The Science of Eating Well Without Losing Your Mind | Jessica Knurick

Seed oils, sugars, food dyes, ultra-processed food, supplements, vaccines — a PhD nutritionist cuts through the noise on the biggest health fears online. Dr. Jessica Knurick https://www.jessicaknurick.com/ is a Registered Dietitian with a PhD in nutrition science, specializing in chronic disease prevention. She educates on nutrition science, food and nutrition policy, and how these factors shape public health. In this episode we talk about: The root of wellness misinformation Vaccines and fluoride controversies Toxins vs. ultra-processed foods Decoding ingredients & food dyes The truth about sugar, bread, and dairy Fats, seed oils, and infant formula The science behind saturated fats The wild west of supplements The "boring" pillars of health Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here https://app.danharris.com/membership Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here https://www.eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party, or sign up to livestream here https://www.eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party-livestream! This episode is sponsored by: IQBAR:   To get twenty percent off all IQBAR products, including the ultimate sampler pack, plus free shipping, text DAN to 64000. Monarch: Use the code HAPPIER at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off, at just $50. To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dan Harris?

  Hey everybody. Welcome to the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. We are, as many of you know, living through a riptide of wellness misinformation, just like a tsunami of bullshit, much of it coming from people like RFK and members of the Maha or Make America Healthy Again movement. Some of it, however, just coming from garden variety and even well-intentioned online influencers. Stepping into the breach is my guest today, Dr. Jessica Nurek, who has a PhD in nutrition science and is a registered dietitian. She's really been, as I said, stepping into the breach and helping people sort fact from fiction online. Questions like, should we be worried about fluoride

• 0:47Dan Harris?

  in the water? Should we be worried about vaccines, toxins in our food, ingredients in our food that we can't pronounce, et cetera, et cetera. Lots to discuss here. We'll be talking to Dr. Jessica Nurek after this quick break. A few things before we hear from our sponsors. I don't know if you know this, but I've been writing a newsletter for the last couple of years. I would love for you to come check it out. It's free. You can sign up at danharris.com. Every Monday, I drop into your inbox a little nugget of wisdom and sanity that you can operationalize in your life immediately. This is an actionable practice that I'm dropping into your data stream that really can color the rest of your day. I put a lot of time and effort into it, and I'd love

• 1:32Dan Harris?

  for you to benefit from it. It's also, by the way, the place where you can get updates on the broader 10% happier cinematic universe, including upcoming programming on my app, 10% with Dan Harris, and upcoming IRL events, which I'm getting into the habit of doing these days. Again, you can sign up at danharris.com. I'd love to have you reading the newsletter. And we will be right back after this.

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• 3:05Dan Harris?

  Dr. Jessica Nurek, welcome to the show.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Thanks so much for having me, Dan. I'm excited to be here.

• 3:10Dan Harris?

  It's a pleasure. I'm a fan of your work. Let me just ask a broad question. What is going on? Why so much misinformation these days?

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I think social media is a big reason because people are playing into social media algorithms. A lot of people are going to social media to build their businesses and they know that what works really well on social media is fear and outrage and conspiracy. And so I think we're seeing a lot of that. So even if maybe there is a lot of evidence-based information and then a lot of misinformation, we tend to be seeing the misinformation more because it plays into kind of what these social media algorithms really like. And it's a bit more engaging, if I'm being honest.

• 3:53Dan Harris?

  You know, I get it. The algorithms are creating bad incentives and people are sort of drifting off of it. But I wonder if it's also possible and maybe wise to go a click deeper and ask whether some of the mistrust That's abroad in the land is justifiable and understandable.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think you're hitting on something important. I think that, you know, a lot of people, you know, social media is certainly the mechanism that we that we see in terms of how the misinformation is spread. I think the why is probably a bit deeper as you're getting to. I think, you know, there's a lot of people who feel very left behind. And I'm just specifically talking in the health world right now, right? So there's a lot of people who feel behind or left behind from the, you know, traditional medical system. There's a lot of people who don't, you know, they hear conflicting things all of the time when it comes to nutrition or health, and they don't really know who to go to or who to trust. And, you know, I think especially we have people in really vulnerable situations where, you know, they do feel left behind by

• 4:56Speaker 03

  systems that have, you know, particularly our healthcare industry. And so, you know, they they don't have this like long term support. And so where do you go? You go to the internet to figure out what you need to be doing, what kind of food you need to be eating, what kind of, you know, different methodologies you can be using to get better. And so for better or worse, people are going to the internet, people are going to social media. There are, again, a lot of people who are searching for answers. There's plenty of people who are looking to fill that void and and kind of insert that uncertainty with really certain answers. And a lot of that unfortunately is is fear based or misinformation.

• 5:37Dan Harris?

  You think some of the underlying mistrust, which is creating this fertile environment for the folks who are peddling misinformation, do you think some of this underlying mistrust can be traced, at least in part, back to the struggles that the public health community had during COVID to send clear and consistent messages?

• 5:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think I think you don't have this moment we're living in right now without, like, especially just how how big it is in nature without COVID. I think that one of the things COVID did is it kind of brought, you know, every day we were watching our screens and we were listening to public health people kind of, you know, message and communicate what was going on. And you know, it was this novel virus that was changing. And I think there were, you know, people at the time, this is not necessarily my area infectious disease, but people who were working in infectious disease at the time will tell you that there were mistakes made in terms of the way that things were communicated, way that the ways that the science was communicated. And so I think for a lot of people, they never thought about public health before. They never

• 6:40Speaker 03

  saw, you know, the surgeon general before or or public health experts before. And so this was the their kind of first introduction to public health. And so, yeah, I think that for sure,

• 6:52Speaker 03

  we don't have this current moment we're living in without without the COVID pandemic.

• 6:56Dan Harris?

  Another contributing factor, it seems to me, in all of this is, and I'm curious to see if you think this is right, is that people are focusing on their health quite obsessively these days. And I wonder whether part of that might be in a world that feels where so much is out of control, AI, political polarization, economic insecurity, I could go on and on, where so much feels chaotic and entropic, fussing over your own like REM cycles and whether you've achieved ketosis, etc., etc., or whether you're what you're feeding your kids is healthy, all of

• 7:40Dan Harris?

  this type of stuff, that feels like something you can control.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  A lot of this idea that we need to kind of take control of our personal health and we need to optimize and we need to biohack our way out of, you know, or into this optimized health is really, I think you're hitting it like dead on. I think it's very much, we have kind of in this country, kind of underfunded the the systems and programs that we need in order to all experience health kind of on a like countrywide. And so I think a lot of us are just trying to internalize that and figure out, okay, well, what do I need to do to just optimize my own health? You know, our food environment is is not optimized for health for the vast majority of people. Our healthcare environment is not optimized for health for the vast majority of people.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  So then what can I do on a personal level? And I see, I think we see this. I think we see like a lot of people kind of searching for this, these answers to health. And, and I think that again, it kind of is this feeding ground for unfortunately, a lot of misinformation in the health space. I do think that people have been interested in health for a long time. I mean, we've, we've been seeing this even since I got into this field 15 years ago. I mean, we, we lots of personal health books, you know, mag, health magazines, a lot of like wellness influencers have been out there since like the early 2010s. So I don't necessarily think it's new that people are interested in this. But, but certainly I think probably more and more people in, in the last few years have, have kind of come over to this side.

• 9:13Dan Harris?

  Let me go back to

• 9:17Dan Harris?

  the mistrust for a second. When you encounter somebody who says, I don't trust the experts, because in some ways, expert has become a pejorative. I find that really troubling because I, I think expertise should be valued. But, and, and that's not to say we should overvalue it and, and believe that so-called experts are infallible. But it, we're in this like, I'll do my own research era. How do you think we should think about expertise?

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, to a certain extent, I, I understand this idea because, you know, and I've talked about this several times, there for a very long time, it was really frowned upon for experts, so to speak, to go to where people were going for information. So particularly in the sciences, you know, I, I was in academia and it was very like a, a college professor. And it was very frowned upon to go to on social media. And in fact, I tried to go on social media in 2016 and I was teaching in the nutrition department. And I, I just decided to go on and just teach the exact same thing that I was teaching in my lecture that day on this app on social media. And I, it was very frowned upon. I got a lot of negative feedback about it. And I

• 10:30Speaker 03

  was, you know, an early career kind of scientist and I didn't want that to jeopardize my career. And so after a few months, I got off. And I think that was the prevailing wisdom for a very long time in the sciences and the medical community. And so unfortunately, you know, when people don't know, you know, if you've not, if you don't know a scientist, if you don't, if you can't put a face to them, a personality to them, if you don't trust them, it becomes really easy to just kind of not like lose trust in in those particular experts, right? Because and have more trust in the people you're seeing on your phones or your computer every single day, giving you information that may be actually helpful to you. And so I think that that was a big mistake in the scientific community and the and the medical community of not going where

• 11:14Speaker 03

  people were and not communicating better evidence. And so when I encounter somebody who, you know, doesn't trust the experts and I'm trying to give information, I don't try to, you know, win back their trust by just saying to trust me by kind of relying on this appeal to authority. I go out, I try to go into it by showing them the information by, okay, this is, this is where you have your concerns. Here's what we actually know, meeting them where they are. Like, yeah, I think that that is a problem as well. Like, you and I are on the same page. And then kind of giving more information so that they better understand the topic. And I found the most success in doing that versus just being like, you know, you should trust me because I have a PhD in nutrition science.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  And so I think that's what we have to do. We have to have more of us going to places where people are going through their information and giving just good information to people instead of just relying on their kind of, you know, like, what's the word, just trusting us without any kind of question.

• 12:15Dan Harris?

  Yes. Less arrogance, more availability, accessibility.

• 12:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:19Dan Harris?

  Yeah. And I think you're right. More experts should be making compelling content on social media. That's why I wanted to talk to you because I really do think you're doing the Lord's work out there.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 12:30Dan Harris?

  You have a term that I believe you coined in this regard, the bullshit asymmetry principle.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  Oh, I didn't.

• 12:37Dan Harris?

  What is that?

• 12:38Speaker 03

  I can't take credit for that.

• 12:39Dan Harris?

  Okay.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, it's, um, it's this principle that essentially, um, the amount of, the amount of energy it takes to refute bullshit is orders of magnitude higher than it takes to put, uh, put it out. So, meaning that it's much easier to, you know, just say anything, not have to source it, um, say whatever you know is going to be like rage bait on social media than it is for then me to go and explain to you why that's inaccurate and what the actual evidence shows. Um, and so, yeah, it's, it's called the bullshit asymmetry principle.

• 13:15Dan Harris?

  There was some old expression about a, a lie goes around the world before the truth can get its pants on.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Something, yeah, it's very similar concept.

• 13:22Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I'm, uh, mangling it, but it's, uh, an unfortunate truth nonetheless. Um, okay, well, if you're up for it, I would like to walk through some of the biggest questions people have and let you, uh, set us straight. Uh, you game?

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Sure, I will do my best.

• 13:41Dan Harris?

  Fluoride in the water, there are a lot of people worrying about that these days. Uh, should we be worried?

• 13:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, so what evidence shows, let's talk about why it's in the water. So it was first put in the water because dental caries are still the number one chronic disease in children today. And so it used to be a major public health crisis. And what we found was that fluoride is just a natural mineral. And we found that fluoridating water, so just putting a small amount, things like 0.7 parts per million, don't quote me on that number though, I shouldn't throw out random numbers, but I'm pretty sure it's that. Um, so a small amount of fluoride in the water supply significantly decreased the amount of cavities, um, particularly in children. And so it was a very, very, uh, effective public health initiative. Um, and, and you have to understand that it's, like, a lot of these public health initiatives,

• 14:27Speaker 03

  they disproportionately help the people who are most impacted by this issue. In the United States, a lot of that is, is low income populations. And so, you know, just adding it to fluoride decreases the amount of cap- Cavities, which is a major public health issue. And it was quite an effective way to do it. All of the evidence, again, in toxicology, the dose makes the poison. And so all of the evidence suggests that it's a safe amount in the water supply. And there are no like negative impacts of it. And, and you know, we see this happening around the world. There's countries right now who are at, at, right now, implementing fluoridation in their water. Because they see the number of cavities increasing so much. So it's happening in areas in Canada. It's happening in areas in the UK.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Because the, the evidence is quite strong and it's quite an effective public health initiative.

• 15:17Dan Harris?

  Okay, asked and answered. Let's move on to another topic where you see folks online and sadly in our government raising fear. And that is when you look at the ingredient list for foods. If there are ingredients that you cannot pronounce, should that scare you?

• 15:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is very commonly said. And to be honest, I think I said this when I was first getting into nutrition. So apologies, study what I said this to. But, um, you know, a lot of these ingredients are just tough to say if you don't have a science education. If you don't have like a background in science, right? Like even some of the vitamins, like riboflavin is, you know, our, our AG just secretary had a tough time saying. But I mean, that's just a, that's just a B vitamin. So the idea that you can't pronounce something really says absolutely nothing about its safety. I will say that this comes, which is this truth about a lot of these things. They come from kind of like fair or, or good thoughts, right?

• 16:15Speaker 03

  So like if an ingredient list is very, very long, like the idea is that a lot of foods that are quite low in nutrition. And that we as, like me as a dietitian or nutrition professionals, we would consider, or we would recommend consuming less of them. They do have these long ingredients, ingredient lists with a lot of these kind of chemicals. Again, everything's a chemical though. So chemical is not a bad word. It's just they have a lot of these different ingredients in them that, you know, so, so it's, it's like an association. When you see these like low nutrient foods, there's these long ingredient lists. But just because you can't pronounce something doesn't, again, tells you nothing about its safety. So I wouldn't use that as a benchmark.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  I would much more, I would much prefer someone looking at kind of the nutrition and trying to choose more nutrient dense foods. Then, then worrying about if you can't pronounce an ingredient.

• 17:08Dan Harris?

  So if you're looking at a food label, don't get so hung up on long unpronounceable names in the ingredient list. Instead, look over at the nutrient table, which gives you a sense of like, is this food or a food like substance?

• 17:27Speaker 03

  Right. Does it have fibers? Is it low in sugar? You know, I just, I just, there was a video of a guy who was in a grocery store and he was comparing rice in the United States, white rice in the United States versus white rice in a different country. And we fortify our rice in this country. And so on the rice, on the package, it said rice, and then it had several ingredients, which were all B vitamins and iron. And he, one of the comments he made was that he couldn't pronounce any of them. And that's why it was not a good option. And again, these vitamins, some of them can be really tough to pronounce, but they're vitamins that we shouldn't, we shouldn't be concerned about B vitamins and iron.

• 18:05Dan Harris?

  Related question. There's a lot of concern these days about toxins in our foods generally. How big a concern is this really?

• 18:16Speaker 03

  So my background is kind of looking at what is impacting chronic disease rates in this country, and particularly lifestyle related chronic disease rates. And everything we know is, and we have a pretty good understanding of what the major contributors are to chronic disease. And toxins, quote unquote toxins, in, in our food is, is just not high on that list. We, we have a very safe food supply, which I think a lot of people don't realize, you know, there's a global food security index that puts this out every year in terms of the safety of, of the food supply across the world. And the United States consistently ranks at the top of that list, in the top five of that list. I think we were three last time in terms of the quality and safety of our food supply. Now, that doesn't mean

• 19:01Speaker 03

  that our food supply is healthful. And I think that's the, the key differentiator there. So, so, but when we're talking about the safety, which, you know, if we had a bunch of toxins in our food, our safety would be quite low. There's no concern in terms of safety. We have a very safe food supply. Now, when we talk about healthful food supply, that's things like, you know, are we promoting, are we creating a food environment that has the same foods that we would recommend, that our government guidelines recommend, that nutrition professionals recommend? And that answer is no, right? We recommend making half your plate fruits and vegetables, eating a variety of proteins from plants and animal sources, eating grains, mostly whole grains,

• 19:45Speaker 03

  eating a variety of healthful fats. And our food supply is nearly 70% ultra-processed food by most estimates, which are these prepackaged foods, many of which are low-nutrient ultra-processed foods. And so we are kind of designing a food environment that's in direct opposition to what we would consider healthful dietary patterns. So that's really at its core what the issue is. It's not the safety of our food supply because, again, our food supply is quite safe by most metrics.

• 20:14Dan Harris?

  So let me just see if I can state that back to you. We don't necessarily need to be worried writ large about an overwhelming amount of toxins in the food supply making us sick, leading to chronic diseases. What we do have to worry about is an overreliance on and an overabundance of hyper-processed foods that are not healthy if consumed in large quantities.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, these low nutrient, you know, high sugar, high sodium, high fat, low in fiber, low in nutrients. Those foods like dominate the American diet and that's really the biggest issue. I usually talk about Doritos when I'm explaining ultra-processed foods because I think right now we talk a lot about them, but a lot of people don't kind of understand what they are. And so, you know, we don't have a regulatory definition of ultra-processed foods. I think that the government right now is trying to create rulemaking for that and trying to figure out what a good regulatory definition would be. We do have a science definition in nutrition science and that comes from the NOVA classification out of Brazil. And so they classified foods into four different categories.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Unprocessed is the first, minimally processed, processed and ultra- Process. So those are the four categories. And so the way that I usually explain this is with corn, and this is where Doritos is going to come in. So, you know, something like corn picked out of the garden would be unprocessed. There's no processing involved in that. Something like frozen corn would be minimally processed. They just kind of like shuck the corn and put it in the freezer. Something like canned corn would be processed. And then something like a Dorito chip would be ultra-processed. So if you ever read any like scientific literature about processed foods or ultra-processed foods, that that's where that's coming from is that classification. And so, you know, it can be a Dorito chip. But the other thing with this

• 22:05Speaker 03

  ultra-processed classification is, you know, infant formula is ultra-processed, protein powders are ultra-processed, because the definition of ultra-processed is just using an ingredient or processing method that you don't have access to. So you can't replicate it in your own kitchen. And so that, within that definition, there's a whole lot of variability in different foods. So there's high nutrient ultra-processed foods, and then there's low nutrient ultra-processed foods. Doritos, obviously, would be the low nutrient ultra-processed foods, low fiber, that we, you know, people are, tend to overconsume.

• 22:38Dan Harris?

  Let me come back to Doritos and Oreos and things like that for a second, just to make super clear, or just to, just to get real clarity from you.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:47Dan Harris?

  Are you saying we should avoid these at all costs? Or are there ways to safely consume ultra-processed, low nutrient food?

• 22:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, a lot of these are people's like favorite foods, right? In nutrition science, and when you're a nutrition professional, you really look, you don't look at individual foods, you look at overall dietary patterns. So if your overall dietary pattern is, you're you're meeting your fiber recommendations, you're meeting your protein needs, you're getting adequate nutrients, there's certainly a place for something like Doritos. There's a place for something like birthday cake, right? Or apple pie, or these foods that like, maybe we would say, don't, don't consume them all the time, don't make them staples in your diet. But certainly, it's, those foods can fit in a healthful dietary pattern.

• 23:34Dan Harris?

  One tip I've heard, and this may be something you talk about, is if you're gonna eat ultra-processed, low nutrient food, like, maybe eat it with something.

• 23:44Dan Harris?

  That has actual protein and fiber as a way because one of the one of the sort of seductive things about these a Dorito and foods like that or food like substances like that is that they are designed to keep you snacking. They're kind of addictive in that way. And so if you pair it with an apple or a chicken sandwich or whatever, something quote unquote, real, you might eat less.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, we call them hyper palatable foods. So usually, you know, foods that have any combination of salt, sugar and fat, and then especially when you strip out the fiber and kind of the nutrition in them, that makes a food pretty hyper palatable, which means you can over consume them quite easily without even realizing it. So if you do pair them with something that is more satiating, which means it makes you fuller. So something like protein, something like fiber, even something like, you know, something like a whole food that has a lot of water in it, that can that can lead you to feel fuller. So that is a good recommendation. So if you are going to eat, you know, Doritos, make it on the side of your lunch where your lunch is otherwise, you know, a pretty healthful lunch that's

• 24:58Speaker 03

  full of protein and fiber.

• 25:01Speaker 04

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• 25:30Dan Harris?

  A few minutes ago, you mentioned frozen foods. And my understanding is that some in the Maha movement and elsewhere have raised some concerns about canned and frozen foods as maybe being too processed or unhealthy in some sort of way. Do they have a point or are these safe?

• 25:48Speaker 03

  No, they don't have a point and that seems extremely elitist to me. Frozen foods actually often are have a higher nutritional density than than, you know, raw foods when you're talking about like fruits and vegetables because they flash freeze them and that that keeps in the nutrition. So, you know, foods, frozen foods are a wonderful option, frozen vegetables, frozen fruits, wonderful options to get more produce, especially for kids. I mean, my kids love this like frozen mixed vegetables. And so I buy that at the grocery store and I just, you know, I heat that up for them and they will always reliably eat it. It's like a mix of like peas, carrots and green beans and they love it.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  And it's, I know that they're getting good nutrition and, you know, and they like it more than if I like roast Brussels sprouts. Unfortunately, they don't like my roasted Brussels sprouts. But yeah, so I absolutely do not agree and neither does the scientific evidence.

• 26:45Dan Harris?

  Where are you on bread? Bread has had a tough decade or so reputationally. I'll just say where I am and then you can tell me if you think I'm wrong.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 26:57Dan Harris?

  But I sometimes describe myself as gluten plus. I love bread. And if you don't have celiac disease or some sort of gluten intolerance, my view is it can be a great part of an of a overall balanced diet.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, I think you're right that bread, I think it's been more than a decade that people, and for whatever reason, it's like, some people will be like, bread is the first thing I need to cut out. I think there's a huge variability when we're talking about bread. So, you know, bread traditionally is just a few ingredients. If you're like baking your own bread or you're going to the grocery store and getting like a loaf of bread from the dairy section. And then we certainly have these packaged breads too, which are tend to be more ultra processed and tend to, you know, have like more sugar in them. A lot of people will like, a lot of these breads will add sugar and so it does make them a bit more hyper satiating. So I think it depends on the type of bread, but bread itself is is just a grain.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  It's just a carbohydrate that you're consuming and you have to, again, view it in the Context of a healthy dietary eating pattern or your overall dietary eating pattern. I eat bread most days of the week. I am a fan of bread as well. My kids are fans of bread. They love bread with like olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It's a staple in terms of our overall healthful dietary eating pattern. So there's no like unique thing outside of if you're gluten intolerance, or you have celiac's disease, no reason that you would need to like just specifically avoid bread.

• 28:22Dan Harris?

  Okay, what about dairy? Also has had a tough decade or so. And again, we're setting aside folks who are, you know, medical diagnosis like lactose intolerance, whatever. But there have been a lot of concerns about dairy. I'm not sure they're entirely fair. What, what say you?

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that there are certainly lactose intolerance, I think is higher than a lot of people realize. And so I do think that there are quite a few people who feel better when they remove it. But for those of us who aren't lactose intolerance, which in the United States, there's a lot of like European Americans, and they tend to have the highest lactose tolerance in the world. A lot of us are not lactose intolerance. And so dairy is a really like nutrient dense food. It's a good source of protein, a good source of fat. It's kind of got all three macronutrients, fat, protein, and carbohydrates. That's why it's often a great choice for like kids, because it's just a really like nutrient dense wholesome, not meal, but thing that they can consume pretty easily and get calories and nutrition. And so I think

• 29:24Speaker 03

  a lot of people are who tolerate dairy fine. It's a good kind of option for them in terms of nutritional adequacy. One of the things that maybe you'll ask me about is raw dairy. I, I would, from a public health perspective, always recommend us purchasing pasteurized dairy, which pasteurization is just to heat milk. The most kind of common way is to heat it for 15 seconds to less than boiling, and then rapidly cool it. And that process is just, and that's it. There's no like, it's not a chemical process or anything. It's just heating it. And that process just kills any pathogens. So any like harmful, potentially harmful germs that would be living in the milk, that would be existing in the milk. And so, you know, any, anything that's sold on shelves generally in the United States, the vast majority of milk is going to be pasteurized milk.

• 30:09Dan Harris?

  Okay, here's another food issue that has gotten a lot of heat recently. High fructose corn syrup. Should we run for the hills when we see that listed as an ingredient?

• 30:21Speaker 03

  So high fructose corn syrup is sugar that's made from corn. It's called high fructose corn syrup because it's compared to corn syrup. Corn syrup is 100% glucose, whereas high fructose corn syrup is anywhere from 45% to 55% fructose and the rest glucose. And so that's the reason for the name high fructose is because it's higher than just plain old glucose. But if you look at cane sugar, which is our traditional table sugar, that's about 50% fructose and 50% glucose. So those are kind of like your main monosaccharides. Those are sugars. So when you consume both of those, your body recognizes the glucose and the fructose and they break that down.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  And so again, high fructose corn syrup, anywhere from 45% to 55% fructose, whereas cane sugar is 50% fructose. So very similar like, and when we look metabolically at the difference, your body really doesn't tell them apart. And so if we're thinking about, you know, should we avoid this and switch to cane sugar? There's no evidence to suggest that cane sugar is any better. Now, the problem comes in when we look at high fructose corn syrup is that a lot of these food companies, because they are, you know, operating, their number one goal is profitability, right? Profit and growth. That's what all of these corporations working under our society are trying to do. They're trying to maximize profit and growth, oftentimes at the expense of our health.

• 31:46Speaker 03

  And so when you think about what foods are they trying to source? They're trying to source the cheapest foods. And because US government policy, we subsidize corn heavily in this country. Corn, high fructose corn syrup is a cheaper sugar source than cane sugar for a lot of these manufacturers. And so that's the sugar source that they use. So you'll see it in a lot of these kind of low nutrient ultra processed foods like candies, like, you know, baked goods, all these different things that we otherwise wouldn't necessarily recommend that you consume a lot of because again, they have a lot of sugar, a lot Of, you know, salt, sugar, fat and, and low in nutrition, low in nutrients, low or low in fiber, low in protein, low in nutrients. And so I, I think people tend to be over consuming these foods.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  But, but the idea that swapping high fructose corn syrup out and putting the exact same amount of cane sugar back in is any healthier is, is a fallacy. That's, we just don't have any evidence to suggest that's true. And in fact, we have evidence to suggest the opposite is true. It's pretty much the exact same.

• 32:48Dan Harris?

  Okay, very helpful. Let, let's double click though on sugar writ large. I'm gonna, once again, I'm gonna give you my take on this and then please fact check me.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:58Dan Harris?

  But the way, if, if anybody ever asks me about my attitudes about sugar, I base, I say, I tell the truth, which is, I love it. I love baked goods. I love going to the movies and eating Twizzlers with my son. Sometimes it doesn't make me feel that good, so I, I don't eat it all the time. And I have a basic understanding of nutrition and it, you know, you don't want to over index on sugar because it's not super healthy, but having it once in a while, like, yeah, enjoy your cookies. So that's my basic take. Where, where are you?

• 33:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, our body, I mean, our body's primary source of fuel and its preferred source of fuel is, is glucose and glucose is sugar. So there are, there's only three monosaccharides, glucose, fructose and galactose. And all of the sugars that you can think of contain a mixture of those monosaccharides. So then, and that's the kind of like the basis of carbohydrates. We're really getting in a biochemical lens here, but I think that's very important to kind of understand what I'm about to say about sugar. So we, you know, if you eat bread, it's, it breaks down into these monosaccharides, mostly glucose. If you drink milk, it breaks down into these monosaccharides. If you eat candy, it breaks down into these monosaccharides. All of these things are sugars

• 34:18Speaker 03

  and, and our body is using them as energy. And the, so the idea is you just don't want to over consume sugar. And what we see is that a lot of people are over consuming what we term added sugars. Which, you know, if you're just eating candy, if you're just drinking a Coke, if you're just eating Twizzlers, that's just straight sugar. You're not getting any nutrition in that package. And so it's not necessarily about the type of sugar that makes the difference. It's what it's packaged in. And so, for example, if you're consuming sugar that's, you know, packaged in yogurt, okay, you're also getting protein in that yogurt and some probiotics in that yogurt, and you're getting more nutrition, some vitamins in that yogurt.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  So you're getting more nutrition, and because it has more protein, it's going to be released a bit slower, especially if the, if the sugar is packaged in something like, that has a lot of fiber in it, even more so. It's going to, it's going to be released into your bloodstream a bit slower than if you just drink a soda and you're drinking that pretty quickly, and that's just a huge sugar kind of rush, and it goes into your bloodstream quite quickly, and you're more likely to overconsume it. So at the end of the day, and this is the same with everything, it's about eating kind of without overconsuming, because overconsuming literally anything is the problem. And you can overconsume anything. You can overconsume any vitamin, any mineral, because that's why we have toxicity levels for different vitamins.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  So at a certain dose, they're very important and helpful for your body. And then if you overconsume it, it can be quite detrimental. I mean, even water, if you, you need a certain amount of water, if you overconsume water, it can cause something called hyponatremia that can be lethal. And so the, the idea is, is that it's not that sugar is bad, it's that the overconsumption of sugar, just like the overconsumption of anything, is problematic. And so when you're thinking about what you're going to consume, if it contains sugar, you, you generally want to choose things that are packaged in other nutrients, right? Packaged in things that have fat and protein and, and fiber. But that doesn't mean you can never have candy, or you can never have, you know, a juice. It just means that you want to be conscious that that's just sugar that you're getting. So if you're looking

• 36:26Speaker 03

  at your dietary pattern, you want to make sure that you're getting your other nutrients elsewhere as well.

• 36:31Dan Harris?

  I got a really nice heuristic from, or like a rule of thumb from a dietitian friend of mine, Evelyn Tribbley, who says that you might ask yourself, how do I want to feel right now? And so I don't, I'm, I don't like-

• 36:50Dan Harris?

  Disallow, I've gone through periods in my life where I wouldn't allow myself to have cookies, even though I love them. But now I'm like, I can have a cookie, but I might ask myself if it's nine o'clock at night and I'm tempted to tuck into a sleeve of Oreos. Like, how do I want to, do I want to sleep tonight? Because I probably won't if I do this. So how does that sound to you as a, as a rule of thumb?

• 37:14Speaker 03

  I think it's, I think it's a good rule of thumb. I think also, you know, we have to, we have to understand that food is not just fuel. It's also, you know, our culture and it's also, it has, we have memories tied to foods and it's nostalgic and we, it's, we celebrate with food. And so I think we sometimes, especially like in these kinds of conversations, we think of it only through this like health lens and only through this, this fueling lens. When it's, when in practice, in the real world, we don't, we don't operate like that, right? So if you're at a birthday party, we have to figure out how to live kind of in the, in the maintenance phase, right? So, so, and that's like a term, when

• 37:58Speaker 03

  you're not, like in diet culture, people are dieting and then they're maintaining. And maintaining is just like you're living life. So you wanna, you wanna live your life. And so if you're at a birthday party and you know, they have cake and you have a piece of cake, again, you just have to think like it's in the overall context of your diet. And so if you have a piece of cake there, just make sure you get your protein and your, you know, and your nutrient needs and your fiber elsewhere. And over the long term, it's about kind of your, your overall pattern. So I think that that's a really important kind of way to view it is like, it's, it's all about dietary pattern. It's not what I'm doing in this moment necessarily, as much as it's, what am I doing consistently

• 38:41Speaker 03

  day in and day out over the long term? And, and am I giving my body the nutrients that it needs to feel its best over the long term?

• 38:49Dan Harris?

  You've come back to this in lots of the annoying questions I've asked you over the last 30 minutes or so, you've come back to this, hey, look, this, this kind of commonsensical response of like, Consider the overall context of your diet. And it reminds me of something I believe I've heard you say, which is that we have all these influencers out there pushing their pet theories and making you scared, et cetera, et cetera. When in fact, the truth is kind of boring. Can you say more about that?

• 39:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, if I were to tell you kind of about nutrition science, I think a lot of the prevailing idea is that nutrition science is ever changing and it's, it's really confusing. And I would say that as a nutrition scientist, the basics of nutrition science have been very consistent over decades with a few changes. What really changes is kind of the discourse about it. And so, you know, if you think about what do I want to do to improve my health? There are some major pillars of health that are going to have the biggest, you're going to get the biggest bang for your buck. They're, they're going to have the biggest impact on your health. Like I'm just, you know, what do they say all like 90% of percentages that people throw out there are just made up. So I'm going to throw out a made up percentage, but let's say it's like, that's going to be

• 40:04Speaker 03

  95% of your health is going to be these major pillars. And then, you know, there's 5% that maybe is like playing in the margins. And for whatever reason, like most of our attention goes to that 5% that is playing in the margins and completely ignores the 95% that are these major pillars. So those major pillars are for nutrition specifically, you know, making sure you're meeting your calorie needs, your energy needs every day and not over consuming calories, making sure you're getting adequate fiber, making sure you're getting a variety of foods. So making half your plate fruits and vegetables, and that's going to help you hit those nutrient needs and your vitamins and your minerals and your fiber needs.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  And, and, you know, staying hydrated, getting a variety of proteins from both plants and animal sources. All of those things are kind of, that's been consistent dietary advice over decades. And it's, and it's what works. It's what I see work over and over. It's what has worked for me personally. It's what, you know, it's what we know works in the data from a general perspective. And then it's going to be physical activity, you know, moving your body most days of the week, getting movement. That's something, you know, 80% of Americans don't meet physical activity guidelines in this country. 95% of Americans don't meet fiber intake guidelines in this country. And so, you know, we have these evidence-based recommendations that we are

• 41:30Speaker 03

  not meeting, and then we're ignoring those. And then again, like really focusing on the 5% in the margin. So, you know, you have your nutrition, you have your physical activity, getting eight to nine hours of sleep, practicing kind of stress reduction techniques that work for you, and then getting preventive, making sure you're getting, going to preventive care visits. Like, those are really like the pillars of health and wellness, that if we just kind of focused on those really boring things, we would all be much better off, and we wouldn't have to be so overwhelmed by so much social media misinformation all the time related to health.

• 42:05Dan Harris?

  The problem, and this gets back to your asymmetry, is that everything you just said is, I think, unimpeachably true, but it's so much less interesting than you should be freaking out about high fructose corn syrup and big food is trying to kill you.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  I know. I know. It is. I hope I haven't bored your audience too much. But yeah, I, you know.

• 42:28Dan Harris?

  You haven't.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  I think, yeah, I get it. I understand kind of like the perverse incentives and how this all works. And I just, I think the most important thing that I keep trying to drive home is, is that, that a lot of people out there have a really strong incentive to keep you engaged and keep you enraged, because that is what works on social media. And the more eyeballs you get on social media, the more people they can convert in terms of sales for their different products that, you know, they say are going to do what these, these five pillars of wellness really, really do.

• 43:01Dan Harris?

  I have many more very specific questions about, you know, the food and the types of food, and I do want to get to vaccines. But since you're talking about wellness grifters, my term, not yours, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but how do we know who to trust? Like, what are the red flags to look for when we're fed?

• 43:23Dan Harris?

  Wellness or nutrition information via the algorithm.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, um, I think there's a couple of things to look for. I think that looking for credentials can help. Right? Just so knowing that somebody has an education in the, in the area that they're talking about, right? Don't like, don't come to me for accounting advice. Go to an accountant. Don't come to me for aeronautical engineering advice. Go to an aeronautical engineer if you want to know how to fly a plane. So that could be a good starting point. But it's not foolproof. So also then, you know, look at the type of content they're putting out. Experts who are being like genuine and wanting to educate and wanting to help people understand things are not going to do, are not going to use like fear-based language. They're not going to start a video with something like, are you poisoning your kids?

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Or these are secrets that nobody wants you to know. That plays again, really well on social media. I'm sure that people just perked up hearing that, right? Because it's like, it plays on something that's innate within us. And you're like, yeah, I need to know that. Especially like if you are a young mom and you're vulnerable, you're in a vulnerable life stage. Someone says, are you poisoning your kids? You're going to watch that. But people who are trying to really educate and, and help you understand this information are not going to do that. And even if it is kind of scary information, they're going to put it in context to help you really fully understand it. So if you're coming away from content with more questions than answers, that can be an indicator. If you're coming away with like a fear-based response, that's probably an indicator.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  If you're coming away thinking, I really need that product they just told me about at the very end of this very scary video. That's a good indicator that it's not good evidence-based information and it's more of a marketing plan on their end.

• 45:02Dan Harris?

  So is it always a red flag if an alleged expert is trying to sell you their own branded products?

• 45:11Speaker 03

  I don't know that it's always a red flag. I don't think that that's probably not true, but I think it's a really good. It's a really good like spidey sense to have and then, and then it like can help you to identify some of these other things. So certainly it's something to look for. People have businesses and so they're making social media content. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't discount them just because they're selling something. I just think that you should watch. If it's a fear-based video, just watch, like know what to look for to see, you know, are they, is this just like a lead generator for them? And they're just trying to get people into this like funnel to then sell me some kind of like solution to a problem they made up. I think that's kind of what you want to look for.

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• 46:22Dan Harris?

  I have some more food questions, but let me just dwell on vaccines. This is where RFK kind of made his bones in the in the public sphere. And it's just a huge theme in Maha. What's your view on vaccines?

• 46:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, first a disclaimer that I'm a I have a PhD in nutrition science and my work's really been in chronic disease, not infectious disease. So having said that, I I look at this not from like, what does this like, science say? I can't explain to you the science because I'm not a vaccinologist. But what I can say is that RFK Jr., I've been watching him for 20 years, and he has been very prevalent in these anti-vaccine spaces for a very long time. And, you know, it came from his work. He started as like an environmental attorney and identified that, you know, mercury in the environment was harmful to children, which is true. And then, you know, I think realized like, oh, there's mercury in vaccines. And and I think that was his entry into this kind of anti-vax area,

• 47:25Speaker 03

  kind of not understanding that those are different types of mercury and and the dose is is the most important thing when we're talking about these ingredients. I think a lot of what we see in the vaccine space is the same as what we see in the in the food space, which is this kind of natural fallacy, which this is is this idea that like you could just pull out ingredients and like say an ingredient is toxic without any mention of dose, without any mention of safety data that that is backing it. I think that's really important. Vaccines in and of themselves are an incredible public health success. Infectious diseases. Diseases that used to be huge public health issues, we never see, we never hear about. But vaccines are a victim of their own success, which a lot of public health measures are a victim

• 48:09Speaker 03

  of their own success. So when they're working, people think we don't need them because they're like, I never see this disease. Why do we need to all be vaccinated for it? We have a lot of people who don't even remember a time, you know, you have like congresspeople who remember when polio was a big issue. And so you see them kind of like in favor of those vaccines because they're like, hey, we don't want polio to come back. But we also have a lot of younger people who never have seen polio and never really even heard about it. I think that's what we're seeing with vaccines right now is this not only this distrust in science, this lack of understanding of, and this like idea of this like naturalistic fallacy, but also again, a victim of their own success. And so we don't remember a time before vaccines when all of these infectious diseases were a real problem. So I think that's a lot of what

• 48:54Speaker 03

  we're seeing in terms of, in terms of vaccines right now.

• 48:58Dan Harris?

  With the caveat that I fully understand your expertise is nutrition science, not vaccines. And yet you are out there kind of, as I said before, doing the Lord's work in the face of this just fire hose of bullshit coming from Maha. What do you say when anxious moms say to you that there's a link between vaccines and autism?

• 49:23Speaker 03

  I think that it's really important to point people to sources that can help them to understand what the evidence actually shows. There's an incredible amount of information out there, of evidence out there to suggest that there is not a link between vaccines and autism. And so I would point them to resources and people who, who are demonstrating that, again, not just saying, trust me, vaccines don't cause autism, but actually showing them like, what evidence do we have? Where does that claim even come from? And then how do we know that it's not the case? And I think there's a lot of people out there doing really great work in that, in those areas. CHOP, which is the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, has a really great vaccine education resource that, that goes through a lot of that. And so again,

• 50:06Speaker 03

  I think it's really important to help people to understand why that's not the case versus just saying, trust me, they, they don't. This administration has kind of backtracked on that even because not just is there not evidence to suggest, we actually have evidence that vaccines do not cause autism. It's really important to just kind of set the record straight on that and then lead people to the right resources.

• 50:28Dan Harris?

  Couple more food questions before I let you go. Butter, where are you on butter?

• 50:34Speaker 03

  Butter is a saturated fat. We have different types of fats. You have unsaturated fats and you have saturated fats. Unsaturated fats, you have polyunsaturated fats and then monounsaturated fats, and then you have saturated fats. And the best way to tell if a fat is saturated or not is, is it hard at room temperature? So if a fat is hard at room temperature, it tends to be saturated. So butter, think of like bacon grease when you're making bacon and then you pour the grease into whatever you poured into. We always poured it into like a coffee, one of those like old Folgers cans. I don't know if that was like a universal experience, but it always like sat under our sink growing up. And that hardens, right? So that is something like, that is a saturated fat. So

• 51:14Speaker 03

  animal fats tend to be saturated fats. Monounsaturated fats are things like avocados or olive oil. And then polyunsaturated fats contain our essential fatty acids. So if you've heard that term before, in nutrition science, the word essential means something. So it means that you can't, your body cannot make it itself. So most fats, your body can actually synthesize itself, but there's a couple of them that are essential fatty acids, like omega sixes and omega threes, that are really important for your body, but your body can't make itself. And those come from our polyunsaturated fats. Nuts, seeds, seed oils, that's where you're getting your polyunsaturated fats. Fish, and then monosaturated, monounsaturated, and then saturated. So butter sits in the saturated

• 51:58Speaker 03

  fat category, along with most animal fat, or all animal fats. And what we know from evidence, I mean, our current dietary guidelines, as well as previous dietary guidelines, say to keep saturated fats is less than 10% of total calories. And so that's really the evidence based, based on global nutrition science research, the overall recommendation is to keep saturated fat at less than 10% of total calories. And so butter would just fall in that. So you want to look at your overall dietary pattern and just make sure that, you know, most of the time, you're choosing fat options that are unsaturated fatty acids. And then certainly butter can fit in. And if you like butter, like you like it on your bread or your toast, or whatever it is, wherever you use it, your baked potato, that's fine. It can be incorporated, but you just want to make sure

• 52:40Speaker 03

  that it's limited, because saturated fats play a direct role in cardiovascular disease.

• 52:45Dan Harris?

  Very helpful, as with everything you've said here today. You did mention seed oils. I understand that there's been some fear mongering or a little bit around seed oils. Is there anything to that?

• 52:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's been a lot of fear mongering related to seed oils. And this one is so interesting because it just like flies in the face of what we know in nutrition science. And so seed oils are the oils of seeds. So sunflower seeds or sunflower, safflower, canola, grape seed, rapeseed. All of those, rapeseed is oil is canola oil in the United States. All of those are what we term seed oils and they're used globally. They're commonly used kind of like all around the world. And they're a source of essential fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids. So they're liquid at room temperature. They give us things like omega threes and omega six fatty acids.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  And all the evidence that we have suggests that dietary eating patterns that incorporate these oils tend to be healthier dietary eating patterns. They tend to have better health outcomes. When you replace saturated fat with these polyunsaturated fatty acids from seed oils, we see better cardiometabolic outcomes and better markers. So better cardiovascular markers. And so, you know, the prevailing idea on social media is that they're toxic and harming our health and we just don't have evidence for that. I think the idea comes from, again, this natural fallacy where it's like seed oils do go through a processing, which kind of like strips them from any like nutrients that are in the oils. If you compare them to something like an olive oil, olive oil has some nutrition in it.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  So it's got some like vitamins and minerals. It has a flavor as well, so it tastes. Whereas these seed oils are pretty flavorless and pretty cheap compared relative to something like an olive oil or an avocado oil. And so because of that, these food manufacturers that are trying to maximize the amount of money that they're making, maximize their profit, are going to oftentimes will use those oils in their kind of low nutrient ultra-processed foods. So because of that, and we overconsume these low nutrient ultra-processed foods, we tend to overconsume. Seed oils in this country. So again, just like anything, the overconsumption of anything can be problematic. And so that's really the biggest issue with seed oils is they're in so many of these prepackaged foods

• 55:06Speaker 03

  that many of us are over consuming them. But if you're not over consuming them and you're just doing like what my mother in law does, which is using, you know, canola oil to saute her vegetables on the stove and she's done it her whole life. Like, there's no evidence to suggest that that's a problematic thing to do.

• 55:22Dan Harris?

  I believe that some people have used fears around seed oils to cast aspersions on infant formula. Am I, am I right about that? And if so, what's, what's the truth?

• 55:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, you are right about that. And this is where like our previous conversation about all the science behind fats will come into play here. So infant formulas contain seed oils, often a combination of some, some different ones. Every single infant formula all around the world contains seed oils. And that, you know, I think a lot of narrative online sometimes is like, America allows this and European formulas don't have them. No, no. Every infant formula all around the world, I've never seen one that doesn't contain seed oils. And the reason is because of what I said before, those are the oils that contain the essential fatty acids. So omega threes and omega sixes. Those are the fats that your body can't make themselves.

• 56:19Speaker 03

  So infants are only get, who are formula fed, exclusively formula fed, are only getting infant formula as their only food for the first six months of life. And so it has to contain those particular fats and seed oils are the best way to kind of get those into that formulation with no harm and no, no negative impact. That's why every single infant formula all around the world contains one or a mixture of different, different seed oils, which are those polyunsaturated fatty acids.

• 56:48Dan Harris?

  Since we're talking about kids and you you mentioned this earlier. This is just such a loaded area because after you've had a child, it's a vulnerable time for a bunch of reasons. And this can last from, you know, the newborn and toddler stage all the way up until your kids are teenagers. I'm thinking, for example, about one of my younger cousins, who is very smart and reasonably well informed, but she's existing in this environment where, you know, she's online and seeing the information that comes her way, not all of it vetted or or high quality. And she, I mean, she just turned to me at a family gathering not long ago and said, you

• 57:29Dan Harris?

  know, I'm just like, I'm I'm not for Trump, but like, you know, some of this stuff around the contaminants in our food supply and what that's doing to our kids like that's that's a big deal to me. And I I feel like there are a lot of people like that. And I know we've addressed some of this earlier, but maybe worth, you know, going back to it, like, what what would you say to my cousin?

• 57:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think the thing is, is that one of the things that this Maha movement has done and RFK Junior has done is it's really tapped into something in a very bipartisan way that many of us feel, which is that we have a food environment that's not supporting us and we have a country with with many different systems that are not supporting us. And so when they think about the food environments and and what their children are eating and they look at kind of health outcomes, which are health outcomes specifically around chronic disease are quite poor relative to the rest of the world, they want to understand why. And RFK Junior is giving them an answer. And I always say like, they get the problem right, but the the causes of the problem largely wrong. And when you get the causes of the problem largely wrong, you're going to get the solutions wrong.

• 58:35Speaker 03

  So the important thing for people like me to do is to help explain what the causes actually are. And so if we're thinking about, okay, we're we are looking at our children who are having negative health outcomes. Why are they having negative health outcomes? Well, we have to look at their dietary pattern and we have to look at the food environments. And what we see is a food environment that is not supporting our kids. We see it. Completely dominated by these prepackaged, low nutrient foods like chips, like soda, like candy. They're very accessible, very convenient, quite cheap relative to other foods. And so our kids are overeating those foods. And it's not necessarily because they're being poisoned by toxins. We don't have evidence for that. Again, our food supply

• 59:19Speaker 03

  is extremely safe. And that doesn't mean that we couldn't do better. You know, I'm all for having more funding that goes towards the FDA Food Division so that we can have even more oversight of the additives and ingredients in our food supply. But we don't have evidence that there's individual additives or ingredients that are causing all of this harm. It's really these dietary eating patterns. It's really this food environment that we have built over decades that is is very profitable for industry at the expense of the health for our kids and ourselves. And so I think we have to really understand like what is actually causing the problem in order to identify the solutions to that problem. And so we all agree that we're having negative health outcomes and our food supply is a

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  problem. But what is causing that? And and we have to look at their overall dietary eating patterns. So I think really helping people understand that point is kind of the most important thing here. So that we, you know, we tend to like as humans to have like a really simple cause and effect, right? So like, it's the red dye 40 and Skittles. And if we just swap out the red dye 40, and we put in a natural red dye, then that's going to help solve problems. But that's not it. It's actually the nutrient patterns that we're all consuming. We're over consuming Skittles. We're over consuming this added sugar, not consuming enough nutrition. And that's really, that's a harder sell, I think, than just, you know, it's a toxin in Skittles.

• 1:00:41Dan Harris?

  Salt, another vilified, but very common ingredient. Where do you come down on salt?

• 1:00:48Speaker 03

  Salt is a mineral that our bodies need to survive. And so this is one of those things where we need enough salt, but we don't need too much salt. So too much or too little salt is going to be problematic. But we, we, we still need salt. So this is one of those things where we can't vilify individuals. Nutrients, we have to just understand we need enough salt, but we don't need too much. So current recommendations are to keep sodium intake under 2,300 milligrams, which has been fairly consistent for a while now. And many Americans tend to overconsume salt because they're eating out a lot. And restaurants use a ton of salt because salt makes foods more flavorful. It kind of like pulls out the flavor of foods.

• 1:01:31Speaker 03

  So soups tend to be really high in salt, too. Especially like canned foods tend to be high in salt. So that's something you want to watch with canned foods because they use it for preservation. And then these ultra-processed foods, they contain a lot of salt. Because again, it brings out flavor. So if a food is going through processing and you kind of like strip out some of the flavor, you have to add that flavor back in and salt really helps to do that. So it's kind of looking at how many of these like prepackaged foods are you consuming? And then making sure that you're keeping those sodium levels in check. Because you know, restaurants are a big thing, but also these prepackaged foods are also a big source of sodium. So you want to get sodium, but you don't want to get too much sodium.

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  That's really, that's really it at the end of the day.

• 1:02:18Dan Harris?

  I'm forcing you to say the same thing over and over again. Hopefully, these last two questions won't do that to you. When we're looking at nutritional information on food, there's often, there's always something about serving size.

• 1:02:35Dan Harris?

  I've always wondered like, how accurate is that?

• 1:02:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, serving size is a really interesting thing. It used to be that like food manufacturers would eat, get like cereal and it'd be like, serving size, three fourths of a cup. And you actually like pour that into the bowl and it's like, no cereal. And you're like, that's not what people actually consume. And so it is something that you kind of have to be conscious of in terms of if you're eating these packaged foods and it says like, serving size, whatever it is. The nutrients on that nutrient label are the nutrients in the serving size. So if you're eating like a frozen burrito, right? And you eat the whole burrito, but the nutrition label says, serving size, half a burrito. Then you have to double everything on that nutrition label because you're eating twice as much as the serving size. So you're eating two servings of the burrito,

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  even though like your brain thinks you're just eating a burrito because it's that seems like a serving size to you. So in terms of packaged foods, that's, that's kind of something to be really aware of when you're looking at those nutrition labels, like whatever the serving size is, is what you're seeing. So if it says, serving size, half a cup, and then sugar, five grams, it's five grams of sugar in half a cup. If you have a glass, and that glass is a cup and a half, you're having three servings, so you're getting 15 grams of sugar. And then when we're thinking about serving sizes in terms of just like food, there's oftentimes ways that we look at that. So usually like we'll recommend three to four servings of vegetables a day, and a serving might be like half a cup. And

• 1:04:06Speaker 03

  sometimes we use the palm method to show like what we might be expecting in terms of what a serving would look like. And then, and then you're wanting to get like three or four of those. So in the dietary guidelines, it will recommend a certain amount of servings for, for each one per day. And that's, that's what that's saying.

• 1:04:22Dan Harris?

  Okay, last question. We recently did an episode on supplements, although, you know, it's possible that many people listening to this or watching this haven't listened to or watched that episode. So let me just briefly ask you, we are living in an information environment where people are peddling supplements to us all the time. How should we think about that?

• 1:04:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think there's a couple of things to understand about supplements. So the supplement industry, as opposed to the food and drug industries, so the pharmaceutical industry and the, and the food industry, the supplement industry is highly unregulated, so largely unregulated. That doesn't mean there's no regulation, but because of something that happened in the early 90s, where the FDA tried to get more regulatory oversight and, and ability over the dietary supplement industry, but they had a very strong lobbying arm. They actually, the FDA lost that battle. And so supplements really kind of operate in this regulatory gray zone where they make a lot of claims, where they won't say that it diagnoses something, but it'll Say supports your immune system and it doesn't need to show any evidence of that.

• 1:05:30Speaker 03

  There, there's no requirement for it to show evidence that it supports your immune system. And then they can be sold that way. And so a lot of supplements, the vast majority of supplements, I would argue out there have never been shown to do what they are saying that they do. And a lot of it is just very good marketing. That doesn't mean that all supplements are problematic. You know, there's some supplements that have better data than others. So, you know, something like prenatal vitamin, um, strong evidence base for people of childbearing age to be taking a prenatal vitamin to ensure that their, their nutrient levels are where they need to be. Something like creatine has, it's probably one of the best researched, uh, supplements, particularly for lifting and, and recovery. And certainly, by the way, uh, vitamins, right?

• 1:06:15Speaker 03

  So if you're deficient in something, if you're, if you have like iron deficiency anemia, supplementing with iron is the right move. But many of these supplements are, are kind of operating, they'll like, they'll, there'll be like a rat study and there's a mechanism. And so then they create a supplement based on that mechanism and they expect that to, or they, they promote it as if that's going to do that in a human model. And what we know from scientific research is the vast majority of things we think are going to work because of something that works in a rat or something that works in a petri dish, never actually works in a human model. Because, and when I say human model, I mean like our body. Because we are, we are very complex. Our bodies are very complex and you think something's going to work

• 1:06:57Speaker 03

  and then it doesn't. And so a lot of people are spending a lot of money on supplements and there's just no evidence that they're actually, um, beneficial.

• 1:07:06Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I, uh, in, in the course of this interview I, I recently did with an expert on supplements, she had a bottom line that I kept forcing her to come back to, just like in the course of this conversation, you've had to repeat, you know, it's okay to have fill in the blank, uh, sugar, uh, salt, carbs, as long as you're under, you know, viewing it within the context of a, an overall healthy diet. She had to keep coming back and as I was asking her about various supplements, she had to keep coming back to like, get a blood test, talk to your doctor. Anything that you were hoping to cover today that we have not gotten to?

• 1:07:41Speaker 03

  Maybe, maybe like food dyes. Maybe I'll just talk about that for a second because I think that's a hot topic too in nutrition right now. We have these kind of synthetic food dyes in the United States. There's five of them. So there's red forty, yellow five, yellow six, blue one, and blue two. Those are really the five synthetic food dyes that you'll hear talked about often. Those are the most like commonly used and in these kind of usually low nutrient ultra processed foods. And I think it's really important to understand that. They're usually used in like foods kids eat a lot of because they make them brights and they make them like kids want to eat them, make them exciting. And they're used because they're kind of like they're stable and they work really well in food formulations. And I think there's a misconception out there that the United States allows these food dyes

• 1:08:25Speaker 03

  and other countries ban them. And I think it's really important to just explain that that's not the case. So, you know, regulatory agencies all over the world allow those five synthetic food dyes in the EU, in Australia, in Canada. All of those regulatory bodies have deemed them safe and approved them for use in those countries. They use them less than the United States. That's just kind of like a function of culture. And also the United States, that the goal of these food manufacturers are to sell a lot of food. And there's some good psychology research that shows that, you know, even in salmon, if you go to this grocery store and one salmon looks less orange than the other salmon,

• 1:09:08Speaker 03

  people will choose the more orange salmon, which is often dye is often added to that salmon because it makes the food more appealing. And so that's why these dyes are really used in these foods, particularly in these ultra processed foods, because processing really strips the color. And so, you know, the, the idea is generally, again, these food dyes are used in these low nutrient foods. And so what we would recommend is you eat less of those low nutrient foods. Again, you don't always, you don't need to avoid all of them all the time. It's just we eat, we make our diet kind of centered around more nutrient dense foods and then we can add those in. But there's no evidence to suggest that swapping out that dye and adding in a natural dye will have any meaningful impact on health. And so again,

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  It's kind of like majoring in the minors. Like there's, there's just not a lot of evidence where we have so much evidence for all of these other like dietary behavior changes that people could be making to actually make a huge improvement and a meaningful improvement on their health. So I do think it's important to kind of just understand what we know in terms of the science to be true and what we know in terms of the effect that would have on, on chronic disease outcomes and health outcomes in this country.

• 1:10:16Dan Harris?

  If people want to follow you and learn more from you, how can they do that?

• 1:10:20Speaker 03

  I'm on all the platforms that you probably can think of. My main one is Instagram, probably. And then I have a Substack where I publish a couple of times a week and I get more in depth on these different topics. And so Instagram and Substack are probably the best places.

• 1:10:34Dan Harris?

  Okay, well, I will put links to all things Dr. Jessica Nurek in the show notes. And let me just say in closing, I really appreciate your time today and I just generally appreciate what you're doing in the world. Thank you.

• 1:10:48Speaker 03

  I really appreciate you having me.

• 1:10:50Dan Harris?

  Thank you so much to everybody who works so hard on this show. 10% Happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. Also, one last thing to say before I let you go, please don't forget to check out my new-ish meditation app. It's called 10% with Dan Harris. We've got a growing library of meditations from many of the world's greatest meditation teachers. We also do weekly live events where we meditate together and take your

• 1:11:32Dan Harris?

  questions. There's a lot of evidence to show that one of the best ways to create an abiding habit is to do so in the carpool lane. And that's one of the big ideas behind this app. There's a free 14 day trial. If you want to try before you buy, you can check it out at danharris.com. Join the party.

• 1:11:53Speaker 04

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