The Truth About Nutrition: Why Our Food System Isn’t Built to Keep You Healthy

25:37And 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 like channels about the importance of fiber. And I get, 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.

26:06So 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. 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.

26:54because first of all, especially if they're coming from like 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, and so I think for a short amount of time that can really help somebody and it will, 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 what the hypothesis would be is it just what it's it will likely not be great long term from cardiovascular diet, likely not really, that's what that's what the scientists that I know who study this area have have kind of said, what is someone on a carnivore diet missing?

27:49after instead of just like a 30-day reset, you know, 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, um, you know, like vitamin C. Where are they getting vitamin C from? Like carnivore diet. Well, they get some vitamin C supplements. I don't know. 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 people saying these things like, I've never felt better.

28:22I, 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 seemed to be moving well for them? Have they, 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 fruits. Really? Okay. Yeah. Like the main guy who started it.

28:58Okay. He's now doing fruit? Is that what it is? I believe so. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. Like, this isn't my best area. I don't know a ton about the carnivore diet. 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's something that 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 we cut out all the ultra-processed food. But I haven't seen data on why. Got it. So you would only go off of something based on long-term data and research.

29:36As a recommendation for the population, of course. I see. It makes sense. Yeah. But some people like swear by certain fads or diets. 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.

30:14There are some like 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. And you're more of a, you know, nutritionist research dietician. 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.

30:51And, you know, 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 it'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.

31:27I was just in Spain a couple of 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 supposed to go anywhere after this? It's like, no, we just kind of hang it out. And just have some more water, have a cappuccino, whatever it might be. Just like hang out. There's no rush. I was like, it's really relaxing. It was actually really enjoyable to just connect with a group of guys and hang out and just talk about life and have nowhere to go.

32:05I could do it for about a month. And I was like, all right, I need to get back into the life of 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 have their we had their whole family over last time we went because 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 it's really like calmed me in meals because 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 next yeah and uh because i guess that's just our culture i don't know um but yeah so now we like sit and i've like learned to be okay with like dirty dishes just sitting next to me at the table.

32:56So it's been a completely kind of like different experience. But I do think that there's something to that, like being, being calm and being able to like digest your food. And yeah, there's something to that in terms of because you're 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 the idea of like stress reduction and yeah, like the psychology of how you're living and essentially like the psychology of food is a big one, but it's also just like how you approach the day.

33:42I'm not like a scientist in that particular area, but I was in a really unique like 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 like 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 there's a lot to be said for kind of like our mindset in terms of optimizing our health.

34:20So 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 to, 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. As a researcher and scientist around these things, what's the area of your life that you're struggling with the most where you know you could be improving based on the science?

35:05Oh, there's a lot right now. Really? Yeah. I just 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 like 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 know, you're working out hard every day or five days a week.

35:42Yeah. You don't eat crap. But the other two things, sleep and stress. Yeah. 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, yeah. 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 going to 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.

36:22I wonder if we know, like you hear about these stories of people that are like, oh, 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 a hundred. 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 going to do whatever I want in my life and just live to a hundred smoking every day and drinking.

37:03like do you think the stress of the knowledge is more hurtful than the I'm just gonna live my life and and whatever happens happens when I die I don't know it's that's a nuanced answer I think because I think that there to your point there is something to be said for that like the more you know the more stressful it can be I also think sometimes like the fear of the unknown can be stressful too. So because I have studied this area so much, I also know like when things that are like fear mongering or something are not true. Right. And so that that helps me to not get stressed out about things I don't need to be stressed out about.

37:42Whereas, 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.

38:20So 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.

39:01Everyone can find a research paper that backs their claims in some way, somehow. 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 kind of 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 it's not, they're not going to lead with some kind of hook that's like a fear-based hook. Like if you eat sugar, you're going to die or something like that.

39:38Or like, are you poisoning your kids? Like that, that's, those are videos I see quite often. Really? Yeah. And, and yes, yeah, absolutely. And that, and they work really well they'll they go viral because you know then you show like an ingredient and then how your kids are eating that ingredient and and 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 they it again i mean i just went through this it's it's quite a vulnerable time and you just want to do what's best for your kids right Right.

40:14Especially even more so than yourself. And so I think that that content plays, again, really well in 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?

40:48So 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 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 like some landmark study that comes out. It's just like, this changed everything. Like studies progressively change kind of like a scientific opinion over time. Interesting.

41:21Yeah. I mean, I'm going to be a parent here soon. My twins are, you know, 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. Um, what should I be thinking about as a parent? 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 six and two year old. Because there's so many different formula versus food versus sugary snacks versus only give them whole foods.

41:59How do you understand 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. 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're feeling. Right, right, right. I'm not that horrible. I'm not that messed up at this stage of my life. Yeah, yeah.

42:36Yeah, 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. It's just like working out outside, running around as like an eight-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. No, there's no bottled water. There's no water. It was just like you drink out of the tap, right? Yeah, yeah. And I never like had water throughout the day. I don't remember it. Just going to like get some water. That was milk and Dr. Milk, a lot of milk.

43:08A lot of milk. Yeah. But so I think I think remembering that's important. I also think that when like 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 dieticians 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 two-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.

43:47My son and I built a garden this summer, which was an experience because I am not a gardener. So we had like this little table and we had, 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 just like 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 um 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 um 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 um 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 an 80-20 rule is certainly my approach.

45:05Yeah. 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, their 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 when getting them off the ipad and so yeah i mean that's a whole nother topic because we don't really have that you don't we didn't have that 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 they can take to start feeling more at peace about understanding what is correct and what is misinformation.

46:01I think understanding that the basics of good nutrition are pretty boring. And boring doesn't sell on social media. And so what is happening is if I come on, if somebody comes online every single day and says kind of like the basics, right? 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. No. Like 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. Yeah. Make sure you get sleep.

46:38Move your body. Yeah. And you're going to be okay. It's like decades of research at Stanford, but he's just saying like 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. Yep. Right. It's the same with nutrition. Yep. Stay hydrated, get nutrients, you know, eat a variety of foods, eat minimal, you know, low nutrient ultra processed foods. And, and, and that's, and you're going to be better off than 90 % of the country. Right. So, so again, that doesn't sell on social media. So understand that a lot of what we're seeing is kind of like in, in the weeds, like it's in the minutiae, right?

47:17It'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 like make a very marginal, marginal change are being debated kind of in front of everyone, making it seem like there's all this like lack of understanding in nutrition science when it's not, it's like 90 to 95 % of things are pretty well agreed upon and, and are going to make the biggest bang. You're going to get the biggest bang for your buck, right? They're going to make the biggest impact on your health. And then there's that five percent that we can go to conferences and debate.

47:54We 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 five percent, 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 going to make the biggest impact? And it's really those kind of core principles. 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?

48:37I think it happens all the time with supplements. Really? Yeah. I mean, that's what supplements are essentially. They're like, you know, you see like a mechanism of action and it's like, okay, so if that's the case, then we can create this supplement and we can, you know, really like maximize the effect. And it's just that 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 take vitamin D supplement, um, there's, there's good data on that.

49:13Um, 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, you know, 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, there 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 supplement that can optimize for energy or for mood or whatever, then you just have to talk about the benefit.

49:53You don't have to make the research claim, I guess, of like, this has helped millions of people. I don't know. 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, I don't know, resveratrol or whatever it might be, these things could potentially really help optimize your whole system.

50:24Again, 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 kind of focused on. And I think a lot of people, 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.

51:04I think that there's some supplements that have stronger data than others. So for example, like a vitamin supplements like a 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 um as a nutrition scientist do you take supplements yeah so I take um well no no and yeah so not Not like every day.

51:41So it's not something. But 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, 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, no vitamin D, 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?

52:14Most of them. It's like if you eat the whole foods. 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 we were talking before how you can kind of find a study to say anything I think it's very frustrating when you know 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 you know it shows evidence of something you know hopefully relying on people to not understand that correlation is not causation, relying on people to not understand as a single study kind of published in a mid-tier journal, and the consensus doesn't say the same.

53:14So 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, you know, we see it a lot, a lot on social media, a couple of things to look out for too, in terms of like this manipulation of science, they'll, they'll conflate correlation and causation. So correlation is just two things increase at the same time. The best example is like shark attacks and ice cream sales.

53:47They both have this like, kind of like 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, 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 like causal data, right?

54:22Because 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 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.

55:04Just 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 like there's some studies, there's a couple of studies that control for siblings. So they control for like 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 a 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.

55:43So they haven't shown data or research that this is correlation and causation. It's just been saying, we just think this is causing it. 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 - Say anything that you're doing over the last - Autism diagnoses, I should say. So yeah, to your point, anything that's increased at that same time, my friend - Global warming is increased. iPhone news. 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.

56:19And so, you know, there's a lot of things, you know, and there's potentially a mechanism there too, you know, older sperm, which there's some like data to suggest. But at the end of the day, like for autism itself, I mean, 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. So you think there was just as many before just wasn't diagnosed?

56:59We 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 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.

57:43They 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 for most of us um and and so i i'm worried about a world that's so divided to to kind of like bring kids up in um 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 it right just turned six just turned six so like right right before COVID, it was like you were in the divisiveness probably during COVID when you had your first kid.

58:33Yeah, he was a newborn. Yeah. When like 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. 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 and the early child stage.

59:10Sleep, being present, doing your best. Yeah, barely sleeping. Right. Feeding yourself. Yeah. 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 little lockdown kind of made it a sense, like, in the beginning, at least, nobody was really around each other. That's true. So you kind of got to keep them safe and focused on that, I guess. Yeah. Were you living in Colorado at that time? I was in Arizona, in Scottsdale.

59:44Okay. 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, like there's there's this push right now to be able to get like food prescriptions in Medicaid.

1:00:32And I think that's an incredible idea. Like let's let's be able to like bring these healthy boxes, you know, these like helpful foods to people through Medicaid, which would be a great kind of 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's, it's, it plays a role and medicine is still needed, right? It's not a complete replacement. But if people, 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?

1:01:22Wouldn't food be a preventative thing to not need medication? Yeah, of course. It's going to decrease the need for it, but it's not going to eliminate the need for it. So there's people who have, I mean, I know several people who eat well-balanced diets and high blood pressure runs in their family. 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 will decrease our need for a lot of meds. But you'll still need, you know, you get an infection, You're still going to need medication.

1:02:06Sure, sure. That's what I mean by like, it doesn't replace medication. 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. you know there still will be people who are going to need some of these meds yes but it's not going to be a hundred percent preventive but we can significantly reduce the reliance on a lot of them for sure what is 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 they're quite villainized as like this reason for our health issues.

1:03:03Everyone's like, if it's got seed oils, don't eat it, right? Yeah. What is their actual research and science saying about seed oils? 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, like they're just, seed oils are oil that comes from a seed, right? They go through this refinement process. and you know they're the thing about them is they don't have really a lot of new like redeeming qualities in terms of like nutrients within them outside of their fatty acid profile but they're just a polyunsaturated fatty acid and when you look at the actual evidence on these polyunsaturated fats and you look at epidemiological data you look at like people who are consuming seed oils and their health outcomes it just we there is not good data that they're harmful to our health really and 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.

1:04:04Really? 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 that got a lot of traction with the rise of kind of paleo and carnivore diets, you know, 10 however many years ago. So 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 like 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.

1:04:41We eat lots of them, lots of polyunsaturated fatty acids. And we don't really pair that with omega-3s, which come from like 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 Remedia, she cooks, you know, stir fries and seed oil most days. And that's pretty common elsewhere, right? So 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.

1:05:23Like 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. Like we should we should be honest about the fact that they're in lots 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.

1:06:02Really? 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 were - And what are those? Those are like linoleic, alpha-linolenic acid, arachidonic acid versus arachnonic acid. And that's in oils or that's in, what is that in mostly? Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. 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?

1:06:40what is this in what's yeah polyunsaturated fats are 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 um and so that's what's in the oils that's what 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 has saturated fats so these are polyunsaturated fats um and and so again you find them in a lot of foods that are that are quite ultra processed and low nutrient is there certain types of oils that are better than others in general when using for cooking yeah i so olive oil is is a good one um but also vegetable oils are fine to use for cooking so vegetable oil that's what the research would suggest vegetable oil is a seed oil is what Yeah, yeah.

1:07:30All 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 going to say seed oils. It's going to 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.

1:08:11Is 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 and without seed oil, it's like your 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 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. Oh, interesting.

1:08:39So yeah. So I think that it's, we're getting in like a little bit of a difficult area because of how much social media tells us that it's so bad. You just believe it. It's in our head. Yeah. So then if we're eating it, we're thinking it's bad, you know, and like the whole psychology aspect of it. um and also you know like i think that the problem is is that like when you're again when you're consuming seed oils like if you have somebody who's like i'm going to get rid of seed oils right and they're eating a standard american diet and they're like i'm going to remove seed oils because that is the reason for all the health issues what are they going to get rid of they're gonna they're not going to be able to eat most low nutrient ultra processed foods anymore because like all your chips all your crackers like it's a good thing it all has like 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.

1:09:27You'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. Yeah. 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 process 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 we again 70 of our food environment is ultra processed foods right and so if we are eating the majority of our food is these low nutrient ultra processed foods um we are eating a lot of polyunsaturated fatty acids and when you eat too much of anything it's a problem.

1:10:16I 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. It's still early 60s, right? Yeah. 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, or 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, you know, we thought we were doing the right thing by just kind of swapping out the goodies that he loved, right?

1:10:54Like, yeah, we would just buy like 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. um i also think that you know he 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 and just like he didn't he didn't have a lot of time to prepare all of the meals and so it was i think a combination of those things um i think i think education could have played a role. And it's just kind of, again, an environment.

1:11:35Midwest, I grew up in the Midwest, and we have kind of shaped through decades of policy culture. 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 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.

1:12:12But 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 you know 10 15 years ago yeah i'm just trying to think of a big breakthrough i don't know if i've seen like a big breakthrough necessarily Or is there something they taught you that you're like, oh, that's no longer true?

1:12:57Where they said, this is the way, you know, 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, 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.

1:13:32And and, you know, then obviously that has shifted now because now we're not really trying to prevent, you know, 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 like what are the best dietary eating patterns to prevent disease and I think that I think there's been some very interesting work in metabolism and ultra processed foods and so you know thinking of like when I was kind of coming up we didn't really talk about ultra processed foods a lot we we talked about them in the sense of like minimizing them but we didn't really understand what and there's been some very interesting work you know 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, you know, I can define, which is basically in the nutrition science research, it's just an ingredient, like a food item that has an ingredient or a processing method that you don't have access to.

1:14:30So 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 um processed would be or minimally processed would be like frozen corn so just like frozen corn kernels minimally minimal processing um process would be canned corn because they add some salt into the can and then ultra process 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.

1:15:10I 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 in any combination of those, it makes it hyper palatable, right? And hyper satiating. And so Kevin's done 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.

1:15:47So over the course of, you know, a week, they gained two pounds. One week they gained two pounds. Yeah. Holy cow. Yeah. This is why it sounds like behavior change 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, I think the problem too with ultra processed is that there are different degrees of what ultra process.

1:16:31So again, the definition that's used in nutrition science right now is just this idea that it has a ingredients or processing method you don't have access to. So within that definition, there's, 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 so, 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 yeah right so yeah so that 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 like processing i was strictly thinking of like the nutrients in a food.

1:17:25And I think that more and more research is coming out about like 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? Nurick. Nurick with a K. Yeah. K-N-U-R-I-C-K on social media, but also JessicaNurick.com. You've got a Substack as well, which I think you do a lot there. Yeah. That people can check you out. Dr. Jessica Nurick on Substack as well. And a lot of helpful information backed by research and science.

1:18:03You'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, in 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.

1:18:47I 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, you know, 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.

1:19:21And so what that would look like was, you know, 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 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 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.

1:20:00And so if you have a lot of corporate interests kind of fighting those policies, it can be difficult. So I think if we want to see a change in our food system, it has to start with policy. And so we have to look at our agricultural policy. We have to start incentivizing kind of local food systems and giving grants to local farmers to kind of produce food. And if you have the means, you know, 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, so people share a cow or things like that.

1:20:34But but 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. Right. 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.

1:21:08Again, you've been pretty consistent over the last couple of 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.

1:21:44And 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 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.

1:22:16What 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. You know, when you think of chronic disease, for example, you have to look at who's most impacted by it in this country.

1:23:08And we didn't really touch on that, but it's overwhelmingly low income in minority populations. And so you kind of you have to understand, like, 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. You know, the way to kind of optimize your health in terms of nutrition and physical activity, for example, and sleep and stress reduction, you know, it's pretty boring. And so kind of focusing on if you really want to make lasting change, focusing on those pillars of health, you know, and the few things in each one of those pillars, the few things in nutrition that are going to make the biggest bag, they're going to get you 90 % of the way there.

1:23:51Focus 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 going to 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 going to benefit all of us instead of kind of what we're seeing right now with the division.

1:24:39Bill Bridges, Jessica, thanks so much for being here. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me. Amazing. Thank you. I appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well.

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