.

1:22:17It's great for my brain and my heart and everything else. And reduces lots of diseases. But people have got to separate that from weight loss if we're going to make any progress here. And if you've got too much excess fat on your body, exercise alone is a terrible way to deal with it because you're like saying, I'm not gonna deal with my diet, I'm just gonna run it off in the gym and keep taking my supplements and do everything else. And what happens for most people is that their metabolism slows down. The signals of hunger increase after exercise and psychologically people think, I've done some exercise, I've burnt off those calories, I can have that donut or whatever.

1:23:00So subconsciously there, also maybe snacking slightly more than they would be. That's why for most people it doesn't work. Now, I know people who got upset last year, but some people it does work. This is probably, there's a different response. We don't all respond to exercise with appetite signals exactly the same way. But for as many people it did work, there are people that made them actually put on weight. Do you see what I mean? That's why the studies show no difference. So you always find someone who writes to you say, Stephen, this guy's an idiot, because I, you know, I did this and I lost 10 kilos.

1:23:41But, you know, exactly someone else will say, I did this and I gained 10 kilos. And I thought I was doing the right thing. So the point is, you can't rely on it. And it's When there's something obviously modifiable like your diet, it's so easy. We've got so much choice now and what to eat. We're not forced to eat ultra -processed foods or low fat this or whatever. We can make those choices. We should be doing that, not trying to say, am I lucky? Am I that small percentage of person that can do this purely from working out more in the gym? Supplements, you mentioned there. That's the next thing I wanted to ask you about.

1:24:19Supplements, vitamins. my house used to be stacked with supplements. And then after our conversation last time round, I look at them, most of them like they've lied to me, like I've been a victim of marketing of sorts. And I've got every bloody supplement, I've got your Omega three, Vitamin D, electrolytes, calcium, you name it, it's still in my house. What is your view on these supplements? In general, my view hasn't changed at all, that the vast majority of supplements are completely worthless. But there are some that are useful for some people some of the time. Like. Like, there are some people who have vitamin D deficiency.

1:25:04Who? Black people. Yes, some black people, black dark skin, people living in places with very low, you know, they might have poor diets that don't have much vitamin D in it. Those people could probably do with some supplementation over winter. Because they produce less vitamin D than people with lighter skin? Yes. Lighter skin evolved as a mutation as humans came out of Africa in order to survive in lower sunlight areas. So, naturally, white to skin people have their less protection against the sun, but they have a better vitamin D production system. So generally, darker skin have more problems.

1:25:53So I used to see many patients. And often they don't go in the sun either, because culturally, they cover themselves up. And so that's a problem. So there definitely are people who can take benefit from taking some of these vitamins. I'm not saying that at all, but the idea that everybody should be taking them is just madness. There's no evidence that in my field of osteoporosis that taking vitamin D and calcium actually prevents osteoporosis or bone disease. Although for years and years and years we thought it did, but all the big studies now show that's not true. If you take calcium, all the studies are suggesting that not only does it now have any benefit in terms of bone or muscle health, but it can adversely affect your heart.

1:26:43So because the calcium you get in capsules or supplements, you're taking one big lump of it at a time rather than getting it in your green vegetables, which would be slowly broken down and absorbed in your gut in ways that your body can deal with. So you're getting this, it's like someone injecting it into your vein is very different to being slowly given it throughout 24 hours as the way nature intended. What supplements then could most of us benefit from taking? If you have a good diet, you won't need any supplements. But most of us don't have a good diet. So, what do you do? You promote supplements and say, don't worry about your diet, which is what the marketing company is one and the vitamin company is one.

1:27:30They want us to forget the dark, keep the ultra -process food stuff coming, keep it all coming guys. This junk food, no real whole foods, no plants, no fruits, that's fine. You guys are going to need some vitamins. That may be true for people on very poor diets, you know, only eat beige food. Maybe they do need some supplements. But I think there's no evidence. However, there is very little evidence that people who do take supplements are any healthier than people that don't take supplements. So you could say, people say, oh, it's like an insurance policy. I'm taking this insurance policy, therefore that's a very good reason to take multi -vitamins, et cetera.

1:28:12And I've heard that said, even from some epidemiologists and doctors. But to my mind, justice is likely to do your harm, as it is to do your good, and it definitely is affecting your wallet. What about omega -3? I take that as well. The trials of that have shown it doesn't work for reducing heart disease or any other major disease, unless you've just had a heart attack. Alcohol. I've just given up alcohol. I've not really told anybody this, but about two months ago now, I decided that I could see no net positive in my life. There wasn't any sort of social lubricant which sometimes people cite as being the reason to drink alcohol.

1:28:55so I gave it up entirely. And it's been really an interesting experiment at giving a power call. I was one of the people that sat right on the fence, didn't think I had a bad relationship with it, didn't have a huge reason to drink it, didn't drink it that often anyway. And then I decided one day, I'll run the experiment of just quitting and see what it's like. And there's been multiple situations where just out and about wait waiters who are maybe a little bit poorly trained, have literally tried to force me to drink a power call. Like one particular waiter was like, go on, this is not alcohol, this is art, I'm just going to leave the bottle here right in front of you if you change your mind.

1:29:30I'll run that one particular way to. And then all the other social contacts where you're just like, it's just assumed that you drink. What is your stance on alcohol? Well, you certainly don't need it.

1:29:45So most of the studies are pretty consistent, say, that the more alcohol you drink, the more your chances of all kinds of diseases and problems. There are some exceptions to that that comes down often to Mediterranean effect. People who drink a glass or two of red wine, do seem to have less heart disease. But they won't be protected from other conditions. So they won't be protected from cancers or some strokes, works, et cetera, and lifespan is sort of unclear in that particular group. So in general alcohol is bad for you. There's no doubt. But and so if you don't drink, I don't think I would say to you, Stephen, you're wrong, you need to be start drinking red wine.

1:30:39But for those people who do drink or drink occasionally small amounts, what I would say that are healthier than others, and red wine is one that's been shown to reduce by about 30 % your risk of a heart disease in most studies, and it's not absolutely clear cut. But if you drink too much, it actually goes bad again for you. So it's really quite a small window. And there might be some other drinks in the future that might be healthy, and this comes back to plants, because when you're drinking wine, you're drinking fermented grapes. So the alcohol is bad, fermented grapes are good. So in the future, I'd like to see us getting really zero alcohol wines.

1:31:26And they are coming. And I tasted some from Canada, et cetera, where you can get like a 1 % wine. You can't 1 % by the way, it's what's in kombucha. You can't metabolize, you don't notice it. And if they have all those benefits, it's they could be that new era of actually healthy alcohols. And there might be some sideers as well because they've got the skin of the apple. But actually all the other alcohols have no real health benefit. What about sleep and the gut microbiome? I've wondered if there was a connection between how well I sleep. Sleepers become the obsession in my life. I feel like I'm a competitive sleeper now.

1:32:06I really enjoy the process. I've seen the variants in a well -sled night and a poorly slept night on how on my mood and how I perform how I'm how my brain works. What does the research say about the role that sleep plays on our gut microbiome and on our nutrition? They're all interlinked so a bad night's sleep means that the next day you're going to have a bigger sugar spike to the same bagel or breakfast that you had. Sorry, sorry. If I have a bad night's sleep, the same food will give me a bigger sugar spout. So, it upsets all of your metabolism, right? So, as you were saying, I feel better after a good night's sleep.

1:32:50Your body's metabolism is also different. So, a disrupted night's sleep means that your body will overreact to sugar. You're more like to have a sugar dip after it and feel tired. And you're more like to feel hungry and crave more carbohydrates rates after a bad night. And I think most people listening will think of that. So yeah, if I really rotten night sleep, you said get up and you your body craves something to help you through this, you know, and everything is out of sync. And people who are sleeping poorly will have less healthy gut microbes than those that don't we don't yet know which way around that relationship goes, whether sleep is driving the microbiome or the microbiome is affecting sleep, but we know they're interrelated.

1:33:41So the other thing we've shown is that generally as you found out, our body likes a consistent pattern of activity and rest. So going to sleep at the same time, waking up at the same time is really good for your body, you feel better and nourish. Now, if people are, say, changing by a couple of hours, hour and a half, two hours at the weekends, they're sleeping later and waking up later, this affects also their sugar responses and their gut microbes. So we know that this consistency of approach is really important for everything in your body. Now, I don't want to tell people they should never go out or party because social networking is really fun, but just think of that in mind, particularly if it's in your control, it's just watching another Netflix movie because it's the weekend may not be the smartest thing to do if you want to feel really good long term.

1:34:40This consistency is coming out again linking this idea of nutrition, how we respond to food, but also involving our gut microbes. Sleep is incredibly important. It's all part of the solicitic message. Someone told me that the time when we is setting us circadian rhythm more than many other things that we do. I used to think that light was the thing that had the greatest influence over my circadian rhythm, my internal body's clock, what time my body thinks it is, but food has a big impact on that circadian rhythm. Absolutely, yeah, all the studies are pointing to that. So I used to think like you that, yeah, when I was going to the US or whatever, the most important thing was to get out there and get in the sunlight and whatever and not worry about my meals and just eat because when I'm jet lagged I was always hungry anyway.

1:35:31But now really focusing on fasting and trying to eat at the time of way or the time zone you're trying to fit into is much more important than sunlight. So, yeah, meal timings are increasingly important in science and I think this is one of the really new exciting areas. And it all fits in with this idea of, you know, getting your rest periods really well worked out, your activity periods, not messing them up, not eating when you're supposed to be resting and not doing things out of sync. And so the people that do deal with time changes and jet lag, generally they're often fasting on planes now, not eating all the food that's offered.

1:36:13And thinking about how they want to kick start their new clock when they get to their destination. So this idea that I had of getting my assistant to schedule what time I work out every day and what time I eat every day is a good idea? Yes, as long as it doesn't become a processional. I'm going to say. Because some people don't like it. People don't like it. They risk it with me. So, you know, people listening, I think these are often good ideas, but again, if you go over the 80 -20 rule, because you can get obsessed about anything, whether it's exercise, it's training, it's sleeping, and then you get anxious about it if you don't do it every day.

1:36:49So, realize it's important, but realize something's more important than your schedule, okay? And things like friends and having fun and, you know, absolutely crucial. And this is all part of our, you know, philosophy we've been trying to build with Zoe is about, food is about enjoyment. And we mustn't break it down to mathematical formulas all the time. got to realise that life is important to do everything. And, you know, we can all have a day off. My last question I think is maybe one that nobody's asked you before. I'm sure a lot of people have probably asked you it. I'm a dog owner. I've got a little French bull dog who's eight years old now called Pablo.

1:37:33When I was pouring his food out today, it dawned on me that his food is heavily, heavily, heavily processed. Do you have any advice on what we should be feeding our pets, our dogs, our cats?

1:37:47Before we started Zoey, I did think of doing a dog microbiome map, my pet project, and I did look into this, but I'm not up to date on it, but there's lots of evidence that the The pellets I used to give are dogs, which I thought were great, are the equivalent of ultra -process foods, just like you said, and that dogs who are given whole foods live longer and have less diabetes, put on weight less and are much healthier. So I believe that the same thing that applies to humans applies to dogs. The canned stuff that smelled horrible is, as they still use that, but we were told that the pellets were healthier and because they contained all these extra vitamins and it was this concentrated source that was perfect for them.

1:38:37And if you look at it, it's exactly the same as ultra -process food. And that's probably why our pets are getting as obese as we are. They're getting diabetes, they're getting chronic diseases, they're getting arthritis. And I think there is some evidence, I'm not sure how good it is, that if you convert them to whole food diets, whole meats, just eating the same that we would might be eating or eating our scraps, they will do better. So maybe you should try that. I do think I was thinking this when I saw the numbers. I heard that Zoe now has more than a hundred thousand members and I thought you know getting to look at the data of a hundred thousand people.

1:39:14I'm not saying that you look at the data but just having access to the patterns and the insights that you get from such a huge amount of people, many of which tens of thousands of which are inputting food diaries every day, you must have had so many like eureka moments or incredible insights from that bird's eye view. There must be some things that are just, you've grown in conviction and passion about because of that perspective. Well, we're seeing things we've never seen before. We've discovered 4 ,000 new species of microbe just in the last few months. Each of these could be totally novel or useful for therapeutics or diagnostics.

1:39:57We found things like this parasite, the blastocystis. We're finding links with new foods that we could start to give people advice on about which foods to eat to improve, which microbe. And as we go forward in the future, we'll be able to perhaps predict micro combinations that look like they might prevent cancer and heart disease or interact with your medications to make antidepressants more effective or hormone replacement treatment more effective. So I think it's all happened so fast and it's just incredible that the response that we've had Zoe and the people are all contributing their data to this community that are very soon we're going to be a million people and it's such an exciting time for scientists like myself knowing that we're going to unravel all these secrets and who knows where it's going to lead.

1:40:54Last time I asked you a question because when we share so much advice on food, I think it's nice to close on an overarching principle, a nice overarching philosophy for everybody to take away from this conversation and everything we've discussed. What are your words with that overarching principle or philosophy be towards our health and our nutrition? And I'll die. You can't go wrong if you do things that are going to be good for your gut microbes. And so thinking on behalf of your gut microbes or your pets as you call them, think what would they want to eat? How would they want you to behave?

1:41:34And if you do that, you're going to be eating all the right things and avoiding all the bad things. And all the rest generally follows. I think that's the simplest of eye -circum -rero. And, you know, realizing that when you eat food, you know, you're not alone. You've got these trillions of microbes there waiting for your every move and your choice. The closing tradition on this podcast is that the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to leave it for. And I love this because it changes direction a little bit. The question that's been left for you is, what is a modern positive vision of masculinity?

1:42:19Did you say that one, especially for me? I was so upset. That was a date.

1:42:26Have you got sons? I've got a son, yes. So I've got to think like, hey, Mavai, What's a positive vision for his masculinity and a more than one?

1:42:43It's probably someone who's prepared to go 50 -50 on all the chores in the house at the moment. I think that's the, I think masculinity is going through a tough time at the moment. And I think realize there is a revolution going on. So I think it's definitely about being flexible and losing a lot of those stereotypes and going with a flow. That's what I would advise him. It's quite too late for me, but. It's a confusing thing. That's what the guest was talking about. How young men are very confused in their masculinity, what it means, what it is to be a man, what it's not to be a man these days.

1:43:22And really trying to give, he was, that guess was really trying to give men an answer for that question of like young, you know, masculinity because the data shows young men are suffering tremendously. If you look at the suicide rates or if you look at the putt, you know, employment rates or the education rates or dating all those in those areas. So there's a bit of a, as you say, a revolution going on in masculinity and what it means to be a man. There'd be a shame to be male, but be flexible and try to adapt to the changing world. I think that's that's it. Tim, thank you so much. Thank you for your wisdom.

1:43:54You've definitely changed my life. And I know from all the feedback I got in our last conversation, you've changed the lives of many, many people through your work, but also more broadly through what Zoe's doing. I can only speak for myself, obviously. I have a relationship with Zarya, an investor in the company, and they sponsor the podcast. But in my life, the key, the significant changes that I've seen because of the insight and the fact that Zoe has turned the lights on to my nutrition have been, I pretty much my whole life, I had gut problems. and I didn't really know why and I just accepted it.

1:44:24I was always bloated, had pains in my gut and I just thought it was normal. You know, I thought, as a lot of people probably think, I thought I was broken in some way and this was just the way that my body was born. And then as I've done this podcast, I've realized to not accept this idea that I was born broken in any area of my life and to look a little bit more about how there might be a misalignment between what my body wants and what the modern world is giving it. And through Zoe, I was able to completely remove that decade -long pain in my gut by focusing on foods that had a good relationship with me.

1:44:59So I thank Zoe for that and I thank you for that and the work that you do in spreading the message because what are the things you say, you know, they ruffle feathers. And I think when things are positively disruptive, it's an inevitability that they ruffle that is because there is an incumbent that is experienced cognitive dissonance. There's an incumbent that feels threatened or challenged in such a way. But I think that's how innovation and positive change occurs. So thank you. Pleasure. Hope it works.

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