Speaker 1: How can the housekeeper tell whether or not she is
Speaker 1: providing the food which her family needs and is getting
Speaker 1: the best possible returns for the money she spends. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the price she pays for food is no test of
Speaker 1: the nourishment it yields to the body. Tomatoes at five
Speaker 1: or ten cents apiece in winter do not build body
Speaker 1: tissues nor furnish fuel for the body engine any better
Speaker 1: than those at five cents a quart in the summer.
Speaker 1: Appetite is not always a safe guide. A child's appetite
Speaker 1: might be satisfied with a diet of nothing but sugar,
Speaker 1: but this certainly would not be good for him. Neither
Speaker 1: can hunger and its satisfaction always be relied on. A
Speaker 1: bulky diet of potatoes or bananas alone would soon make
Speaker 1: a person feel that he had eaten enough, but would
Speaker 1: not furnish all that the body needs. Evidently, what a
Speaker 1: person who plans meals ought to know is what things
Speaker 1: the body needs in its food, and how these needs
Speaker 1: can be fulfilled by the ordinary food materials. This paper
Speaker 1: is intended to give such information in a simple way.
Speaker 1: It should make plain that different kinds or classes of
Speaker 1: foods serve different uses. In the body and should help
Speaker 1: the housekeeper to choose those which will serve all these
Speaker 1: uses without waste. It is very hard for a housekeeper
Speaker 1: to know exactly how much of each of the food
Speaker 1: substances or nutrients her body needs, or exactly how much
Speaker 1: of each she is giving them. In order to calculate
Speaker 1: exactly how much starch, sugar, fat, protein, etc. The family needs,
Speaker 1: one would have to know exactly how much muscular work
Speaker 1: each member was performing, and also exactly how much of
Speaker 1: the different nutrients each food contained, and exactly how much
Speaker 1: each person would eat. This, of course, would mean a
Speaker 1: great deal of figuring. Fortunately, such exactness is not necessary
Speaker 1: in ordinary life. If a little too much or too
Speaker 1: little of one nutrient is provided at a single meal
Speaker 1: or on a single day, a healthy body does not suffer,
Speaker 1: because it has ways of storing such a surplus and
Speaker 1: of using its stored material in an emergency. The danger
Speaker 1: would come if they take in week in and week out,
Speaker 1: always provided too much or too little of someone nutrient.
Speaker 1: Against this danger, the housekeeper can more easily protect her family.
Speaker 1: Good food habits, it must be remembered, include more than
Speaker 1: cleanliness and order in everything that has to do with
Speaker 1: food and meals and leisurely ways of eating. Equally important
Speaker 1: are a liking for all kinds of wholesome foods, even
Speaker 1: if they have not always been used in one's home
Speaker 1: or neighborhood, and eating reasonable amounts. Every effort should be
Speaker 1: made to train children in such good food habits. If
Speaker 1: older people have not learned them, they too should try
Speaker 1: to do so, for such things are very important, not
Speaker 1: only to health, but also to economy.
Speaker 2: I love it, Aaron, Isn't that great? Have that replies
Speaker 2: all of our guidelines except the housekeeper bit and the
Speaker 2: housekeeper heard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think, like what I love about
Speaker 1: these guidelines is that there and there's so much more
Speaker 1: to them, right, Like this comes from a fourteen page
Speaker 1: or so pamphlet about how to feed your family. It
Speaker 1: has sample meals that I kind of called out, So
Speaker 1: it's like, what is one? Here's here's an example for
Speaker 1: a man. So they have it broken down by like,
Speaker 1: here's one for a family with two adults and three children.
Speaker 1: Here's one for a man who does a lot of
Speaker 1: muscular work outside.
Speaker 3: He would need each day.
Speaker 1: One of a quarter pounds of bread, a quarter cup
Speaker 1: of butter oil, meat, drippings or other fat, quarter cup
Speaker 1: of sugar or a third of a cup of honey,
Speaker 1: and then like a little bit of fruits and veggies
Speaker 1: and twelve ounces of meat, meat twelve ounces or also
Speaker 1: fish or cheese or eggs or legumes. Okay, so there
Speaker 1: are other there are non animal protein sources acknowledged and recommended.
Speaker 2: Fascinating, isn't that wild?
Speaker 1: So that is from really the United States first Nutritional
Speaker 1: Guidelines from nineteen seventeen. It was from a pamphlet written
Speaker 1: by Caroline Hunt and Helen.
Speaker 3: Atwater and yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh.
Speaker 2: And I'm Erin Alman Updike, and this.
Speaker 3: Is this podcast will kill you.
Speaker 2: Welcome to what are we calling this the food pyramid?
Speaker 1: Okay, that's what I initially called it, and then I
Speaker 1: was like, nutritional guidelines might be more.
Speaker 2: Actual dietary guidelines.
Speaker 1: Dietary guidelines Part one, We go part one. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: we're breaking this up into two episodes because there is
Speaker 1: so much to cover and it's really exciting too, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like, I'm really glad that we chose to
Speaker 1: do this in two episodes because it's given, it's given
Speaker 1: us an opportunity to dig deep into some of these
Speaker 1: questions as like how these guidelines are put together and
Speaker 1: the history of them, like what actually goes into making
Speaker 1: these guidelines, and some of the ethical considerations that we
Speaker 1: should consider.
Speaker 2: I guess that's all.
Speaker 3: That's all this episode, and then.
Speaker 1: Next week you're going to be taking us through the
Speaker 1: most recent guidelines and what the science actually does have
Speaker 1: to say when it comes to diet and health and
Speaker 1: foods that we should eat and foods that we should avoid,
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah, all that stuff.
Speaker 2: No small task.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, I have a wide variety of sources for this.
Speaker 2: I can't I cannot wait to learn, especially just about
Speaker 2: the history of the Terry Guidelines in the US, because
Speaker 2: it's I know there's a lot there.
Speaker 1: I am really hoping that I get the answer from
Speaker 1: you next week as to what the heck is going
Speaker 1: on with protein and why. Yesterday I went to the
Speaker 1: store and I was like, there's protein, popcorn, protein popcorn, protein,
Speaker 1: protein water, protein, sparkling water. I about fell over when
Speaker 1: I saw that.
Speaker 2: I will I don't know if I'll answer that question,
Speaker 2: but we will talk quite a lot about protein, because
Speaker 2: you can't not you can't, I am. I. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't have an answer as to why there's protein popcorn. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was like, what before we can do any of this. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's quarantine. It's a quarantine time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are drinking this week your daily Apple.
Speaker 2: Your daily Apple.
Speaker 3: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Speaker 1: This is in no way an endorsement of Apple specifically, or.
Speaker 2: We're not being paid by the Apple lobby over.
Speaker 3: No, we're not.
Speaker 2: But you know, there is one I'm sure.
Speaker 3: In your daily Apple.
Speaker 1: How you make it is you mix together some apple juice,
Speaker 1: various juices essentially, you know, try to find ones that
Speaker 1: are juice and not just pure sugar, but apple juice,
Speaker 1: lemon juice, pomegranate juice, and a dash of sparkling water.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can be refreshing. Sure, we'll post the full
Speaker 2: recipe for your Daily Apple on our social media's for sure,
Speaker 2: probably on our website.
Speaker 3: I think we're getting rid ofsite video situation.
Speaker 2: Right so you can find them day this podcast with
Speaker 2: kill you dot com, yes, where you can also find
Speaker 2: so much other amazing information there. You know, we've got
Speaker 2: transcripts from all of our episodes. We've got sources that
Speaker 2: we use for every single episode. We've got merch We've
Speaker 2: got a good Bread's list, We've got a bookshop dot
Speaker 2: org affiliate account. We've got leaks to bloodmobile who does
Speaker 2: our music. We've got Patreon, We've got I mean wow,
Speaker 2: the list goes on.
Speaker 3: Absolutely goes on and on. Thanks for that, ared no problem.
Speaker 1: I think we have no other business that I can remember,
Speaker 1: and so let's take a break.
Speaker 4: Everything great, Okay?
Speaker 3: How do we decide what to eat?
Speaker 1: Our days are filled with endless micro decisions about what
Speaker 1: to make for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack time. These decisions
Speaker 1: are shaped by so many factors, right from what we
Speaker 1: have on hand, to how long something takes to make,
Speaker 1: from what we grew up eating, to what we can afford,
Speaker 1: from whether we have dietary restrictions, to know just what
Speaker 1: we're in the mood for. How exactly we make these
Speaker 1: decisions has greatly shifted over history, as agriculture, global trade, industrialization,
Speaker 1: and advertising have altered the ways that.
Speaker 3: We interact with food.
Speaker 1: In most high income countries, what we've seen over the
Speaker 1: past century is an explosion in food variety and an
Speaker 1: overall expansion in access that means that the question has
Speaker 1: morphed from what can we eat to what should we eat?
Speaker 1: But who is behind that should and where did they
Speaker 1: get their information?
Speaker 2: You gonna tell me.
Speaker 1: On January seventh, twenty twenty six, the US Department of
Speaker 1: Health and Human Services, along with the USDA, unveiled the
Speaker 1: new Dietary Guidelines for Americans. And while some of the
Speaker 1: recommendations have not changed in decades, like an emphasis on
Speaker 1: fresh vegetables and whole grains, others represent a pretty stark
Speaker 1: departure from previous guidance, like the inclusion of butter and
Speaker 1: beef tallow as good or you know, healthy fat, healthy
Speaker 1: sources of fats. Changes to the guidelines are not unprecedented.
Speaker 1: They are actually expected since nineteen eighty when the US
Speaker 1: Dietary Guideline for Americans or DGA was passed. Every five years,
Speaker 1: those guidelines are revisited by an appointed committee who publishes
Speaker 1: a new report. The logic behind this decision is very sound,
Speaker 1: like why we keep revisiting these guidelines? Our knowledge is
Speaker 1: always evolving, and so we should evaluate policies in light
Speaker 1: of new scientific research and be open to change. That's
Speaker 1: how science works, at least that's how it should work.
Speaker 1: Where things get tricky is when other interests such as
Speaker 1: financial are present that we can or refute the science.
Speaker 1: National dietary guidelines are presented as a scientific consensus, But
Speaker 1: are they or are some guidelines influenced more by industry
Speaker 1: than by science. And maybe you're listening to this and
Speaker 1: thinking like, well, those guidelines don't mean anything to me.
Speaker 3: I never use them.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what's in the newest ones at
Speaker 1: fair enough, like that's I get that. But these guidelines
Speaker 1: do have a huge impact, not just on overall perception
Speaker 1: of what a healthy diet is, but also in a
Speaker 1: very tangible way. They will affect with the thirty million
Speaker 1: US children in the National School Lunch Program eat on
Speaker 1: an average school day. They will affect other people who
Speaker 1: are on food assistance programs and what foods they can
Speaker 1: get assistance for. Tracing the history of these guidelines can
Speaker 1: reveal so much about our understanding of nutritional science, about
Speaker 1: globalization and the food supply, and about the insidious influence
Speaker 1: of industry on our perception of quote unquote healthy. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm going to take us through the story of a question,
Speaker 1: how should we eat? Not by answering that question, but
Speaker 1: by examining who has answered it and what underlies their advice.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I'm thrilled.
Speaker 1: Dietary advice is far from a twentieth century invention. Long
Speaker 1: before the words vitamin or carbohydrate had entered our vocabulary,
Speaker 1: there were strong, culturally distinct recommendations on what to eat
Speaker 1: and what not to eat. Certain animals and plants carried
Speaker 1: powerful symbolism and were reserved for ceremonial purposes, consumed for
Speaker 1: their purported medicinal qualities, or just forbidden entirely. But beyond
Speaker 1: these food taboos or medicinal ingredients, there were also general
Speaker 1: recommendations for a quote unquote healthy diet.
Speaker 3: So like, for.
Speaker 1: Instance, the ancient Greeks and Romans advised moderation in food
Speaker 1: and beverage for example, and in keeping with the humoral
Speaker 1: theory of disease, a balanced diet was recommended for someone
Speaker 1: who was ill. That balance might be tilted to restoring
Speaker 1: the humors. Overall, though I'm not sure what a balanced
Speaker 1: diet meant.
Speaker 2: What it meant yeah, and whether.
Speaker 1: That was consistent and how achievable it would have been
Speaker 1: for like your average citizen of the ancient world.
Speaker 3: I have no idea. Did they even know about balance dites?
Speaker 2: I don't know, like what were their food groups that
Speaker 2: they were balancing, you know, I don't That is a
Speaker 2: separate wig. One.
Speaker 5: The wine was absolutely a food group.
Speaker 1: Then you had I don't know, like there must have
Speaker 1: been bile, like you know what I mean, like yellow bial.
Speaker 3: This is going to increase your yellow vial and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Right, But I think that what foods hot foods? Wasn't
Speaker 2: that a whole thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That was a thing.
Speaker 3: That is still a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But where the link between diet and health was clearer
Speaker 1: in ancient times was actually in raising livestock. So farmers
Speaker 1: noticed that if they fed their livestock different diets like
Speaker 1: grass versus straw, for example, there might be a pretty
Speaker 1: major difference in how many young they had, how early
Speaker 1: they matured, how big they grew, the milk they produced,
Speaker 1: stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Okay, how much of this was carried.
Speaker 1: Over to dietary guidelines for humans, I don't know, not sure,
Speaker 1: but it seems that overall, thousands of years would pass
Speaker 1: before there was anything resembling like a general consensus on
Speaker 1: what constituted a healthy diet, partly because global trade and
Speaker 1: food preservation practice like refrigeration and canning that limited how
Speaker 1: much food or the variety of food that someone had
Speaker 1: access to, Like how many people could reliably eat a
Speaker 1: few cups of leafy greens a week, year round? Right?
Speaker 1: No one, not a thing, not really a thing ancient
Speaker 1: in the ancient world. Yeah right, right, and so but
Speaker 1: the answer, I mean, sure there were some people that
Speaker 1: achieved more of like a diet in line with what
Speaker 1: we eat today, but it would depend a lot on
Speaker 1: the person themselves, right, like where they lived, their socioeconomic status,
Speaker 1: all of these different factors. But even if someone had
Speaker 1: a variety of foods available to them, how would they
Speaker 1: know to choose fruits and vegetables over other options, especially
Speaker 1: when like fats and sugars taste good for a reason
Speaker 1: like it's good. It's like evolutionarily, we are ingrained to
Speaker 1: think that that is the most delicious thing on earth.
Speaker 1: And yeah, but the eighteen hundreds is really when nutritional
Speaker 1: science got its start, and it was initially mostly focused
Speaker 1: on identifying and treating nutritional deficiencies rather than the much
Speaker 1: trickier puzzle of determining, you know, which elements constitute not
Speaker 1: just a sufficient.
Speaker 2: But a healthy diet.
Speaker 1: The goal of nutritional science in these early years was
Speaker 1: preventing disease, not maximizing health.
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting distinction, yes, because it's also preventing,
Speaker 2: like you said, deficiency diseases, very different than what the
Speaker 2: goals of nutrition guidelines are.
Speaker 1: Today preventing chronic diseases. Yes, yeah, yeah, it's and so
Speaker 1: this question of how do we use food to prevent
Speaker 1: disease it was interesting in its own just like scientific right,
Speaker 1: but more than that, it was a logistical question.
Speaker 2: How do you.
Speaker 3: Feed an army?
Speaker 1: How much food or what kinds of food does a
Speaker 1: soldier or a sailor need to stay in fighting shape?
Speaker 1: So that is really what drove a lot of these
Speaker 1: questions in nutritional science. So, for instance, scurvy, which we
Speaker 1: know today is caused by vitamin C deficiency, had plagued
Speaker 1: humans for millennia, but it grew to new levels of
Speaker 1: concern in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, prompting military doctors
Speaker 1: like James Lynde to investigate what foods might stave off
Speaker 1: this horrific illness our scurvy episode for more on that.
Speaker 1: But these observational studies then led to people realizing that
Speaker 1: citrus was a good scurvy prevention or preventative, and so
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty five, British Parliament passed the Merchant Seamen's Act,
Speaker 1: which required lemon juice to be included in all rations.
Speaker 1: This is really some people consider this to be the
Speaker 1: first governmental dietary guidelines.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so interesting, Yeah, because just like you got
Speaker 2: to have lemon juice, that's the first.
Speaker 1: It is required on all of these ships. And it's like,
Speaker 1: even though it's a subset of the population, even though
Speaker 1: the rationale was not figured out for another century because
Speaker 1: of guinea pigs again see our scurvy episode. But it's
Speaker 1: I find that I do find that really interesting, is
Speaker 1: that like this, we know that you need to have this,
Speaker 1: and we don't know why, but.
Speaker 3: This is important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so interesting.
Speaker 1: So while Lynd and other pioneers in this field mostly
Speaker 1: relied initially on observational studies, you know, what food seems
Speaker 1: to help prevent this disease, but then the chemical revolution
Speaker 1: of the late eighteenth century that is what really paved
Speaker 1: the way for the quantification of what we ate, like
Speaker 1: what is in the food that we're eating. These chemists
Speaker 1: we're figuring out essentially what life is made of and
Speaker 1: how we turn matter into energy, and it led some
Speaker 1: to ask what we needed to sustain life, not just
Speaker 1: what life is made of, but what does it need
Speaker 1: to keep going. The Industrial Revolution provided the perfect metaphor
Speaker 1: for these explanations of nutrition, the body as a machine.
Speaker 1: That was one important diference that they realized. Unlike machines
Speaker 1: which ran on, you know, one type of fuel, experiments
Speaker 1: revealed that the body needed a mixture, otherwise disease or
Speaker 1: death might result.
Speaker 3: You needed the right kinds.
Speaker 1: Of fuel, Yeah, the combination, combination, and so this kind
Speaker 1: of reasoning though, seeing diet as a way to avoid deficiencies.
Speaker 1: This persisted throughout the rest of the eighteen hundreds, and
Speaker 1: it guided scientific research into what was considered a quote
Speaker 1: unquote complete diet, not in the way that we think
Speaker 1: of a complete diet today, as in like you know,
Speaker 1: the different balanced components that we should aim for for
Speaker 1: healthy eating and not having too much of this or
Speaker 1: too much of that, but a complete diet as in
Speaker 1: the bare minimum to avoid deficiencies, not only in terms
Speaker 1: of specific nutrients, but just like enough food.
Speaker 3: Period.
Speaker 1: This research served multiple purposes right. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: it was helpful for figuring out how to feed people,
Speaker 1: especially people who are like, for instance, unemployed British cotton
Speaker 1: factory workers.
Speaker 3: Was like a big part of this.
Speaker 1: Early on, like how do we give them enough food
Speaker 1: so that we're not killing them but not spending too
Speaker 1: much money.
Speaker 3: You know, Like how do we do this as cheaply
Speaker 3: as possible.
Speaker 2: The minimum that we need to just keep people alive?
Speaker 3: How can we preserve life?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And on the other hand, though, it served as
Speaker 1: helpful advice for the general public, much of which was
Speaker 1: navigating a totally new food landscape compared to past generations.
Speaker 1: The Industrial revolution and growth of cities overall meant that
Speaker 1: food had to travel farther to get to the mouths
Speaker 1: of consumers, leading to all sorts of issues with food
Speaker 1: safety and consumer protection. Alongside greater technology into how to
Speaker 1: make food more shelf stable and so this innovation in
Speaker 1: food preservation and packaging it meant that consumers had more
Speaker 1: options to choose from, like more ways to spend their money.
Speaker 1: The cheapest options were rarely nutritious, which meant, of course
Speaker 1: that you could spend or entire meager paycheck to feed
Speaker 1: your family and they would still not get what they
Speaker 1: needed to avoid deficiencies, let alone achieve optimal health. So
Speaker 1: by the late eighteen hundreds, many countries who were seeing
Speaker 1: a looming nutritional disaster stepped in to regulate food safety,
Speaker 1: which gradually encompassed coming up with dietary guidelines for their citizens.
Speaker 2: So in the.
Speaker 1: US, this process was spearheaded by wo Atwater, who was
Speaker 1: appointed by the USDA in the eighteen nineties to be
Speaker 1: the first Director of Research Activities. His goal essentially was
Speaker 1: to break down foods into their main components protein or nitrogen.
Speaker 1: He also called it carbohydrate, fats, etc. And then to
Speaker 1: make recommendations, especially geared towards poorer families, on how to
Speaker 1: have a healthy diet on a limited income. So he
Speaker 1: suggested a balance of fifteen percent protein, thirty three percent fat,
Speaker 1: and fifty two percent carbs that men doing moderate work
Speaker 1: should consume about thirty five hundred calories, which is about
Speaker 1: one thousand more than today's recommendations, but overall proportions are
Speaker 1: I think pretty similar.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting that back then they especially in the
Speaker 2: context of how things went this year in the US,
Speaker 2: that they were specifically targeting their guidance for poorer families,
Speaker 2: like recognizing this socioeconomic disparity that early on in that Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's very interesting in the context of today.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like the more things change, the more
Speaker 1: they stay the same, for sure, because so many things you're.
Speaker 3: Like, we've been saying the same thing for so long, really.
Speaker 1: And then also it's like, oh my god, protein again,
Speaker 1: what are we doing here?
Speaker 5: So, like hatwater was a little bit kind of like.
Speaker 1: Mega focused on protein as this really important thing, and
Speaker 1: it was among the most expensive of food items, and
Speaker 1: so under his guidance, you would have these families that
Speaker 1: were spending about fifty percent of their entire house income
Speaker 1: on protein, and that of course then made fruits and
Speaker 1: green vegetables a disposable luxury. It was like protein first,
Speaker 1: everything else later later.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting, it's like not that dissimilar to today in
Speaker 1: terms of this like overwhelming focus on protein and his
Speaker 1: so his recommendations I just wanted to dig into.
Speaker 3: I was definitely like reading this.
Speaker 1: In the context of you know, protein, popcorn, whatnot, but
Speaker 1: he was His recommendations were that an average working man
Speaker 1: outside should get about one hundred and twenty five grams
Speaker 1: of protein a day as like the absolute minimum. But
Speaker 1: another researcher and also I will say that, like the
Speaker 1: protein could have come from any source, not just not
Speaker 1: just animal protein. But another researcher was like, I don't
Speaker 1: I'm worried that you're overestimating.
Speaker 3: How much protein you need.
Speaker 1: And so he ran this experiment where he fed you know,
Speaker 1: these army men on sixty grams of protein a day
Speaker 1: and like study their body composition throughout a period of months.
Speaker 1: Totally fine, yeah, the same, yeah, yeah, anyway, but there
Speaker 1: was this interesting so like not only was atwater focused
Speaker 1: on protein, and it's possible that like historically back then
Speaker 1: people weren't getting enough protein, but like was one twenty
Speaker 1: five too much? Yeah, probably for most people, absolutely on
Speaker 1: twenty five grams, But he also recognized that people in
Speaker 1: general primarily eat foods that were high in fat, starch,
Speaker 1: and sugar, like that was what most of their diets
Speaker 1: were comprised of. And he didn't live to see the
Speaker 1: heyday of vitamin discovery, which was like within the first
Speaker 1: few decades of the twentieth century, nor did he live
Speaker 1: to see the USDA's first General Dietary Guidelines, which were
Speaker 1: heavily influenced by his work and written by his daughter
Speaker 1: Helen Atwater and Caroline Hunt, which is from our first
Speaker 1: hand account.
Speaker 3: Is that cute?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I do what my dad did.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But these guidelines this fourteen page pamphlet in nineteen seventeen
Speaker 1: titled how to Select Foods. These guidelines marked the first
Speaker 1: phase for dietary advice in the US, diet as cure slash.
Speaker 3: Eat more food. It's like how I think it's characterized
Speaker 3: as so.
Speaker 1: They include some familiar things like food groups fruits and veggies,
Speaker 1: meats and other protein rich foods, cereals and other starch sweets,
Speaker 1: fatty food stuff like that, and information about micronutrients so
Speaker 1: like vitamins and minerals. But other aspects feel distinctly absent
Speaker 1: or different from today, like any upper limits on consumption.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: And so this, combined with the emphasis on micronutrients, was
Speaker 1: seized by food producers who saw an opportunity to market themselves.
Speaker 1: Right with consumers having so many more options at the store,
Speaker 1: food companies needed to stand out, and they use these
Speaker 1: guidelines to do so. Vitamins and minerals became a selling
Speaker 1: point like our bread has vitamins in it, and like
Speaker 1: every bread or like our you know, our bread is
Speaker 1: not deficient in vitamins, unlike dot dot dot.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The early twentieth century saw two World wars where feeding
Speaker 1: an army transformed from an art into a science. Rations
Speaker 1: had to be large enough to feed the average soldier,
Speaker 1: prevent any nutritional deficiencies, and not spoil at home. However,
Speaker 1: guidance remained vague and at times contradictory. So there was
Speaker 1: five food groups initially that grew to twelve, then shrank
Speaker 1: to seven, and then to eight, and then grew to eight.
Speaker 2: It was all over the place.
Speaker 1: There were different pamphlets that contained different advice, influenced by
Speaker 1: things like the Great Depression and the rationing of meat, sugar, butter,
Speaker 1: and canned goods during the wars. So, for instance, in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two, just to give you a little bit
Speaker 1: of an insight into the confusingness of this, in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty two, federal programs advised US citizens to eat foods
Speaker 1: from eight different.
Speaker 2: Groups a day.
Speaker 1: Half of these groups were milk, meat, eggs, and butter.
Speaker 2: Those are different groups. Those are all different groups.
Speaker 6: A yeah, milk, eggs, butter, meat, those are all separate things.
Speaker 3: Indeed, Oh goodness.
Speaker 2: Butter gets its whole own group. I mean, we're back
Speaker 2: there today.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like, the more things change, goodness,
Speaker 1: and then the next year another change. Right. The USDA's
Speaker 1: National Wartime Nutrition Guide said, quote, US needs us strong
Speaker 1: eat the Basic seven every day again. Milk, eggs, and
Speaker 1: butter each took up their own category.
Speaker 2: Out of seven. Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: The Basic seven was the first guidance to include actual
Speaker 1: serving suggestions, which provided a minimum but no maximum. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, three or three to four or more glasses
Speaker 1: of milk daily for children plus ice cream, not kidding.
Speaker 2: Three to four glasses of milk for children for children
Speaker 2: can be ironfisi less for adults.
Speaker 1: Yeah, two or more tablespoons of butter daily. There's more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But it always was or more right, there was no,
Speaker 1: it was always every single one.
Speaker 2: This is a minimum that you need, yeah, regardless of
Speaker 2: calories needed, regardless of just at least this.
Speaker 1: At least this, and I think it still reveals a
Speaker 1: lot about this preoccupation with like deficiencies and reasonably so
Speaker 1: and food producers. I mean they were thrilled by this
Speaker 1: guidem sure, except for the meat, poultry, fish industry. That's right,
Speaker 1: this is the only one that didn't have or more.
Speaker 1: It was just like one daily serving recommended.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so interesting really that that's the war on
Speaker 2: protein right there.
Speaker 5: There we go we started in World War two.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this concern or this preoccupation with deficiencies, nutritional deficiencies.
Speaker 3: Was valid, right.
Speaker 1: It was based on surveys that revealed many Americans were
Speaker 1: not getting enough food at all. Millions simply could not
Speaker 1: afford to, especially during the Great Depression and wartime, and
Speaker 1: others were not eating foods that would have met those
Speaker 1: nutritional needs. This finding motivated the USDA to again rearrange
Speaker 1: the food groups, simplifying them into the basic four meat,
Speaker 1: vegetable and fruit, bread and cereal, and milk.
Speaker 3: Still we've got milk because an entirely separate cabinal, vegetable
Speaker 3: and fruit is one thing.
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: There were some ambiguous warnings about portion sizes, but it
Speaker 1: was more just like, be careful not to overdo it
Speaker 1: kind of a thing. Overall, the focus remained on getting enough.
Speaker 1: That message would remain consistent until the nineteen seventies, when
Speaker 1: a Senate committee found that while many people were still
Speaker 1: food insecure, leading to the creation of several food assistance programs.
Speaker 1: In this time, many more were at risk of overnutrition.
Speaker 1: So cardiologists in particular had raised the alarm bell in
Speaker 1: after World War Two after they saw a really startling,
Speaker 1: striking rise in coronary heart disease, and they attributed that
Speaker 1: to high calorie diets that increasingly included high amounts of fat, cholesterol, salt, sugar.
Speaker 3: And alcohol.
Speaker 1: So this is like in the nineteen fifties, is when
Speaker 1: this starts to become more and more apparent, and you
Speaker 1: have researchers such as Ansel Keys, who we talked about
Speaker 1: in our starvation episode. He also did so much work
Speaker 1: to design the rations for World War Two.
Speaker 3: He did a lot of.
Speaker 1: This nutritional science in the mid twentieth century. So he
Speaker 1: examined this pattern across the globe and noted certain trends
Speaker 1: linked to a lower incidence of chronic disease, which included
Speaker 1: heart disease, but also diabetes and cancer. These trends that
Speaker 1: he noticed made their way into new dietary recommendations, which
Speaker 1: for the first time, for the first time in the
Speaker 1: history of US dietary guidelines, advise citizens to eat less
Speaker 1: of certain foods and more of others. Limit your salt, sugar, cholesterol,
Speaker 1: and saturated fats. Stick to non fat, dairy and vegetable oils,
Speaker 1: Eat more greens and carbs, and less red meat and eggs.
Speaker 1: With this, the second phase in US nutritional guidelines had begun,
Speaker 1: diet as a disease slash eat less food.
Speaker 2: So interesting this was nineteen seventies seventy seven.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I mean Keys's guidelines came out earlier, like
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty nine, I think, but like this was
Speaker 1: slowly building momentum, and by nineteen seventy seven there were
Speaker 1: these this push to investigate why people were so still
Speaker 1: struggling to have sufficient diets like food insecurity. And then
Speaker 1: what this committee actually revealed was this other problem that
Speaker 1: was lurking in the background, where diet was the problem
Speaker 1: in a different kind of way, right, And so this
Speaker 1: committee made this report, This nineteen seventy seven report caused
Speaker 1: dietary goals for the United States, and when it was released,
Speaker 1: I mean, there was.
Speaker 2: A huge uproar.
Speaker 1: Really, the cattle industry demanded that the report be withdrawn.
Speaker 1: The egg industry wanted additional hearings, and sugar producers were like,
Speaker 1: why are we.
Speaker 3: Suddenly in the crosshairs? What have we done? We didn't
Speaker 3: even do anything, We didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: But the report didn't just upset those who would be
Speaker 1: impacted financially. It wasn't widely popular even among scientists who
Speaker 1: questioned the science behind these recommendations or said that, you
Speaker 1: know what, one size fits all guidance that's going to
Speaker 1: be of limited use, and we don't want this to
Speaker 1: discourage people from seeking individualized diet recommendations from their healthcare
Speaker 1: providerfect yeah, yeah, But in this scheme of things, economic
Speaker 1: objections far out wide, the scientific ones. Declining whole milk
Speaker 1: and egg sales after release of this guidance demonstrated that
Speaker 1: these guidelines had the power to weaken a few pillars
Speaker 1: of the American economy. Fascinating and it was, and it
Speaker 1: was alarming too write like these these different pillars of
Speaker 1: industry were like, excuse me, Like you're going to suddenly
Speaker 1: hurt me. These guidelines are bad for the American economy.
Speaker 1: And so industry was like, I want a seat at
Speaker 1: the table. And they got it, and they got it.
Speaker 1: They got it, and this set a dangerous precedent for
Speaker 1: accepting like being okay with industry's influence in these decisions,
Speaker 1: at the end of nineteen seventy seven, a revised set
Speaker 1: of goals was released, and this included three important changes
Speaker 1: from the initial report. Okay, it increased your daily salt
Speaker 1: allowance from three to five grams a day, almost a doubling.
Speaker 1: It also changed it said that, okay, at the added
Speaker 1: cholesterol from eggs is fine for pre menopausal women, young children,
Speaker 1: and the elderly.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah specific uh huh uh huh.
Speaker 1: And it replaced reduced consumption of meat with choose meats,
Speaker 1: poultry and fish, which will reduce saturated fat intake.
Speaker 3: Don't you just love these little language changes?
Speaker 2: Subtle, subtle, so subtle. We're not telling you to do
Speaker 2: anything different, right, just like choose these suggestions.
Speaker 3: Let's not be negative about this. We don't want that
Speaker 3: negativity up in here.
Speaker 1: But these even still, with these revisions, they were controversial
Speaker 1: and attracted substantial debate. The eat less fat message that
Speaker 1: dominated the guidelines was called imprecise, both in that it
Speaker 1: didn't distinguish among different fat types, you know, saturated versus
Speaker 1: unt saturated, animal versus plant, origin, and it singled out
Speaker 1: one type of food in a way kind of implying
Speaker 1: that as long as you cut back on fatty foods,
Speaker 1: you're fine, Like that's totally fine. Everything about it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: everything else doesn't matter. And this low fat guidance is
Speaker 1: also where we see again how guidelines influence marketing strategies
Speaker 1: like the vitamin rich foods of the nineteen twenties, products
Speaker 1: like Twizzlers. You know, I capitalize on this.
Speaker 2: I will never forget walking down the aisles in like
Speaker 2: the nineties and every single cookie was like low fat cookie, Yeah,
Speaker 2: low fat this, And I'm like, oh, it's a cookie,
Speaker 2: it's a pill a cookie.
Speaker 3: Low fat Twizzlers.
Speaker 1: I remember being like, I remember thinking, oh, this must
Speaker 1: be healthy because it's low fat.
Speaker 2: Redvines are non fat.
Speaker 3: Non fat. There you go. I'm feel yeah.
Speaker 1: But fats weren't the only target of criticism, Okay. In
Speaker 1: this you'd be hard pressed to find a recommendation that
Speaker 1: everyone agreed on. There was like a lot of like,
Speaker 1: well what about this, and what about that? And language
Speaker 1: here in language there, and so in response, there was
Speaker 1: an explosion in recommendations from other committees and professional organizations
Speaker 1: whose guidance differed slightly in the particulars, but it all
Speaker 1: came down to the same basic conclusion, a balanced diet
Speaker 1: with reduced fat intake. This message had a lasting impact
Speaker 1: on the diet of Americans. From nineteen sixty five to
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, the proportion of calories that an average
Speaker 1: American got from fat fell from forty five percent to
Speaker 1: thirty four percent. Wow, it's quite a drop, but consumption
Speaker 1: was not necessarily lower.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Increasing portion sizes, particularly at restaurants, meant that fat intake
Speaker 1: might have fallen proportionally or in terms of percentages, but
Speaker 1: not in terms of absolute amounts.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, without going into any of the nitty gritty on
Speaker 1: fat or like saturated versus unsaturated, animal versus plant, this
Speaker 1: just shows how overgeneralized guidelines or a focus on one
Speaker 1: thing can be really misleading. Since the nineteen seventy seven guidelines,
Speaker 1: advice has become more specific, but overall the message has
Speaker 1: remained consistent. High fiber, low salt, low sugar, low saturated fat,
Speaker 1: a variety and diet exercise, et cetera, Echoing the guidelines
Speaker 1: of the early twentieth century. This is what's been recommended
Speaker 1: for over one hundred years at this point.
Speaker 2: No major overhauls, really, no major.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm not going to go into the specifics
Speaker 1: of the food pyramid of the nineties versus my plate,
Speaker 1: or how wording changed from year to year and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Rather, I want to take this last bit
Speaker 1: of time to peel back the curtain on the process
Speaker 1: of creating these guidelines and highlighting its weaknesses doing so.
Speaker 1: With all this controversy in the late nineteen seventies around
Speaker 1: dietary guidelines, the federal government realized that maybe they should
Speaker 1: have like a.
Speaker 3: Formal process for going about this. Maybe that would be
Speaker 3: a good idea.
Speaker 1: Scientists at the USDA and the HHS, along with external experts,
Speaker 1: work together to produce the nineteen eighty DGA Dietary Guidelines
Speaker 1: for Americans, and this ended up being very similar to
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy seven recommendations, with a few minor changes
Speaker 1: again in wording or recommended amounts. Since nineteen eighty, the
Speaker 1: guidelines have been revisited every five years in a process
Speaker 1: that is intended to consider existing and new scientific evidence
Speaker 1: in light of the current guidelines and make any changes
Speaker 1: if they're necessary. The way this works is that with
Speaker 1: every iteration of the DGA and independent Committee of subject
Speaker 1: matter Experts the DGAC, the committee C for committee is appointed.
Speaker 1: So there's this committee appointed to review the existing guidelines
Speaker 1: and make recommendations to the USDA and the HHS. Yep,
Speaker 1: the USDA and HHS then consider those committee recommendations and
Speaker 1: they produce a new set of dga's guidelines for the
Speaker 1: general public.
Speaker 3: Right, right, So that's so it goes.
Speaker 1: DGAC comes up with these recommendations, advises USDA and HHS.
Speaker 1: Those two departments then decide what advice makes it into
Speaker 1: the final guidelines.
Speaker 2: Correct, that's it.
Speaker 1: The final version is totally up to the USDA and
Speaker 1: the HHS.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: The DGAC works in an advisory capacity, only already some
Speaker 1: weak spots emerge the committee.
Speaker 2: Who picks it?
Speaker 1: It's totally up to the discretion of the secretaries of
Speaker 1: the USDA and the HHS. The process of appointment has
Speaker 1: been described as opaque, and there is no explanation as
Speaker 1: to who is nominated, who is picked, or who is rejected?
Speaker 2: Right, or like screening process of who how all that right?
Speaker 3: How they're picked? Anything like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe someone is on the committee because they are
Speaker 1: an expert in nutritional science. Maybe it's because they have
Speaker 1: industry ties. Maybe it's both. The USDA has a duel
Speaker 1: and sometimes conflicting goal promote healthy eating and promote American agriculture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this conflict of interest often manifests in the makeup of
Speaker 1: this committee. So for instance, a paper investigating the conflict
Speaker 1: of interest of the twenty twenty DGAC this Good Dietary
Speaker 1: Guidelines Committee, found that ninety five percent of committee members
Speaker 1: nineteen of the twenty on the committee had ties to industry.
Speaker 1: This conflict of interest falls into different categories, with most
Speaker 1: members having multi for example, things like being a board member,
Speaker 1: consultant employee, receiving research funding, receiving honoraria as a speaker,
Speaker 1: and so on. In many cases, these networks of conflicts
Speaker 1: spiderwebbed across multiple members, with the American Egg Board and
Speaker 1: General Mills, for example, each listed as a conflict of
Speaker 1: interest for at least five members, and in fact, most
Speaker 1: industry actors had multiple ties to the committee. The total
Speaker 1: number of conflicts of interest varied, so the lowest, of course,
Speaker 1: had zero one person. A couple people only had one
Speaker 1: tie each, whereas the top three had one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty two, ninety two and eighty four ties. Yeah, industry,
Speaker 1: I've already listed a couple, but industry ranged from Danen
Speaker 1: to Novo, nordesk, Nesley, National Pork Board, PEPSI, COO, Merk,
Speaker 1: and many, many, many more.
Speaker 2: This is how I learned that there was a National
Speaker 2: Pork Board was looking into these. Yeah. I was like, okay, cool,
Speaker 2: Oh there's so many boards for that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is this okay? No, of course not. It is
Speaker 1: not okay, I think instinctively no.
Speaker 3: But is it allowed.
Speaker 1: Yes, clearly it's not supposed to happen, but it does so.
Speaker 1: For instance, as temporary government employees, members should not participate
Speaker 1: in a matter where they have a financial interest like
Speaker 1: that is in the guidelines, and they are required to
Speaker 1: disclose financial interests before final approval, and so then those disclosures,
Speaker 1: again in this opaque process, are reviewed and signed off
Speaker 1: by the USDA, who is supposed to follow the recommendation
Speaker 1: that many other governmental committees follow, which is that those
Speaker 1: quote who have a conflict of interest should not represent
Speaker 1: more than a minority of the group end quote. I
Speaker 1: don't think that ninety five percent is a minority.
Speaker 2: I don't think by any metric it's a minority.
Speaker 3: No, no ah, no.
Speaker 1: At Further, these disclosures are supposed to be publicly available,
Speaker 1: but they are often missing with no apparent consecience.
Speaker 3: Really hard to find.
Speaker 1: They're either like really difficult to find or just like
Speaker 1: in this this one paper, it was like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: couldn't find the supposed public release of these disclosures. And
Speaker 1: I just I want to acknowledge that having industry ties
Speaker 1: does not automatically discredit someone's scientific integrity, right, But the
Speaker 1: main issue is the lack of transparency surrounding those ties.
Speaker 2: And just the the even just the appearance of a
Speaker 2: conflict of interest, right, is problematic because then it makes
Speaker 2: you second guess, It makes a public second guess, and
Speaker 2: it discredits even if the science is all legitimate, one hundred.
Speaker 1: Percent, right, but then the science all legitimate, that's a
Speaker 1: loaded that's a very loaded thing to such especially nutrition exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's all part of this too, right. Oh Okay,
Speaker 1: So we've just put the committee together and we're already
Speaker 1: running into problems we trust. So then there's the DGAC report.
Speaker 1: So this is when they make their recommendations. To the
Speaker 1: USDA and the HHS. What goes into making these recommendations?
Speaker 1: The committee itself decides the questions to ask should we
Speaker 1: eat more eggs or less? For example, and then sifts
Speaker 1: through heaps of scientific studies on diet and health, sometimes
Speaker 1: that have been assembled into systematic reviews produced by the
Speaker 1: USDA itself. What gets included into a review, what's considered
Speaker 1: a good study?
Speaker 3: How these things are all weighted.
Speaker 1: Again, not transparent, and the process itself is vulnerable to subjectivity. Right,
Speaker 1: if somebody is producing a review on let's say, eggs,
Speaker 1: what are the studies they're going to choose from to
Speaker 1: include in that review? Are they going to include ones
Speaker 1: that are funded by the egg Board or not? Are
Speaker 1: they going to include ones that are look at correlations
Speaker 1: or are they going to look at ones that are
Speaker 1: more scientifically robust? What are the things that are included?
Speaker 1: And if the USDA is assembling these and again we
Speaker 1: have this conflict of interest between American agriculture and American health,
Speaker 1: how is that playing a role in just making up
Speaker 1: these committees and making up these reviews and choosing what
Speaker 1: gets included. A DGAC member from twenty ten wrote quote,
Speaker 1: despite our evidence based review lens where we say that
Speaker 1: food policies are science based, in reality, we often let
Speaker 1: our personal biases override the scientific evidence end quote. And
Speaker 1: so maybe somebody ranks a paper higher than it should
Speaker 1: be because it aligns with their industry ties. Or maybe
Speaker 1: they're skeptical of a study that contradicts consensus science so
Speaker 1: they don't read it closely. Or maybe they're just like,
Speaker 1: I've always been taught that this is the case, and
Speaker 1: so I don't think it can be that.
Speaker 2: Right, This doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 1: To me, yeah, right, and so and again this might
Speaker 1: be robust, but this is another opportunity, this is another
Speaker 1: place of weakness. Okay, so the process of appointing a
Speaker 1: committee is not transparent. The scientific evidence on which the
Speaker 1: committee bases their recommendations is not as transparent as it
Speaker 1: might seem. And now we've got the DGA being adapted
Speaker 1: from the DGAC recommendation. So now we've got the USDA
Speaker 1: and HHS producing these public facing guidelines. This transformation total
Speaker 1: black box.
Speaker 2: Total black box. And never has it been one to
Speaker 2: one ever, never, never ever.
Speaker 3: Ever been one to one.
Speaker 1: So for nearly twenty years, DGAC members have raised concerns
Speaker 1: that this process weakens or contradicts the scientific consensus that
Speaker 1: they tried to include in the DGAC report, but without
Speaker 1: any clear rationale behind the alterations. So you could have
Speaker 1: a conflict of interest free committee, you could have conflict
Speaker 1: of interest free papers, and they're choosing all ones, you know,
Speaker 1: ideal scenario, right, and still.
Speaker 2: Still you don't know the DGA what they're going to
Speaker 2: take could not represent that. Yes, I mean you can
Speaker 2: see it even just like if you actually read through
Speaker 2: the like DJAC scientific reports from previous years, not even
Speaker 2: getting into the issues with this year's, but in previous years,
Speaker 2: like there would be more strong recommendations like one drink
Speaker 2: per adult period, no one should be drinking alcohol. And
Speaker 2: then what makes it into the actual report. We shouldn't
Speaker 2: drink but maybe one or two if you're a male,
Speaker 2: and that's still what it says, right, drink moderately. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we should be reducing sugar to less than six percent.
Speaker 2: Well we're going to keep it at ten percent? Why right?
Speaker 2: Like it's it is, it's it's never followed one to one.
Speaker 2: And like you said, even if those committees were free
Speaker 2: of bias, even if the science was as robust as
Speaker 2: we would like it to be, it's still not being
Speaker 2: translated directly into the dietary guidelines.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: So just imagining this process, If we start with solid
Speaker 1: scientific evidence, just good robust studies, then we add in
Speaker 1: the DGAC Committee, and then we add in the DGAC Report,
Speaker 1: and then we add in the DGA, what we end
Speaker 1: up with is a kind of a murky sludge where
Speaker 1: industry interests and personal biases have watered down the evidence
Speaker 1: that we do have.
Speaker 3: But does any of this matter?
Speaker 5: Is anyone actively using these.
Speaker 3: Guidelines to make food choices?
Speaker 1: I struggled a lot with this question while working on this,
Speaker 1: Like the number of times where I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it doesn't even matter at all, Like it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: no one, Like I didn't even know that my plate.
Speaker 3: Existed, no one before this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just like, yeah, the nineties pyramid, I
Speaker 1: could still picture it perfectly.
Speaker 2: Nineties pyramid was discontinued in like the early two thousands,
Speaker 2: and they did this other like do decade he drawn
Speaker 2: with stairs thing that no one knew about, and.
Speaker 3: Then they got rid of that. Yeah yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: Then and then they got rid of that and they
Speaker 2: did my plate and literally no one has.
Speaker 5: Heard of my pard.
Speaker 2: There was a survey in twenty twenty two that three
Speaker 2: quarters of Americans had never heard of my plane.
Speaker 3: I'm in the majority for eure.
Speaker 2: As my husband, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: But this sentiment of like does it actually matter?
Speaker 1: This is echoed and reflected in the conclusion of every
Speaker 1: paper that discusses these guidelines. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: very few people actively use these guidelines to make food decisions.
Speaker 1: The continually rising rates of chronic disease in the US
Speaker 1: would suggest that these guidelines, or any minor changes to
Speaker 1: them are they're not really having any significant effect. There
Speaker 1: are many barriers hindering effective communication of the guidelines. They're
Speaker 1: either oversimplified, which further weakens the advice that's included, or
Speaker 1: they're too specific and complicated, leading to confusion. For the
Speaker 1: forty million people in this country who are at risk
Speaker 1: of food and security, these guidelines are out of reach entirely,
Speaker 1: even if perfectly communicated, and that's unlikely to change as
Speaker 1: this administration continues to punish states based on political affiliation
Speaker 1: and withhold funding for food assistants and other federal assistance programs.
Speaker 1: Given all of this, it's worth asking whether we should
Speaker 1: spend time over conflicts of interest on the committee or
Speaker 1: fact checking claims in the DGA that reject consensus science.
Speaker 3: But I still think it absolutely is. Let me tell
Speaker 3: you why.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned at the very beginning, these guidelines determine
Speaker 1: the diets for the tens of millions of Americans who
Speaker 1: are on certain federal assistance programs, and so the recent
Speaker 1: de emphasis on plant based protein and an embrace of
Speaker 1: saturated fats could certainly have health impacts as just one example.
Speaker 1: But then there's also the matter of education. Most kids
Speaker 1: in public schools will learn about the food guidelines based
Speaker 1: on the latest version and carry that with them throughout
Speaker 1: their lives.
Speaker 3: Like we just talked about the nineties food pyramid.
Speaker 2: Is right, that's what's in.
Speaker 3: My dipped into my brain.
Speaker 1: But beyond policy and beyond education, and these guidelines and
Speaker 1: their construction are a powerful example of two things. Number one,
Speaker 1: the insidious presence of industry in what is supposed to
Speaker 1: be and what is claimed to be independent evidence based
Speaker 1: health advice. And number two that these guidelines for a
Speaker 1: quote unquote healthy diet will be manipulated for advertising purposes
Speaker 1: without repercussions, like the low fat Twizzlers or healthy soda,
Speaker 1: whole grain cinnamon toast crunch, or zero gram trans fat
Speaker 1: Kentucky Fried Chicken. There are so many more examples of this.
Speaker 1: The argument over corn corn syrup versus sugar. Oh, like,
Speaker 1: this ketchup has sugar in it, not made with corn syrup,
Speaker 1: and it's like, could you tell me the difference between
Speaker 1: ketchup stick ketchup sports drinks versus sodas, as though that
Speaker 1: removing the carbonation from a drink makes it somehow healthier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but through this messaging, the food industry wants you to
Speaker 1: believe that it's looking out for you, that it cares
Speaker 1: about public health and would never do anything like deliberately
Speaker 1: target young children with ads or engineer products that are
Speaker 1: knowingly deliberately addictive. Does that sound familiar. Let's replace food
Speaker 1: industry with big tobacco.
Speaker 3: Yep, it's kind of uncanny.
Speaker 1: Right. When suspicions began to swirl around cigarettes and lung
Speaker 1: cancer in the nineteen fifties, the cigarette industry had a
Speaker 1: lot to lose, and they scrambled to reframe the issue.
Speaker 1: Buy our healthier cigarettes now with a filter, with a
Speaker 1: filter with a filter, Like the low fat craze of
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, people flocked to buy
Speaker 1: filtered cigarettes, but no cigarette is safe. Big tobacco was
Speaker 1: selling a false sense of security, and it turned out
Speaker 1: to be even more misplaced when it was revealed that
Speaker 1: the first popular filtered brand had a sebestos.
Speaker 3: In a filter.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Classic, kind of similar to esigs today also selling this
Speaker 1: false sense of security. And I'm not trying to make
Speaker 1: like a one to one comparison between Big tobacco and
Speaker 1: the food industry.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: For one, the food industry is made up of many players,
Speaker 1: all with different types of products that fall along the
Speaker 1: healthy unhealthy spectrum, and these companies aren't all promoting inherently
Speaker 1: bad quote unquote bad products. For two, the links between
Speaker 1: certain food products and chronic diseases are way less mapped
Speaker 1: out than cigarettes and cancer. But there are startling similarities,
Speaker 1: like the shirking of any corporate responsibility by claiming it's
Speaker 1: all down to personal choice, the demand for a seat
Speaker 1: at the policy table, which has never been denied, the
Speaker 1: endorsement of certain products by celebrities or hired doctors quote
Speaker 1: unquote doctors or the funding of studies to support their product.
Speaker 1: This is the big tobacco playbook, and as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, it's not going anywhere. But at the
Speaker 1: very beginning I asked who is behind the should in
Speaker 1: what we should eat? When it comes to national dietary guidelines,
Speaker 1: there are several players involved with competing interests and biases,
Speaker 1: and I know, as you'll discuss more next week, Aaron,
Speaker 1: much of this advice is not just sound, it's based
Speaker 1: on strong scientific evidence. In other cases, however, industry has
Speaker 1: had a hand in watering down or reframing guidance, which
Speaker 1: itself is nothing new. The issue is that it's becoming
Speaker 1: harder to disentangle where guidance might be manipulated or where
Speaker 1: doubt has been manufactured. Yes, transparency is promised, yet it's
Speaker 1: not delivered. No, no, no, And with this ever present
Speaker 1: enmeshment of industry interests and governmental policy, it's tempting to
Speaker 1: resort to nihilism. Well, let's just ignore the guidelines and
Speaker 1: let them do their thing. But instead I argue that
Speaker 1: we should be interrogating them. We should be asking who
Speaker 1: is at the table that produces this should and what
Speaker 1: happens during the translation of science into guidance, whether we
Speaker 1: realize it or not, every food decision, what we buy
Speaker 1: at the store, what we get as a school snack,
Speaker 1: has been shaped not only by personal preference, but also
Speaker 1: by decades of scientific research competing with industry interests. The
Speaker 1: next time you go to the store, take a closer
Speaker 1: look at the labels on your favorite food products.
Speaker 3: Why does everything have to have protein in it? For
Speaker 3: the love of that?
Speaker 5: What makes the cereal heart healthy?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: There's already been so much of this like health health washing,
Speaker 2: the same way that there's this like greenwashing of things. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I we'll talk more about it, you know, next week,
Speaker 2: but it is, it is just going to get worse,
Speaker 2: Like these guidelines just set us up for more of that,
Speaker 2: especially without any federal regulation about what should actually be
Speaker 2: on the labels or like it really constitutes quote unquote
Speaker 2: healthy nutrient dense Like what are those things actually on
Speaker 2: a label? They don't have any meaning right now.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you can advertise to kids is
Speaker 1: just like it's so it's so gross, yep, and completely unsurprising.
Speaker 1: But yeah, these companies sell their products using healthy language
Speaker 1: inspired by nutritional guidelines. But these guidelines are also shaped
Speaker 1: by these companies, which just worsens the erosion of trust
Speaker 1: in science. If these guidelines are going to achieve their
Speaker 1: purported goal of improving American health through diet, that trust
Speaker 1: has to be non negotiable. So that's where I leave
Speaker 1: you this week.
Speaker 2: I love it, and I can't wait to pick up
Speaker 2: next week to go deep dive into, gosh, what these
Speaker 2: new guidelines are, how they're really different front like, why
Speaker 2: are we even talking about them?
Speaker 3: I yeah, why are we talking about why? I'm so
Speaker 3: excited for next week?
Speaker 2: And then what does it all actually mean? We'll get there,
Speaker 2: but tell me, Yeah, Aaron, where you got all of
Speaker 2: your information? First?
Speaker 1: I gotta have a bunch of sources for this. I'm
Speaker 1: going to shout out three here that I highlighted. One
Speaker 1: is a book that was published I think in the nineties,
Speaker 1: but has undergone a few different revisions and new introductions
Speaker 1: by Marian Nessel called Food Politics, How the Food Industry
Speaker 1: Influences Nutrition and Health, very famous nutritional scientist. Then there
Speaker 1: was a four part series called A Short History of
Speaker 1: Nutritional Science by Kenneth Carpenter published in two thousand and three.
Speaker 3: And then I really.
Speaker 1: Enjoyed this paper by Brownnell and Warner from two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine called the Perils of Ignoring History. Big Tobacco
Speaker 1: played Dirty and millions died? How similar is big food?
Speaker 2: Ooh, that sounds good. I liked that one.
Speaker 1: But you can find a list of all of our
Speaker 1: sources on our website.
Speaker 3: This podcast will kill you dot com. Check it out.
Speaker 1: And a big thank you to Bloodmobile for providing the
Speaker 1: music for this episode. In all of our episodes, it's like,
Speaker 1: what are we doing here? You're not doing your sources
Speaker 1: yet I don't have to.
Speaker 2: Thank you also to Leanna and Tom and Pete and
Speaker 2: Mark and everyone at exactly Right for everything that you
Speaker 2: do to make this podcast possible.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, and thank you to you listeners. Tell
Speaker 1: us the most egregious food label you've seen lately.
Speaker 3: I'd love to hear it.
Speaker 2: I love that. And thank you also to our patrons
Speaker 2: for your support over on Patreon. It really does mean
Speaker 2: the world to us. It does.
Speaker 4: Until next time, wash your hands, filthy animals.