Speaker 1: Restoring science and common sense. Every American deserves to be healthy,
Speaker 1: but too many Americans are sick and don't know why.
Speaker 1: That is because their government has been unwilling to tell
Speaker 1: them the truth. For decades, the US government has recommended
Speaker 1: and incentivized low quality, highly processed foods, and drug interventions
Speaker 1: instead of prevention. Under the leadership of President Trump, the
Speaker 1: government is now going to tell Americans the truth. Today,
Speaker 1: the White House released the Dietary Guidelines for Americans twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five to twenty thirty, the most significant reset of
Speaker 1: federal nutrition policy in decades. Under President Trump's leadership, common sense,
Speaker 1: scientific integrity, and accountability have been restored to federal food
Speaker 1: and health policy. For decades, the Dietary Guidelines favored corporate
Speaker 1: interests over common sense, science driven advice to improve the
Speaker 1: health of Americans. That ends today. The new Dietary Guidelines
Speaker 1: call for prioritizing high quality protein, healthy fats, fruits, vegetables,
Speaker 1: and whole grains, and avoiding highly processed foods and refined carbohydrates.
Speaker 2: Ran okay, so ooh, my face made some.
Speaker 3: Some faces during that.
Speaker 1: That was my dramatic rendition of an unadulterated uncut first
Speaker 1: two paragraphs of the USDA's fact sheet that they released
Speaker 1: when they released these new dietary guidelines. We'll have a
Speaker 1: link to it on our website, and it was completely uncut.
Speaker 2: It cracks me up because, like the whole framing, this
Speaker 2: is a complete reset of everything. And I'm like, this
Speaker 2: is just like the eleventh version of a textbook with.
Speaker 3: A hundred very little changes, very little changes.
Speaker 1: And to imply that the changes that they have made
Speaker 1: are in any way based in science in a way
Speaker 1: that previous ones weren't is false.
Speaker 3: To imply that.
Speaker 1: They are not backed by industry interests is also false.
Speaker 1: So it's like, we'll get into all of it today.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm excited for this episode.
Speaker 3: Erin me too.
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Eron Welsh and I'm Erin Alman Updyke and
Speaker 2: this is this podcast will kill you.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about the Dietary Guidelines Part two, Part two,
Speaker 1: Part two, the bringing back the Food Pyramid.
Speaker 4: I think this is going to be a very interesting
Speaker 4: discussion of rhetoric and just branding, Like so much of
Speaker 4: this is branding, even looking at the design of the pyramid,
Speaker 4: which like I didn't talk about that last week.
Speaker 2: But like there has been a lot of intention behind
Speaker 2: how this information is presented. Committees on committees on committees
Speaker 2: of like how do we turn this? Do we do
Speaker 2: a pyramid? Should we add stairs? Should we do an
Speaker 2: upside down triangle? Like whatever? I guess triangles camp be
Speaker 2: upside down, but like right right, yeah, and it's just wow.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's interesting too because historically, the like Dietary
Speaker 1: Guidelines for Americans document has been this like pretty large,
Speaker 1: you know, hefty document that's geared towards professionals, you know,
Speaker 1: nutrition experts and people who are making the decisions about things,
Speaker 1: and not not the same document that is necessarily geared
Speaker 1: towards general public, where then they take those dietary Guidelines
Speaker 1: the DGA, and then make a food pyramid and make
Speaker 1: this public facing you know, information for a graphic thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this time it's like we got it. It's all
Speaker 3: in one.
Speaker 1: It's just this very short a few pages, and this
Speaker 1: is the Dietary Guidelines. It is public facing, and so
Speaker 1: they've kind of just wrapped it all up in one,
Speaker 1: which is also interesting in and of itself.
Speaker 2: It is, oh, there's so much good stuff today.
Speaker 1: Yes, first, but first it's quarantiney time.
Speaker 2: It is. What are we drinking again?
Speaker 3: Erin we're drinking your daily apple we are.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty simple beverage. It's got apple juice, pomegranate juice,
Speaker 2: lemon juice, sparkling water.
Speaker 3: There you go, dillish refreshing.
Speaker 1: We'll post the full recipe as if you need one
Speaker 1: on our website. This podcast will kill you dot Com
Speaker 1: and all of our social media, so make sure that
Speaker 1: you're following us there, you know.
Speaker 3: So you don't miss do it.
Speaker 2: On our website, you can find a whole suite of
Speaker 2: things if you're looking for them. You can find sources.
Speaker 2: You can find transcripts. You can find links to merch
Speaker 2: link links to bookshop dot org affiliate page, our Goodreads list,
Speaker 2: music by Bloodmobile, contact us form a, submit your first
Speaker 2: hand account form, and perhaps a few other tidbits in there.
Speaker 2: If you're you know, excited to explore so much at.
Speaker 1: It, rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast or YouTube.
Speaker 1: If you are into a video version, we have it.
Speaker 2: Did you know about it? We're there? Yeah, maybe you're
Speaker 2: already watching us, in which.
Speaker 5: Case, Hi, hi, Hi, nice to see.
Speaker 1: Okay, shall we get into this week's episode erin absolutely Okay,
Speaker 1: We'll take a break and then dive in. If anyone
Speaker 1: missed last week's episode, part one of this two part series, Aaron,
Speaker 1: you walked us through the good, the bad, and the
Speaker 1: ugly really of how we got to be here where
Speaker 1: we are today. So I think we all understand a
Speaker 1: lot more about where the concept of these dietary guidelines
Speaker 1: really comes from and the issues that have always been
Speaker 1: present in the creation of the dietary guidelines for America.
Speaker 1: And this is a very America centric couple of episodes,
Speaker 1: but I will talk about global dietary guidelines today as well.
Speaker 1: But today's episode I am mostly focused on these newest
Speaker 1: dietary guidelines that came out in January twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: And what I want to.
Speaker 1: Walk through is why it is that they've made such headlines, Like,
Speaker 1: when was the last time we ever even heard about
Speaker 1: them being updates?
Speaker 3: Did you know they were.
Speaker 1: Updated in twenty twenty No, because they were, of course
Speaker 1: they are every five years. Why are we hearing so
Speaker 1: much more about this upside down pyramid than we did
Speaker 1: the debut of My Plate back in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: My Plate still can't believe I missed a whole era
Speaker 2: of dietary guideline.
Speaker 1: And of course, I think that part of this is
Speaker 1: down to the time in which we are currently living in,
Speaker 1: with RFK Junior being the head of the Department of
Speaker 1: Health and Human Services who made it known very clearly
Speaker 1: and very loudly that he was going to overhaul these guidelines.
Speaker 1: And I think that in some ways the kind of
Speaker 1: nutrition community, the wider medical community has been bracing for
Speaker 1: this what is it going to look like? And it's
Speaker 1: very clear that.
Speaker 3: MAHA and the MAHA kind.
Speaker 1: Of ideals and ideology has had a very huge hand
Speaker 1: in shaping these guidelines.
Speaker 2: You know, I was thinking about like the Super Bowl
Speaker 2: commercial with Mike Tyston. It's aaron.
Speaker 1: I have so many feelings about it, and I'm not
Speaker 1: even going to get deep into it, no I.
Speaker 2: Know, but it's just like it's funny because like you said,
Speaker 2: we didn't like there weren't or maybe there were, and
Speaker 2: I just missed them because they were so not as ridiculous,
Speaker 2: like so unridiculous compared to that I genuinely thought that
Speaker 2: I was watching like a spoof, a spoof thing like it.
Speaker 3: Came up and I was like, like an snl skit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like a thirty rock thing. I was like, right,
Speaker 2: it's happening. And so it is really interesting the drive
Speaker 2: for publicity and publicizing this these guidelines.
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the big big differences
Speaker 1: that we're seeing, like already off the bat, is the
Speaker 1: way that these guidelines are being marketed, the way that
Speaker 1: they're being talked about, the vibes behind them is like
Speaker 1: totally totally different than anything that we've seen before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a lot, and there is a lot that I
Speaker 1: think that these guidelines kind of bring up that are
Speaker 1: part of larger discussions, and we don't have time for
Speaker 1: those larger discussions today. So what I am going to
Speaker 1: focus on for this episode is how the most recent guidelines,
Speaker 1: this upside down food pyramid, if we're calling it that,
Speaker 1: what are the real key differences between these dietary guidelines
Speaker 1: and every other set of guidelines that has changed minimally
Speaker 1: over the last several decades. There's four key differences that
Speaker 1: I'm going to kind of go through, some of which
Speaker 1: are not based at all in science, and some of
Speaker 1: which are really probably good recommendations, and some of which
Speaker 1: are somewhere in between. And then we'll compare the current
Speaker 1: food guidelines now that exist in the US to what
Speaker 1: guidelines actually look like across the globe. Like, how different
Speaker 1: are these new recommendations from global recommendations.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited for that.
Speaker 3: It's going to be great.
Speaker 1: How are Americans doing on eating according to these guidelines
Speaker 1: if we're falling short in what areas are we falling short?
Speaker 1: And why? What are the barriers that we see?
Speaker 3: Fiber? Yes, fiber is the answer.
Speaker 1: And finally, the question that you kind of ended us
Speaker 1: with last week, Aaron, is does any of this matter?
Speaker 1: Who is going to be affected by these changes besides
Speaker 1: our global reputation?
Speaker 3: Ready?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so we're gonna also go good, bad, and
Speaker 1: ugly or like I'm going to start with like probably
Speaker 1: beneficial changes, somewhat maybe neutral changes, and then baseless changes
Speaker 1: that are probably harmful.
Speaker 2: Wonder which those are?
Speaker 3: I can't wait to tell you.
Speaker 1: So the first thing to know is that they really
Speaker 1: are not that different from previous iterations. Guidelines for forever
Speaker 1: have emphasized the importance of whole grains, whole fruits and vegetables,
Speaker 1: limiting added sugar, limiting sodium, and limiting our saturated fat
Speaker 1: to less than ten percent of our total calories. That
Speaker 1: has not changed at all.
Speaker 2: Nope.
Speaker 1: These guidelines, similar to the guidelines from twenty twenty as well,
Speaker 1: also include a one pager on nutrition information like geared
Speaker 1: towards infants and toddlers, which is quite well put together
Speaker 1: and very very similar to the twenty twenty guidelines. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: but there are a few big changes, like I said,
Speaker 1: four that we're going to go through. So the first
Speaker 1: big change is that this is the first dietary guidelines
Speaker 1: for Americans to specifically emphasize that we should be avoiding
Speaker 1: consumption of quote highly processed, packaged, prepared, ready to eat
Speaker 1: unquote foods or other snacky foods. And they list specifically chips, cookies,
Speaker 1: candy as the types of foods they're talking about, and
Speaker 1: they emphasize the need to prioritize what they call nutrient
Speaker 1: dense foods. They go so far as to recommend that
Speaker 1: no amount of added sugars or non nutritive sweeteners is
Speaker 1: needed or recommended in a diet, and multiple times in
Speaker 1: different sections of these guidelines they call out refined grains,
Speaker 1: added sugar, and added salt or sodium as something that
Speaker 1: we should be avoiding, including things like sugar sweetened beverages,
Speaker 1: which they have been railing against for a very long
Speaker 1: time now, and fruit juices. I think their stance against
Speaker 1: fruit juices is a bit different than previous ones. They
Speaker 1: also say, and I think this is really interesting that
Speaker 1: if you're going to be eating packaged or like snacky foods,
Speaker 1: to look for ones that meet FDA quote unquote healthy
Speaker 1: claim limits.
Speaker 3: And this is a category that exists. It was like.
Speaker 1: Updated in twenty twenty four, these like limits on what
Speaker 1: should constitute a quote unquote healthy food.
Speaker 3: No one knows what those are.
Speaker 2: What. I've never heard of those, Okay, no, of course
Speaker 2: you have it.
Speaker 3: No one's heard of it.
Speaker 1: And the thing is that, like this is a theoretical
Speaker 1: category kind of that exists, but there's no like labeling
Speaker 1: for it. So there's no way that companies can label
Speaker 1: a food as quote unquote healthy and that you know,
Speaker 1: as a consumer, it is sticking to an actual category
Speaker 1: that the FDA has made, like that has been proposed,
Speaker 1: but right now it does not exist. So healthy limits,
Speaker 1: we don't really know exactly what those are. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: they list in the Dietary Guidelines some specific limits on
Speaker 1: the amounts of added sugar that should be in a
Speaker 1: certain amount of ounces of food as part.
Speaker 3: Of this healthy claim. But that's it.
Speaker 1: It's only a limit on sugar, not on anything else,
Speaker 1: saturated fat or sodium or anything. So this is a
Speaker 1: potentially beneficial change. However, it does kind of merit a
Speaker 1: bit more nuance than what the guidelines are giving it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, we're going to talk about processed foods. I
Speaker 2: think someday we have.
Speaker 1: To because an hand depth look on what processed foods
Speaker 1: or they call them highly processed foods, and that's not
Speaker 1: a thing that exists, Like, it's not a category of processing.
Speaker 1: There is a classification system called the Nova classification system
Speaker 1: that lists minimally processed, at processed, and.
Speaker 3: Ultra processed foods.
Speaker 1: Okay, but highly processed is not technically a term. Now
Speaker 1: is that semantics a little bit? But the problem is
Speaker 1: that to really like get at the idea of food processing,
Speaker 1: you have to like what is it that we're trying
Speaker 1: to get at here, right, because.
Speaker 2: Like it's a little bit like you know it when
Speaker 2: you see it, Like, yes, we know that certain things
Speaker 2: are processed, but that are not inherently bad because of
Speaker 2: that processing exactly. Most of our food is processed exactly,
Speaker 2: and it's yeah, but to say that and then say, well,
Speaker 2: then that means all processed food is fine or all
Speaker 2: processed food is bad. Both of those things are not
Speaker 2: are lacking the nuance that is impactful for dietary health.
Speaker 1: They're over simplifications on both like both ends of the
Speaker 1: spectrum essentially.
Speaker 2: And people use them in both ways where it's like, right, well, no,
Speaker 2: there are highly clearly highly processed foods that are clearly
Speaker 2: not good for you.
Speaker 1: No, no one thinks that cheetos are a health food, right,
Speaker 1: you know, not to name names, but not to name names,
Speaker 1: but I don't think anyone is out there eating Cheetos
Speaker 1: thinking that they're getting nutrient dense foods in their diet.
Speaker 2: But right then there's like baked cheetos as like here's
Speaker 2: a health you don't get started. Okay, I guess it's
Speaker 2: the whole health washing.
Speaker 1: And that's a health washing and a marketing and that
Speaker 1: that's kind of a separate issue, right, but it is
Speaker 1: part of this. And the thing is that like none
Speaker 1: of these types of foods that they are really trying
Speaker 1: to get at here, right, because what they're trying to
Speaker 1: get at is avoiding sugar, sweet and beverage, refined, highly
Speaker 1: processed carbohydrates, and other foods that have a lot of
Speaker 1: added sugars, added sodium, and tend to be high in
Speaker 1: saturated fats. None of these types of foods were recommended
Speaker 1: by any means in previous guidelines and scientific reports. Again,
Speaker 1: the reports that are coming out of the DGAC, the
Speaker 1: committee who's making these initial recommendations that go to the DGA,
Speaker 1: they have recommended limiting them to various degrees. Previous guidelines
Speaker 1: have never explicitly discouraged the consumption of these foods. They've
Speaker 1: been we've been recommended to avoid added sugars, to limit
Speaker 1: our amounts of added sugars, and things like that. So
Speaker 1: it's really kind of the emphasis and the explicitness of
Speaker 1: this recommendation that's different.
Speaker 2: It's interesting too to see whether there will be an impact.
Speaker 2: And so you're right, like this seems like theoretically a
Speaker 2: step in the right direction, and I think that's going
Speaker 2: to translate to purchasing exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think that that theoretical part is so important
Speaker 1: because it's also the case that these highly processed I'm
Speaker 1: going to call them what they actually are, which is
Speaker 1: ultra processed foods, and process foods in general tend to
Speaker 1: be less expensive, they tend to be more available, especially
Speaker 1: in low income areas. They are going to be more
Speaker 1: shelf stable. Many times, they're fortified with a lot of
Speaker 1: vitamins and minerals that people might be lacking. And so
Speaker 1: to just blanket statement discourage all processed foods is really
Speaker 1: doing a disservice if we're not also changing the way
Speaker 1: that we regulate our foods, the way that we label
Speaker 1: our foods, and the way that we provide access to
Speaker 1: foods for people. And none of that is changing with
Speaker 1: these dietary guidelines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all it's going to do, well, No, not all
Speaker 2: it's going to do. One of the things that's going
Speaker 2: to do is change the way that foods market themselves
Speaker 2: to no longer be highly processed like the new naked
Speaker 2: Doritos or whatever. Suddenly that's not an ultra processed food like.
Speaker 1: Right, And that What that also does is it contributes
Speaker 1: to a level of stigma or shame associated with certain foods, yes,
Speaker 1: that we then associated exactly, and that contributes to issues
Speaker 1: of disordered eating as well as just discrimination.
Speaker 3: Like it's we could keep going.
Speaker 2: A can of worms that is like a Costco size
Speaker 2: can of worms.
Speaker 1: Yes, they go even further though in this like section
Speaker 1: where they talk about avoiding highly processed foods, because they
Speaker 1: also specifically talk about limiting artificial food dyes.
Speaker 3: We know that they're railing against.
Speaker 1: Those as well as preservatives, non nutritive sweeteners, and if
Speaker 1: you haven't listened to our food dies episode, we have
Speaker 1: a way deep dive on that. But the fact is,
Speaker 1: there really isn't a ton of data to support these recommendations.
Speaker 1: There really isn't like we don't have data to say
Speaker 1: that we need to be avoiding X, Y and Z
Speaker 1: preservatives or for what reason, or that artificial food dies
Speaker 1: are in any way less safe than so called natural
Speaker 1: food dyes, which again they are just lifting restrictions on
Speaker 1: the ability to license and use various forms of quote
Speaker 1: unquote natural derived I mean food like food dies are
Speaker 1: not necessary period, no, right, and none of this like
Speaker 1: so that part is really not based in data, but
Speaker 1: it's lumped into this idea of avoiding highly processed foods.
Speaker 1: So again, that's a can of worms, and that's like
Speaker 1: if there is a change that could potentially be for
Speaker 1: the better. That might be it, So moving on now.
Speaker 1: Dairy has been I think contentious in guidelines for years
Speaker 1: and for good reason. Yeah, because honestly, the bottom line
Speaker 1: is that none of us over the age of twelve
Speaker 1: months need any form of dairy to survive as a species.
Speaker 1: Seventy five percent of the global population is lactose intolerant
Speaker 1: as adults and cannot consume dairy period. Dairy is a
Speaker 1: good source of calcium. It has quite a lot of
Speaker 1: calcium in it, and forty six percent of Americans don't
Speaker 1: get enough calcium. Dairy in this country has to be
Speaker 1: fortified with vitamin D and many of us don't get
Speaker 1: enough vitamin D. And then dairy contains protein and it
Speaker 1: is high in saturated fat if you are drinking whole
Speaker 1: fat dairy. But for a long time, the guidelines not
Speaker 1: only emphasized like the need for dairy, dairy was a
Speaker 1: whole owned food group, Okay, which it still is. It
Speaker 1: is a front page recommendation on these guidelines, before whole grains,
Speaker 1: before anything. But every other guideline in the past has
Speaker 1: emphasized the need to consume low fat dairy. They have
Speaker 1: recommended specifically low fat dairy items, and that is because
Speaker 1: of the data surrounding saturated fat intake.
Speaker 3: And the truth.
Speaker 1: Is that the more data that we have gotten to
Speaker 1: specifically look at dairy, low fat dairy versus full fat dairy,
Speaker 1: is that the data doesn't really bear out the idea
Speaker 1: that low fat dairy is truly any healthier when it
Speaker 1: comes to cardiovascular disease, cholesterol, cardiovascular mortality, those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: So whether you're consuming low fat milk or skim milk
Speaker 1: or whole milk, the data, like the newer data, it's true,
Speaker 1: doesn't really like it doesn't bear out that whole milk
Speaker 1: is truly worse than low fat.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: Where it does make a difference is that whole milk dairy,
Speaker 1: which is just as processed as low fat because they
Speaker 1: take out the fat and put it back in, but
Speaker 1: it is going to have more calories and it is
Speaker 1: going to have more saturated fat. And so if you're
Speaker 1: consuming that, you probably need to reduce the amounts that
Speaker 1: you're drinking in order to stay within whatever your calorie
Speaker 1: limits are going to be for this day, right, But
Speaker 1: the new guidelines on this very first page specifically recommend
Speaker 1: consuming whole fat, full fat dairy. They don't say, like,
Speaker 1: pick a dairy of your choice, They specifically say you should.
Speaker 3: Be consuming whole fat dairy.
Speaker 1: There's no data to support that, right, uh, necessarily, And
Speaker 1: again there's no data that says that anyone needs to
Speaker 1: be consuming dairy whatsoever. And all of the previous guidelines
Speaker 1: have aired, at least the way that they have framed it,
Speaker 1: have aired on the side of caution, saying, because we
Speaker 1: know the risks of saturated fat, even though we don't
Speaker 1: have a strong indication that low fat dairy is substantially
Speaker 1: healthier or substantially more safe a choice than whole milk,
Speaker 1: we should err on the side of caution and recommend
Speaker 1: low fat options to people.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think, and you could confused a little bit. Okay,
Speaker 2: so what you mean, So these studies and this might
Speaker 2: not be like an answerable question, but like these studies
Speaker 2: that are showing that there's not necessarily a relationship, a
Speaker 2: strong relationship between whole milk or horse skim milk or
Speaker 2: skim milk or whatever and health is that if quantities
Speaker 2: are equal, is that you know, like it's.
Speaker 3: A great question. Our nutrition is tough, right, It is
Speaker 3: really tough.
Speaker 1: It's really most of them are just based on like
Speaker 1: changing a recommendation. So in like, for example, DASH diet studies,
Speaker 1: which is like the dietary Approaches to stopping hypertension, or
Speaker 1: like Mediterranean diet studies where they have either allowed participants
Speaker 1: to have milk, whether they've recommended low fat milk or
Speaker 1: recommended whole milk, are they restricting how much people are drinking?
Speaker 1: Probably not, so people are probably drinking however much milk
Speaker 1: they're going to drink, and so but in those when
Speaker 1: they have kind of allowed people more leniency and switching
Speaker 1: from low fat to whole fat and things like that,
Speaker 1: there isn't that big of a difference really, But it's true.
Speaker 2: And it is interesting too in the context of thinking
Speaker 2: about servings and like recommended. So it's like we're now
Speaker 2: recommending any type of fat day or like dairy fat
Speaker 2: amount versus.
Speaker 1: Specifically we're actually recommending whole fat.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, there you go, But but I mean, like
Speaker 2: does that play Yeah, it's just I think it's It's
Speaker 2: the reason I say it's unanswerable is because like it's
Speaker 2: just there is so much there's lack of clarity and
Speaker 2: all that and what the impact is. And I think
Speaker 2: it is really difficult to take data and then translate
Speaker 2: that to advice.
Speaker 3: Yes it is. It's really really hard.
Speaker 1: Okay, but that is a big That is a change,
Speaker 1: a pretty a pretty good sized change that we see
Speaker 1: in these newest guidelines is the switch to emphasize the
Speaker 1: need to consume whole fat dairy products as like a
Speaker 1: very explicit recommendation.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, now sure.
Speaker 3: Next next is I.
Speaker 1: Think the one that you're probably most excited about, Aaron,
Speaker 1: the war on protein.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm waging really poor I'm starting now. I'm fighting back
Speaker 2: against the onslaught of protein in the grocery store.
Speaker 1: The guidelines on onrealfood dot gov, which is where you
Speaker 1: can find these guidelines, they really do specifically say that
Speaker 1: they are ending the war on protein.
Speaker 2: As someone who lived through the nineties and the two
Speaker 2: thousands and the Atkins diet, I didn't realize that we
Speaker 2: were in a war.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what I think the war actually is.
Speaker 3: Arin Yeah, let.
Speaker 2: The war on beef.
Speaker 3: Okay, go okay, yeah, listen.
Speaker 1: So this version of the Dietary Guidelines really puts protein
Speaker 1: on a huge pedestal, and it does so in two
Speaker 1: ways that are different from prior guidelines and not based
Speaker 1: in nutrition research or data. So first, these guidelines emphasize
Speaker 1: over and over again, both visually and in the text itself,
Speaker 1: a specific and explicit recommendation to consume your protein primarily
Speaker 1: from animals.
Speaker 2: Right, I can pay this steak in this state in
Speaker 2: that pyramid.
Speaker 3: Ah, it's huge.
Speaker 1: They have a huge hole steak and entire turkey, a
Speaker 1: package of ground beef, a chrunk of raws salmon, and
Speaker 1: a carton of whole milk, all to represent your protein sources.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: They also in the text emphasize eggs, poultry, seafood, and
Speaker 1: red meat, and then later later down the line say.
Speaker 3: Like you can get it from vegetable sources too.
Speaker 1: But don't you dare be vegetarian or vegan or you'll
Speaker 1: definitely end up deficient. There's like a whole section on that.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 1: The nutrition data that we have rife with biases and
Speaker 1: things and limited as all nutrition data is. All of
Speaker 1: the nutrition data that we do have point to plant
Speaker 1: sources of protein being associated with lower disease risks, lower mortality,
Speaker 1: better cardiovascular outcomes than animal proteins.
Speaker 2: So that is what Atwater basically said, I mean Atwater
Speaker 2: was like, get your protein. However, you can get your
Speaker 2: protein animal, plant, whatever. And then at least seventy years
Speaker 2: ago it was known that plant protein was associated with
Speaker 2: lower prodict disease.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, plant proteins are sufficient in terms of
Speaker 1: getting us enough quality of protein, and they again reduce
Speaker 1: cardiovascular disease risk, like over and over and over again
Speaker 1: in studies. Now in these newest guidelines where they are
Speaker 1: making these recommendations, they don't provide any quantitative data to
Speaker 1: actually like prove or like any data to support this
Speaker 1: idea that animal proteins are actually healthier in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. Like, they don't even try to really
Speaker 1: back this up with any quantitative data. Okay, and and
Speaker 1: we're going to get more into this in a second.
Speaker 1: But meat, especially red meat, like the giant steak that
Speaker 1: they have right there in the front of the triangle,
Speaker 1: is much higher in saturated fat than plant based proteins.
Speaker 1: And we have decades of data. This is where our
Speaker 1: nutrition data is the strongest. Reducing saturated fat is beneficial
Speaker 1: for your cardiovascular health. Also, like they don't even mention
Speaker 1: in these guidelines, how strong of associations they are are
Speaker 1: between red meat and processed meats and the fact that
Speaker 1: they're carcinogens. Right, these are carcinogenic foods and associated with
Speaker 1: an increased risk of cancer. None of this is addressed
Speaker 1: in these guidelines. They just really focus on the need
Speaker 1: to consume animal based protein. And the other thing that
Speaker 1: they specify for the first time in a dietary guidelines
Speaker 1: is a protein goal of one point two to one
Speaker 1: point six grams of protein per kilogram of body weight
Speaker 1: per day. So for one hundred kilogram person, we're talking
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty grams
Speaker 1: of protein.
Speaker 2: What's that in pounds?
Speaker 1: That's oh my god, I don't know, two point two,
Speaker 1: so that would be like two twenty trisky wow, pull
Speaker 1: that out. The current like dietary reference intakes that like,
Speaker 1: which is separate from these djas, But that's getting into semantics.
Speaker 1: The recommendation is a goal of point eight grams per
Speaker 1: kilogram of body weight, So this is up to double, like,
Speaker 1: up to doubling what the recommended target protein intake is.
Speaker 1: And the current evidence is that the vast majority of Americans,
Speaker 1: with some exceptions for maybe older adults are getting about
Speaker 1: one gram per kilogram of protein. We're already meeting what
Speaker 1: the previous goals are. We are not deficient in protein whatsoever.
Speaker 2: What would protein deficiency look like?
Speaker 1: So protein deficiency can result in like muscle wasting and
Speaker 1: things like that, for sure, And it's like a very
Speaker 1: real concern if you didn't have access to protein. And
Speaker 1: there's some data that in like older Americans, especially like
Speaker 1: over seventy seventy five, that having a protein deficit is
Speaker 1: associated with increased frailty and you know, that's a fall
Speaker 1: risk and things like that. But that's only in a
Speaker 1: subset of older Americans. The vast majority of everyone else
Speaker 1: is getting plenty of protein to support our daily needs
Speaker 1: and to support our bodily functions. The evidence that they
Speaker 1: cite that they present in these guidelines to actually support
Speaker 1: this idea that we need more protein are a few studies,
Speaker 1: some of which show that with a high protein diet
Speaker 1: people have more weight loss.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 1: They don't have any data to show that more protein
Speaker 1: is better for cardiovascular disease, for diabetes, for mortality, for cancer,
Speaker 1: for anything else. Just a few short term studies sixty
Speaker 1: eight percent of these thirty studies showed decrease in one
Speaker 1: weight related metric BMI or waste circumference or something like that.
Speaker 1: So there's really no data to support this idea that
Speaker 1: we need more protein than what we're already getting. And
Speaker 1: like excess dietary protein ends up converted into fat, which
Speaker 1: is going to increase your visceral adipuocity, and that's the
Speaker 1: type of fat that puts people at risk of diabetes
Speaker 1: and metabolic disease. There's some evidence that increasing your protein
Speaker 1: intake if you are doing intensive strength and resistance training
Speaker 1: can increase your muscle mass, but they're not like that's
Speaker 1: a separate subset and that's not the general population. Because
Speaker 1: if we were all doing more strength training, that would
Speaker 1: be great for everyone, but we're not so as a whole.
Speaker 2: Okay, so what does this mean for we should do
Speaker 2: an episode on protein? We really should have been wanting
Speaker 2: to do a the keto diet for a long time.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, But what does this mean for the fact that, like,
Speaker 2: you know, we're seeing this now, how long has this
Speaker 2: been building? This war on protein rhetoric? Again? I still
Speaker 2: come back to the protein in every product that you
Speaker 2: see these days, like, that's like the newest trend it is,
Speaker 2: and what are the implications of that trend, Like what
Speaker 2: are the outcomes going to be?
Speaker 3: It's a great question. We don't know.
Speaker 1: They're the question though, because this is I mean, this
Speaker 1: sets us up for the protein marketing to be like heck, yes,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing this. Right, We're already
Speaker 1: here now look at us. We're in the guidelines, right,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that they're all ultra processed foods.
Speaker 6: Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: The war on protein, from what I can tell is
Speaker 1: that the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, who published the initial
Speaker 1: recommendations that they did not use to make these new guidelines,
Speaker 1: specifically said that we need to have an emphasis on
Speaker 1: plant based proteins. And they had the audacity to suggest
Speaker 1: that beans, peas, and lentils should be taken out of
Speaker 1: the vegetables group and grouped with the proteins group.
Speaker 2: Which is wild because historically that's where it has been too. Listen,
Speaker 2: beans were with meat, legumes were with meat historically since
Speaker 2: the early days.
Speaker 1: Yes, but peas erin they're green.
Speaker 2: I wonder when switched.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, that's the war. That's that is the war.
Speaker 1: That's the war on protein. I'm not done, okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The last, and I think the most egregious change, the
Speaker 1: ones that people are really kind of up in arms about,
Speaker 1: is the changes in terms of the recommendations on fat.
Speaker 3: And I hinted at this already.
Speaker 1: Yes, So, just like every other guideline forever, these guidelines
Speaker 1: explicitly say that we should be limiting our total saturated
Speaker 1: fat intake to less than ten percent of our diet.
Speaker 1: That has not changed. Yeah, because the data to support
Speaker 1: that is so strong. That has not changed. However, the
Speaker 1: new guidelines say that we should be incorporating healthy fats
Speaker 1: quote unquote healthy fats, and they repeatedly list butter and
Speaker 1: beef tallow many times as options for healthy fats. These
Speaker 1: fats are fifty percent saturated fat compared to liquid fats
Speaker 1: like olive oils, vegetable oils, seed oils, which are like
Speaker 1: ten percent saturated fat. The guidance on saturated fat for
Speaker 1: years has been that saturated fat increases are LDL cholesterol,
Speaker 1: which is the type of cholesterol associated with cardiovascular disease,
Speaker 1: and saturated fat intake increases cardiovascular disease and mortality from
Speaker 1: cardiovascular disease. The data is like as strong as it
Speaker 1: gets when it comes to nutrition data, and there are
Speaker 1: so so much data that shows that reducing our saturated fat,
Speaker 1: specifically in these ways. One, by replacing saturated fats like
Speaker 1: butter and lard and beef tallow with plant based fats
Speaker 1: like olive oil, vegetable oil, seed oils improves people's lipid
Speaker 1: profiles and reduces cardiovascular disease. And number two, replacing animal
Speaker 1: based sources of saturated fat, including red meat and white
Speaker 1: meat and dairy products with plant based sources of proteins
Speaker 1: like legumes and whole grains and vegetables reduces cardiovascular disease.
Speaker 1: These are not new data, These are long standing. So
Speaker 1: these recommendations and the lumping of these sources of highly
Speaker 1: saturated fat as a healthy option is not based in
Speaker 1: data whatsoever.
Speaker 3: And to still say we need to.
Speaker 1: Be eating animal based protein, we need to be eating
Speaker 1: whole fat dairy products, we need to be using butter
Speaker 1: as our healthy fat, but we should be limiting our
Speaker 1: saturated fat intake to ten percent of our diet. Like,
Speaker 1: that's not feasible. You can't do all of that.
Speaker 2: That's contradictory. Yeah, I think it's like it's a little
Speaker 2: by design because it's like providing lip service to multiple
Speaker 2: different things at once without revealing what the true intention
Speaker 2: behind it is if there is one, like can there
Speaker 2: be an aligned goal or is it just like word
Speaker 2: vomit from.
Speaker 3: Our word vomit mouths from someone who's a pro.
Speaker 1: And really like the way that they made these guidelines
Speaker 1: is also different than what you walked us through aarin
Speaker 1: of the typical how these dietary guidelines are made. And
Speaker 1: you told us last week that there has always been
Speaker 1: black boxes. There have always been concerns about industry ties,
Speaker 1: and there has always been a question of like how
Speaker 1: do these dietary guidelines committee recommendations actually get turned into
Speaker 1: the DGA. And so what's kind of interesting is that
Speaker 1: in some ways the way that they went about this
Speaker 1: was more transparent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the checklist of like these are this is what
Speaker 2: the committee recommended, and here's what we did.
Speaker 3: Here's what we did.
Speaker 1: We ignored over thirty out of fifty of their recommendations,
Speaker 1: and we mostly ignored another fifteen of them, and there's
Speaker 1: like five or six that we took, So that part
Speaker 1: was more explicit. We still don't know who actually wrote
Speaker 1: any of these guidelines. That's still a black box. But
Speaker 1: there was also an entirely separate scientific advisory committee that
Speaker 1: RFK made and he gave them a couple of months
Speaker 1: instead of a couple of years to do a so
Speaker 1: called rapid review of the evidence, and then he had
Speaker 1: his own folks, again black box, take those scientific rapid
Speaker 1: reviews and make the actual guidance from it.
Speaker 2: Certainly not an improvement on the process, not an improvement
Speaker 2: worsening on the existing terrible structure.
Speaker 1: Right, And the scientific advisors that wrote these scientific parts
Speaker 1: of the report shot also had tons of industry ties,
Speaker 1: every single one almost so that part is really no different,
Speaker 1: even though they're trying to frame it as this is
Speaker 1: free from bias, et cetera. They also are very explicit
Speaker 1: in these guidelines that one of the things they really
Speaker 1: did not like about the previous guidelines is that they
Speaker 1: had the audacity to take into account things like health, equity, ethnicity, culture,
Speaker 1: socioeconomic status, race, All of these things were considered in
Speaker 1: the dietary guidelines advisory committees, actual guidelines recommendations, and this
Speaker 1: report has an entire paragraph saying, how dare you take
Speaker 1: that into consideration that's not what we're doing here. Yeah, amazing,
Speaker 1: So points for that kind of transparency, right, And honestly,
Speaker 1: I think that one of the big things that these
Speaker 1: guidelines do is show the same exact trend that we've
Speaker 1: seen in pretty much everything that MAHA touches, whether it's
Speaker 1: raw milk, whether it's food dyes, whether it's anything, which
Speaker 1: is a real like rejection of any sort of scientific
Speaker 1: expertise and a remaking of facts to fit a specific agenda,
Speaker 1: being explicit about it, but then also a packaging and
Speaker 1: like a branding of these very real health issues that
Speaker 1: are indeed facing Americans as something that we could fix
Speaker 1: individually by just eating more broccoli and steak. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: we have huge issues in our health system, and as
Speaker 1: we have talked about and will continue to talk about,
Speaker 1: many of us struggle to meet these dietary guidelines, and
Speaker 1: people around the globe live with chronic diseases that poor
Speaker 1: nutrition has contributed to. But it will take structural changes
Speaker 1: to actually fix any of these issues, right.
Speaker 2: And a willingness to actually stand up to industry and
Speaker 2: require some sort of regulation over advertising, over what they
Speaker 2: can put on a label.
Speaker 1: And none of that has happened thus far. Now, if
Speaker 1: we take a step back and look globally, pretty much
Speaker 1: every single country has some version of dietary guidelines. Many
Speaker 1: of them do use a little pyramid shape, which is
Speaker 1: so interesting. Why has that become the thing? And there's
Speaker 1: of course a lot of regional variation in like what
Speaker 1: countries are using as like their food examples, or like
Speaker 1: are they calling things grains or starches or what have you.
Speaker 1: But across the board there's a lot of very common
Speaker 1: themes that come out, and that are things like an
Speaker 1: emphasis on fish in many guidelines, an emphasis on lean
Speaker 1: meats and limiting or moderating meat consumption that's in most
Speaker 1: other guidelines. Over half of countries have some specific messaging
Speaker 1: around increasing consumption of legumes and plant based sources of protein,
Speaker 1: and about seventy five percent of countries have some kind
Speaker 1: of messaging about dairy, so not all but a good
Speaker 1: chunk of them, And most of them that have anything
Speaker 1: about dairy specifically mention low fat milk or low fat
Speaker 1: dairy products. And then pretty much all countries mention things
Speaker 1: like limiting fat to some degree. Some of them separate
Speaker 1: out the types of fat and then limiting salt, limiting sugar,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 3: Okay, I also.
Speaker 1: Love that some countries go like a few steps further
Speaker 1: and like their dietary guidelines also include like conditions on
Speaker 1: how you should eat, or like recommendations on physical activity.
Speaker 1: Apparently in Brazil dietary guidelines, I don't know if they
Speaker 1: still do this, but in twenty fifteen they said that
Speaker 1: you should dine in company to develop relationships.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that.
Speaker 3: Isn't that so nice?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: So if we look very broadly and like we try
Speaker 1: and incorporate all of what these other country guidelines, the
Speaker 1: World Health Organization recommendations, and what like, nutrition science more
Speaker 1: broadly tells us what really is the healthiest diet. If
Speaker 1: we look at the preponderance of evidence, a healthy diet
Speaker 1: seems to be one in which we get a wide
Speaker 1: variety of foods that are going to meet our macro
Speaker 1: nutrients so protein, fiber, carbohydrate, fat, and are micro nutrient
Speaker 1: so vitamins and minerals requirements. It's going to be one
Speaker 1: which relies primarily on plants, including vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
Speaker 1: And for many of us, plant based sources of protein
Speaker 1: are going to bring health benefits and animal based sources
Speaker 1: of protein can be incorporated as a part of a
Speaker 1: healthy diet. And across the board, based on all the evidence,
Speaker 1: the things that we should be limiting are saturated and
Speaker 1: trans fats, added sugars or free sugars, and sodium.
Speaker 3: And it is.
Speaker 1: True that ultraprocessed foods are very often high in sodium, sugar,
Speaker 1: and saturated fats.
Speaker 3: That's the end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So have we have these guidelines, these ones that
Speaker 2: change every five years in the United States? We have
Speaker 2: other sort of society guidelines or like these, there's ones
Speaker 2: that were there's consistency across the globe. How are we
Speaker 2: doing or is any of us meeting any of these guidelines?
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you asked aarin.
Speaker 2: That's what I wanted to tell your next Okay, good.
Speaker 1: So in the US, at least we can look at
Speaker 1: the Healthy Eating Index twenty twenty is the most up
Speaker 1: to date ones that we have. They have a separate
Speaker 1: one for like children over age two and then another
Speaker 1: one for toddler's Okay, but all across the board we
Speaker 1: fail to align with any version of dietary guidelines for Americans. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: our standard American diet, which you can abbreviate as sad
Speaker 1: nice is indeed, it's pretty it's pretty bad, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: The mean Healthy.
Speaker 1: Eating Index scores for the total population was fifty six
Speaker 1: out of one hundred goal is one hundred, okay, and
Speaker 1: toddlers is sixty three out of one hundred. So toddlers
Speaker 1: are doing a bit better, which is shocking to me
Speaker 1: based on my toddlers.
Speaker 2: I mean, sixty three though, is still.
Speaker 3: It's not great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably my kid is much less than that. That's
Speaker 1: an average, right, And these data come from like a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of really wide ranging surveys. Despite those abysmal
Speaker 1: overarching statistics, according to all of this data, the majority
Speaker 1: of individuals over age one are at or above dietary
Speaker 1: guideline recommendations for total grains okay, refined grains, which is
Speaker 1: maybe the less great option, total protein foods okay, protein
Speaker 1: and meat, poultry and eggs okay. So we're doing just
Speaker 1: fine there.
Speaker 2: We're hitting things, yep.
Speaker 3: Where we are.
Speaker 1: Falling short is vegetables, including all subgroups of vegetables, and
Speaker 1: they group them by like green versus red, and orange
Speaker 1: versus again, beans, peas, and lentils, were in there asgetables.
Speaker 1: We're falling short on fruits, We're falling short on the
Speaker 1: dietary guidelines recommendations for dairy or fortified soy alternatives, huh,
Speaker 1: as well as seafood, nuts, seeds, soy products, and whole grains. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you might ask, as I did, why do we
Speaker 1: need recommendations telling us to emphasize protein and animal protein
Speaker 1: when we're already getting enough, if not too much, and
Speaker 1: we're falling short in so many other regards. If you
Speaker 1: want to go even deeper, and you know that I do,
Speaker 1: we can look at other macro nutrient profiles. Only six
Speaker 1: percent of us in the United States are meeting our
Speaker 1: fiber recommendations, which is twenty five to thirty five grams
Speaker 1: of fiber a day.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite so. I've been a little bit obsessed
Speaker 2: with fiber because because I feel like we have talked
Speaker 2: about this in something else in some maybe it was
Speaker 2: a poop episodes or something. Yeah, and I was like
Speaker 2: how much fiber am? I had no concept of how
Speaker 2: much I was supposed to eat? Like, yeah, you can
Speaker 2: hear twenty five grams, thirty grams or whatever, but like,
Speaker 2: what does that actually look like right, and it's a
Speaker 2: lot of fiber. It's it is. And so yesterday I
Speaker 2: sat down with John and I calculated his not mine,
Speaker 2: because I I for and also I've been taking fiber, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've been having fiber supplements and stuff and trying to
Speaker 2: eat a lot of fiber. But John is just like, well,
Speaker 2: I think I eat a good amount of fiber. And
Speaker 2: I was like, do you he does? Actually he hit
Speaker 2: thirty grams. I was like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: That's amazing. Yeah, I thought he only ate chicken.
Speaker 2: No, he's a big smoothie vegetable cuy.
Speaker 3: And so it's like most of the.
Speaker 2: Day is smoothie vegetables and then it's chicken and vegetables
Speaker 2: at night.
Speaker 3: And that's great.
Speaker 2: Rice. I think that like, it was really a good
Speaker 2: exercise for me to be like, Okay, what does this
Speaker 2: actually look like in terms of consuming fiber?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: And it's I mean, fiber is like it is the
Speaker 1: one thing that I do a lot of counseling on
Speaker 1: in all of my primary care visits, okay visits when
Speaker 1: we're talking about food and diet, because it's also that
Speaker 1: like foods that are high in fibers tend to be
Speaker 1: also the foods that are good plant proteins and they
Speaker 1: have a lot of other.
Speaker 3: Micronutrients and things. So like to get.
Speaker 1: Your fiber from whole food sources, you are also shifting
Speaker 1: the overall diet profile that you're eating, which is like, ugh,
Speaker 1: fiber's great now more, eighty nine percent of us are
Speaker 1: getting too much sodium. See our salt episode for more.
Speaker 2: I include myself in that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sixty five percent of us are eating more than
Speaker 1: ten percent of our calories in added sugar, which is
Speaker 1: a lot. Eighty two percent of us are eating more
Speaker 1: than ten percent of our calories from saturated fat already
Speaker 1: before these recommendations to increase animal protein, to increase the
Speaker 1: fat in your dairy, to use butter, and it's only
Speaker 1: older adults. About five to fifteen percent of older adults
Speaker 1: are maybe not getting enough protein. And that's like a
Speaker 1: low percentage compared to all of these other numbers. It
Speaker 1: is true, though, like that our nutrition in the US
Speaker 1: is not great and it impacts our health. It's estimated
Speaker 1: that seven hundred billion dollars each year is spent on
Speaker 1: health care costs related to nutrition related chronic diseases. Right, so,
Speaker 1: these do have huge consequences on individual and public health.
Speaker 1: So if we are falling short in these areas, why, like,
Speaker 1: what are the barriers that people are facing and who
Speaker 1: is going to face or who is going to see
Speaker 1: the impact of these newest changes that we're seeing. That's right,
Speaker 1: I want to go next. There are very substantial differences
Speaker 1: in access to food and in health outcomes in this
Speaker 1: country based on race and ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Now,
Speaker 1: in this country, race and ethnicity contribute so hugely to
Speaker 1: differences in dietary intake, and it's largely due to historic
Speaker 1: marginalization and structural racism that's driving inequalities in socioeconomics and education.
Speaker 1: These are the two biggest factors socioeconomics and education that
Speaker 1: are associated with diet quality. We also see huge geographic
Speaker 1: differences in the US. People in rural United States and
Speaker 1: in food deserts, whether in rural or urban areas, have
Speaker 1: substantially lower quality diets. And there's socioeconomics and historic redlining
Speaker 1: and food deserts where even if you have food, like
Speaker 1: let's say your bodega on the corner carries fresh fruits
Speaker 1: and vegetables, they're going to be sky high prices compared
Speaker 1: to the Walmart which is out in the urbs that
Speaker 1: you can't get to because you don't have a car. Right, So,
Speaker 1: there's huge amounts of inequalities in our food system and
Speaker 1: that is baked into our food system. The scientific report
Speaker 1: from the Dietary Guidelines Committee that was not used to
Speaker 1: make these guidelines re really emphasize the need for us
Speaker 1: to do more research on those aspects, for us to
Speaker 1: understand what those drivers are and how we can actually
Speaker 1: address them systematically. And the Dietary Guidelines said, absolutely not,
Speaker 1: we will not be doing that, right pure.
Speaker 2: You're not going to acknowledge anything beyond personal.
Speaker 3: Choices exactly one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: But if our personal choices are that we're not eating
Speaker 1: according to these guidelines anyways, then what, like you asked
Speaker 1: last week, what impact are these changes really going to have?
Speaker 1: And I think that one of the things that's important
Speaker 1: is that because these Dietary Guidelines are guiding policy for
Speaker 1: school lunch programs, for military nutrition programs, for what is
Speaker 1: covered by WICK or the Women, Infants and Children, which
Speaker 1: serves over forty seven million people, these changes specifically to
Speaker 1: increase things like full fat dairy to increase protein recommendations
Speaker 1: to avoid processed foods. These could result in pretty substantial
Speaker 1: changes being integrated into what foods are available in schools.
Speaker 3: Now, my kid.
Speaker 1: Goes to a public school and gets breakfast and lunch
Speaker 1: at public school, which is wonderful, thank you State of California.
Speaker 1: But the food choices that he gets are often quite bad.
Speaker 1: Like he eats graham crackers for breakfast because those count
Speaker 1: as whole grains.
Speaker 3: I'm not even joking, so.
Speaker 2: No, I know you're not. I mean this is like
Speaker 2: cinnamon toast crunch is a whole grains.
Speaker 1: He gets cinnamon toast crunch, whole grain, low sugar Cinnamonton's crunch.
Speaker 1: Quite often he brings home the little wet packets sometimes.
Speaker 2: Five percent reduced sugar.
Speaker 1: Now, yes, yes, and do you know what, they don't
Speaker 1: taste as good. But that's besides the point.
Speaker 2: Well, but that is the point.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yes, But so it is possible that these
Speaker 1: changes could result in choices that are higher in whole grains,
Speaker 1: that are lower in sugar, and that are lower in sodium,
Speaker 1: And that would not be a bad thing. That would
Speaker 1: be a really good thing. Will there be increased budgets
Speaker 1: for this because those foods are going to cost more money.
Speaker 1: So will this result in better food choices or will
Speaker 1: it result in less access? Will departments and programs have
Speaker 1: to decide, you know what, we can't give universal school
Speaker 1: lunch anymore. We have to go back to having income
Speaker 1: limits on who can actually access school lunch, which again
Speaker 1: that's a bigger issue and has a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: things associated with it. Right, universal school lunch is an
Speaker 1: amazing thing. So is there going to be budgets for
Speaker 1: this to be able to implement and incorporate any of
Speaker 1: these recommendations into policy changes? Will increasing full fat dairy
Speaker 1: be beneficial for kids? Will it end up having more
Speaker 1: calories because they're still going to be drinking chocolate milk
Speaker 1: because that's what they all choose, right, Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think that we don't know, right, We literally just don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't know how this is all going to happen,
Speaker 1: how it's all going to shake out, So time will tell.
Speaker 1: It is the like short answer of like, how are
Speaker 1: these going to be impacted?
Speaker 3: In theory?
Speaker 1: You know, medical professionals and nutrition professionals also rely on
Speaker 1: these guidelines when they're counseling patients.
Speaker 3: Or when learning in their learning, are they.
Speaker 1: Going to rely on these guidelines or are we going
Speaker 1: to see what we've seen with the dissolution of the ACIP,
Speaker 1: where all of the other professional organizations make their own
Speaker 1: guidelines and that's actually what's used, and no one's even
Speaker 1: using these guidelines.
Speaker 3: We don't know.
Speaker 1: I do think, like we talked about earlier, what is
Speaker 1: so different about the way that these guidelines are being
Speaker 1: presented is how they are being marketed and how much
Speaker 1: they are being marketed to the American public directly. And
Speaker 1: they're doing so under this guise of caring about people's health,
Speaker 1: while at the same time rejecting examining any socioeconomic determinants
Speaker 1: of health, you know, rejecting science in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways for their own individual interests, and then also marketing
Speaker 1: this with commercials like the one with Mike Tyson that
Speaker 1: shame's foods, that shames people's bodies for what size their
Speaker 1: body actually is, again without any meaningful policy change to
Speaker 1: make sure that people have access to foods, or have
Speaker 1: the time to engage in physical activity, or like any
Speaker 1: of these other things that we know would be beneficial.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Erin I am skeptical that there's going to be a
Speaker 1: lot of benefit that comes out of wrapping up these
Speaker 1: nuggets of truth or these nuggets of what we know
Speaker 1: to be quote unquote common sense in what is so
Speaker 1: hard to disentangle good advice from ideology that's not based in.
Speaker 2: Real science, industry ideology?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 2: Where does it all? Like? What does the pie chart
Speaker 2: look like?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: It's different for each different thing, And like I feel
Speaker 2: like what I really drew from this there are consistencies,
Speaker 2: and I think highlighting those global consistencies is really it's
Speaker 2: really interesting because there are things that haven't really changed,
Speaker 2: and there are maybe minor changes from year to year
Speaker 2: as far as these go. But like to have a roadmap,
Speaker 2: and it's just that there's an unwillingness, especially from the
Speaker 2: federal government, to provide the funding or the resources to
Speaker 2: enable everyone to use that roadmap.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I swear this is my very
Speaker 1: last point, Aaron, we'll see.
Speaker 2: No, just kidding because I.
Speaker 1: Don't have time to get into it, but I feel
Speaker 1: like it's an important thing that I don't want to
Speaker 1: just gloss over entirely. The impact of dietary guidelines on
Speaker 1: climate change yes, okay, there's really wide ranges in missions
Speaker 1: estimates of various specific countries. Is recommended diets, and if
Speaker 1: the entire world was eating an old US diet, not
Speaker 1: even the newest recommendations, it would substantially increase global greenhouse
Speaker 1: gas emissions. And now with an emphasis on dairy, and
Speaker 1: then even stronger. We always had an emphasis on dairy,
Speaker 1: but a stronger emphasis on dairy and a stronger emphasis
Speaker 1: on animal protein at the expense of plant protein that
Speaker 1: is also going to result if it is incorporated in
Speaker 1: more greenhouse gas emissions, worsening of climate change. There was
Speaker 1: also changes with like alcohol and making it much more
Speaker 1: ambiguous what the recommendations are and not explicitly saying you
Speaker 1: should not be drinking alcohol period, which is what the
Speaker 1: old guidelines actually said. They were like, no one should
Speaker 1: be drinking alcohol. If you are going to, it should
Speaker 1: be no more than one to two a day, depending
Speaker 1: on who you are. And now the new ones are
Speaker 1: just like.
Speaker 3: They make your alcohol consumption, which.
Speaker 1: Like, what does that mean? Now I swear I'm actually
Speaker 1: done erin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean you you bring up a good
Speaker 2: point about about emissions, and it's all I think what
Speaker 2: it also reveals is just like, how much of this
Speaker 2: again is about American agriculture, Yes, and interests in that
Speaker 2: in that area. Yeah, tell us where we can learn
Speaker 2: more about this?
Speaker 1: Well, of course, you can read all of these guidelines
Speaker 1: for yourself. I've got links to the report that came
Speaker 1: out in twenty twenty four, and then the scientific foundation
Speaker 1: that they wrote, the new scientific committee that RFK made wrote,
Speaker 1: as well as the several page dietary guidelines document. It's
Speaker 1: all there. I also have some data like going back
Speaker 1: on previous dietary guidelines so that you can kind of
Speaker 1: see the evolution. And then a bunch of papers about
Speaker 1: the global There was a couple of really great ones.
Speaker 1: One from twenty nineteen that was called a Global Review
Speaker 1: of Food based Dietary Guidelines from Advances and Nutrition, and
Speaker 1: then another one from twenty twenty one that was a
Speaker 1: comparison of dietary guidelines among ninety six countries worldwide. I've
Speaker 1: got that climate change paper. It was from twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: so it's a little bit old now. But anyways, we
Speaker 1: got so much there for you on our website. This
Speaker 1: podcast will kill you dot com.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you to Bloodmobile for providing the music for
Speaker 2: this episode, in all of our episodes.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Leanna and Tom and Pete and Mark
Speaker 1: and Jess and everyone. I'd exactly right for everything that
Speaker 1: you do to make this podcast possible.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you and thanks. Listeners. Tell us what
Speaker 2: you think. We're curious. What did you think is that
Speaker 2: was said?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had fun, and thank you as always to
Speaker 1: our patrons. Your support really does. It means so much
Speaker 1: to us, so thank you.
Speaker 2: Until next time, wash your hands.
Speaker 5: You feelthy animals
Speaker 2: And