Pod Insights Habits and Hustle Episode 424: Liron Kayvan: The Top Nutrition Mistakes to Avoid + Are Seed Oils Bad for You? About this episode Do you feel like you're doing everything right when it comes to nutrition, but still not seeing the results you want? In this week's Fitness Fridays episode on the Habits and Hustle podcast, I sit down with my friend and fellow fitness expert, Liron, to discuss the most common nutrition mistakes people make that sabotage their health goals.
We dive into the importance of protein and fiber in your diet, why eliminating entire food groups is a bad idea, and how to balance healthy eating with enjoying your food. We also discuss the surprising truth about seed oils and your health.
Liron Kayvan founded BFLA in 2019. He's a NASM Certified Group Fitness Instructor, Personal Trainer, and Transformative Life Coach. Liron has competed in Amateur MMA, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and Rugby and has been a Fitness Coach for over 10 years.
What we discuss:
(01:00) Nutrition Mistakes and Protein Consumption
(13:47) Calories in vs. Calories Out
(24:00) Restaurant Deception and Food Ingredients
(28:43) Food Deception and Responsibility
(34:59) The Dangers of Seed Oils
Thank you to our sponsor:
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Bio.me: Link to daily prebiotic fiber here https://bio.me/?utm_source=Jennifer, code Jennifer20 for 20% off.
Momentous: Shop this link https://www.livemomentous.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorDUIZz3psr1Qsq_n1yE8_6JTq_QUFabOO9lH65HDEXCIoJOPLj and use code Jen for 20% off
To learn more about Liron Kayvan:
Website: https://www.beyondfitnessla.com/
Instagram: @beyondfitnessla https://www.threads.net/@beyondfitnessla
Find more from Jen:
Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/
Instagram: @therealjencohen
Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books
Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.
0:07 Jen Cohen? Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle Podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.
0:29 Jen Cohen? Before we dive into today's episode, I want to thank our sponsor Momentous. When your goal is health span, living better and longer, there are very few non-negotiables. One of them, quality. And when it comes to supplements designed for high performers, nobody does it better than Momentous. Momentus goes all in on NSF certification, which means every single batch is tested for heavy metals, harmful additives, and label accuracy. And that's why they're trusted by all 32 NFL teams and top collegiate sports dietitians across the country. Here's the thing, they don't sell every supplement under the sun,
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1:54 Jen Cohen? Welcome back to Fitness Fridays and I am joined yet again by my friend Liron. Thank you for coming, Liron.
2:04 Speaker 02 Thank you for having me.
2:05 Jen Cohen? Liron also has a gym in LA. It's called Beyond Fitness.
2:09 Speaker 02 Beyond Fitness LA, yeah, in Westwood Boulevard.
2:11 Jen Cohen? You'd think I'd know the name by now, but...
2:13 Speaker 02 You've got a lot of things going on.
2:15 Jen Cohen? I do, I actually do. But it's super easy when you're here because it's so easy. We've known each other for so long.
2:23 Speaker 02 We're also neighbors.
2:23 Jen Cohen? We're also neighbors and we just like to blab about all things health and fitness. But today, we're going to be covering a lot on nutrition because I think people are making big mistakes with their nutrition.
2:36 Speaker 02 Agreed.
2:37 Jen Cohen? And because of that, they're not reaching their overall health goals. Eighty percent of your goals, fitness-wise, body-wise, comes from your nutrition. It's not, you're not going to be making, that's what they say, like, abs are made in the kitchen. They're not made at the gym. And you can be squatting all day and you can be lunging all night. But if you're not eating properly, then good luck to you. And so I really wanted to do an episode, a fast episode, short episode, on, I believe, the top nutrition mistakes that people are making. And then you can tell me what you think, okay? How's that sound?
3:17 Speaker 02 It sounds great.
3:18 Jen Cohen? I believe some of the top nutrition mistakes that people are making that really can overhaul your overall goals if you just watch on these. The first one is your portions. I think portions is where people always fail. We think we know, we eyeball it, we think, okay, that's a chicken breast or this looks like a normal size of rice or pasta. And we're always wrong. Because if you actually look at what an actual portion is to what we're actually eating, very, very different. And that can make a major difference in your overall calorie intake. So if we are much more mindful of our portions, it will save you a lot of heartache. That's the first one.
4:01 Jen Cohen? Another big one that I think is really important is supplementing. I think that we rely on supplements.
4:11 Jen Cohen? Way too much over our actual nutrition, like what we're actually eating. And it's not making us any healthier. I think if we actually ate the nutrients that our body needs, it would help us with our overall satiation.
4:29 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:29 Jen Cohen? Right?
4:30 Speaker 02 For sure.
4:30 Jen Cohen? And another, I know this is another big one, and I know you're gonna, you're gonna definitely agree with me on this one. Is people are not consuming enough protein.
4:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:41 Jen Cohen? Protein is like, is like.
4:43 Speaker 02 That's the number one.
4:45 Jen Cohen? That's like, that is like the real, that is like the number one. I mean, protein satiates you.
4:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:51 Jen Cohen? Right? Like if I'm not eating enough protein, I am starving.
4:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:55 Jen Cohen? Literally starving.
4:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:57 Jen Cohen? And I think if people would uptake their protein, it would like, it's like a game changer.
5:04 Speaker 02 Again, it's, I think that one goes down, I talk about this a lot, but it goes down to evolution. Like we've evolved to eat protein. So our guts are like protein-seeking machines, you know? And so when they register the amino acids, like that umami flavor of protein, it's just extremely satiating because that's literally just how we're built.
5:23 Jen Cohen? Well, first of all, it also regulates my blood sugar. Like I'm like, I shake if I'm, if I'm hungry. And the second I eat a piece of chicken, I feel so much better. And I'm a big animal protein person. I think that's like the really, like to me.
5:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
5:36 Jen Cohen? I, I, you don't have to be an animal protein person. You can be eating, you can eat other things that are not animal protein.
5:42 Speaker 02 You could try.
5:43 Jen Cohen? You can try. But, but, but animal protein to me is like the number one source for, for my protein.
5:49 Speaker 02 It's how we're designed, it's how we're built.
5:52 Jen Cohen? Oh, one hundred percent. And like the other, other really big one is that eliminating food groups is a real mistake. Right? Not eating enough carbs, thinking that carbs are gonna make you fat. No.
6:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:06 Jen Cohen? It's the portion and the kind of carb will make you fat, not an actual carbohydrate.
6:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:14 Jen Cohen? Eliminating that from your diet is such a bad move.
6:18 Speaker 02 You need fats, carbs and proteins. At some point. You're gonna need to to check all those boxes.
6:24 Jen Cohen? You have to in order to having a balanced plan is what it is, right? Like you, you can't just eliminate because your body is like, your, your body is gonna crave it. And you're gonna eat it somewhere. You're gonna eat something else that's maybe not as good for you.
6:37 Speaker 02 Technically, I think the only one that is not essential, like from a scientific perspective is carbs. Because you technically don't need carbs to survive because your body will create carbs out of protein or fat, like gluconeogenesis and stuff, but in practice, everyone needs it. And also, if you're an athlete and you're working out, you also need it for performance. Your performance is going to suffer tremendously. Your mental health suffers tremendously without carbs because it boosts serotonin and stuff. You feel better. So practically speaking, you definitely need some form of carbs, some form of fat, some form of protein. And trying to like shortcut or like cheat the system by just getting rid of one. It's a nice idea and a lot of people, especially with carbs, because you lose water weight.
7:21 Speaker 02 They'll lose ten pounds in a week and they're like, oh, I'm a winner. Yeah, but you lost water and maybe some muscle. And actually, you're less healthy than you were when you were ten pounds heavier, so.
7:32 Jen Cohen? Totally agree with you.
7:33 Speaker 02 You're cheating yourself, really.
7:34 Jen Cohen? Well, I feel like that's a big one, right? Because people, they're not relying on the muscle they're building. They're relying on.
7:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, big mistake, huge mistake.
7:42 Jen Cohen? Like, what's it called? Like they're overestimating the fat loss and underestimating the muscle gain.
7:48 Speaker 02 Don't want to lose fat and lose muscle at the same time. You only want to lose fat.
7:54 Jen Cohen? But it's really hard. So I think when you eat carbs, like you're saying, you may lose that water weight, right?
8:00 Speaker 02 But your muscles are made of water, so you're kind of losing muscle in a way.
8:04 Jen Cohen? So then what would be a good strategy in your opinion where we can balance it, right? Because we don't want to overeat carbs, but.
8:13 Speaker 02 For sure.
8:13 Jen Cohen? Or anything, right? Like, by the way, do you believe in this myth that eating too much protein will be bad for your kidneys? You don't believe in that?
8:22 Speaker 02 Not, not animal protein, fake, like fake, possibly protein shakes. I doubt it, even with protein shakes, if they're animal based, meaning dairy protein, I doubt it. But like natural, basically natural sources of protein, not a chance, not a chance. I don't believe it for a split second.
8:38 Jen Cohen? You don't?
8:38 Speaker 02 No.
8:38 Jen Cohen? Well, I, see, this is the thing, right? Like to me, like we talked about protein is so important. People are getting their protein, let's say, just from like their shakes. Are they getting enough protein then, right? Because to me, people are under indexing.
8:52 Speaker 02 If someone's exclusively getting it from their protein shakes.
8:55 Jen Cohen? Yeah, well, to me, I feel like that you can't just exclusively get your protein from a protein shake.
9:03 Speaker 02 I wouldn't advise it, no.
9:04 Jen Cohen? Well, well, well, I would think you'd be like, for me, when I have a protein shake, I'm starving 20 minutes later, right? Because it, I guess maybe because of the, it digests really quickly into your body, whatever. But I feel like animal protein for me is what actually sati, the animal protein is what satiates me.
9:22 Speaker 02 Yeah. If you isolate too much, again, I think protein shakes have their place and I will have them from time to time and I will tell clients to have them.
9:29 Jen Cohen? Yeah, me too, me too.
9:29 Speaker 02 Especially if they're learning to get their protein up and they're trying to get their gut to a, adjust to a high protein diet.
9:37 Jen Cohen? Mm hmm.
9:37 Speaker 02 Which in the early phases, protein is fantastic. And protein shakes have their place, okay?
9:43 Jen Cohen? Well, listen, I love, by the way, I have a protein shake, I, I, I try to have a protein shake on the go. Like I have like my, by the way, I have.
9:51 Speaker 02 Literally, yeah, I'm literally gonna have this.
9:53 Jen Cohen? I have those all the time.
9:54 Speaker 02 Right after this podcast.
9:55 Jen Cohen? But I use these a lot for pre-workout, yeah, pre-workout, post-workout or on the go.
10:00 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:00 Jen Cohen? But I need, I have other things in addition than that, to that, right?
10:04 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:04 Jen Cohen? Like I also use like Momentous, I like the, their chocolate whey protein.
10:09 Speaker 02 I haven't tried that yet.
10:09 Jen Cohen? Or the vanilla whey protein, I like that too.
10:12 Speaker 02 You gotta give me that too.
10:13 Jen Cohen? It's delicious.
10:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:14 Jen Cohen? But like, I, I mean, these are.
10:14 Speaker 02 Cause that's like, uh, they have more natural sweetness and stuff, it's like.
10:18 Jen Cohen? No, no, it's just they, they, what I, what I like about it, they have this third party tested.
10:23 Speaker 02 Oh, okay.
10:23 Jen Cohen? Which I like. And also, I just like the taste of it. I like the ingredient list. I like all of it. But my point is, I do both.
10:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:31 Jen Cohen? Right? Like, but because I need, I need the satiation of having animal protein as well. But I feel like where shakes come into place a lot of times is when I need to supplement with more protein.
10:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:42 Jen Cohen? Right? When I'm busy, when you're on the go.
10:44 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:44 Jen Cohen? You need to have that.
10:45 Speaker 02 Convenience factor.
10:47 Jen Cohen? The convenience factor.
10:47 Speaker 02 Which we've spoken about in other podcasts, like convenience is underrated facet of fitness that people need to factor into what they're doing. Things have to work functionally and they have to be convenient for you.
10:58 Jen Cohen? Exactly. Now, those to me are like big mistakes that I see all the time. What are other ones that you see that people are making?
11:07 Speaker 02 So I think not focusing on food quality and also not enjoy. I think the biggest one now is like not enjoying their food, like not factoring that in. And again, this kind of flies in the face of what most people are told, but I, my theory is, and I'm really fleshing this out, so this might sound a little bit jumbled, but like, I think your brain has a certain, let's say, pleasure point principle where it wants to get a certain amount of pleasure from food. And if it doesn't get that amount of pleasure from food, it will kind of force you to binge later on. So, so essentially what's happening is that your brain is seeking pleasure from food. And if it doesn't register that pleasure from food, it will keep asking for more and more food.
11:52 Speaker 02 So by eating something that, by only eating things that people don't enjoy, or not consciously enjoying the food that they're eating, they're setting themselves up for failure because
12:02 Jen Cohen? I know what you're saying.
12:03 Speaker 02 Their body and their brain is kind of storing a little craving for later. It's like, wait a minute, I didn't actually enjoy that. You better pay me back later.
12:11 Jen Cohen? So basically, you're saying when you, a big mistake is when you deprive yourself.
12:17 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:17 Jen Cohen? It will end up backfiring because you'll end up eating something different or more or badly later on. That's what I do. That's my big thing. I deprive, I deprive, and then I'll go fucking ape shit on something else. Like, like, for example. I don't want to eat a lot of sugar, but then I'll eat nine pounds of grapes.
12:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:37 Jen Cohen? So like, that's my thing. Like, I love fruit. And I know people say fruit doesn't make you fat. If you have nine pounds of grapes or mango, yeah, well, you may not make, you may not get fat, but you will gain some.
12:51 Speaker 02 I think it's definitely better to have a more balanced approach, but then, but then ultimately, the truth of it is, is that you probably should have given yourself the grapes in the first place, and then maybe you only, would have only had four or five pounds as opposed to nine.
13:04 Jen Cohen? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the thing is, not even the grapes, I should have given myself something else, because what I'm using is, I'm using the grapes as my sugar.
13:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
13:12 Jen Cohen? Food.
13:13 Speaker 02 Sugar food.
13:13 Jen Cohen? Like, because, because I'm craving sugar, so I'm like, oh, I'll just have grapes, which then really kind of brings us back to portion, right? Portions port, that's why I always circle right back to portions. I think where that's, where most people really make that mistake is when they just overeat with that portion. It's not, like I said, it's not so much always just the food, it's the amount. You can gain weight on eating too much healthy food. You know what I mean? And that's what I do, right? Like, I'm like, oh, chicken breasts is okay. I'll have seven of them.
13:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
13:43 Jen Cohen? Or, oh, you know, like grapes are okay, I'll have nine pounds. Still, like, overeating is overeating. Yeah, you can overeat good food and you can also overeat bad food.
13:52 Speaker 02 The, the issue with.
13:54 Jen Cohen? You have more, okay, wait, you have more wiggle room with eating good food.
13:58 Speaker 02 Yeah.
13:59 Jen Cohen? But you still have to, it's more wiggle room, but you still have to be careful.
14:02 Speaker 02 And that's why things like if it fits your macros and stuff, I don't think people bother with that anymore, but that used to be a thing. If it fits your macros, meaning just as long as you're eating your macros, it doesn't matter. The problem with that is, if you're eating Twinkies as your carb source, you're gonna go, you're not gonna be able to stick to two hundred grams of carbs a day or whatever it is, because, you know, you're just gonna rifle through those so fast because they provide no actual nutrition. So your body is still craving nutrients and therefore you're going to overeat those foods. So calories in, calories out is completely non-growth, but that's how it works. Like, you cannot, that's just a mathematical law of the universe. If your calories in, more than your calories out, you will store weight.
14:43 Speaker 02 Whether that's muscle or fat is is potentially negotiable depending on what you're eating.
14:48 Jen Cohen? But I don't get why that's even still a controversial topic.
14:51 Speaker 02 That's just the fact. It's like gravity. That's just how it works.
14:53 Jen Cohen? But that's controversial. Like, there's been times where we're like, what are you talking about? Calories in versus calories out? That's not how it works.
15:00 Speaker 02 There's no point arguing about it.
15:01 Jen Cohen? I'm like, what are you talking about?
15:02 Speaker 02 That's just how it works.
15:03 Jen Cohen? It is how it works because I'm a good, I'm a prime example, right? I exercise like a fanatic. I eat very healthy. But if I'm not watching how many calories I'm inputting into my body versus how many I am outputting, I gain weight.
15:21 Speaker 02 I think where where the conversation becomes more interesting and nuanced is where you start to talk about, you start to break that down and and talk about what what does calories in mean versus what does calories out mean? First of all, you would have to absorb the calories in. So if your body for some reason decides it doesn't want to absorb those calories, if your gut says, you know what, I'm not absorbing these calories, I'm going straight out, then technically that's not calories in. It went into your mouth, but it didn't go into your body. So that's not, that's not something that happens all the time. But again, it's like, where does that calories in versus calories out equation become relevant? What does calories out mean? Does it only mean walking? No, your calories out could be your growing your hair.
16:04 Speaker 02 It could be your reproductive system. It could be your digestive system. It could be your immunity. So it's so insanely complex, that thing, that to try to reduce it to a mathematical formula that we can predict is, on the flip side to it is, you're not really going to be able to do that long term. It's too complex. But you have to be aware that that is how it works.
16:27 Jen Cohen? Another one I should think is really important too. Because again, we talk so much about protein and we are seem to be remiss about fiber. Like me, maybe I'm eating a lot of fiber by eating all these grapes and everything else.
16:39 Speaker 02 Sounds sweet.
16:39 Jen Cohen? Or like, or I'm a big vegetable, vegetable and fruit person. But I would say, like, there's a crazy stat that, like, I think 90% of Americans are not eating enough fiber. And fiber is a, is like a Major macro ingredient and macronutrient that's so important.
16:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:57 Jen Cohen? And it helps with keeping you full and your digestion and your gut.
17:02 Speaker 02 I think your gut, your gut even eats certain types of fiber. It literally like pulls energy from the fiber itself. So your gut needs the fiber just to like function well.
17:11 Jen Cohen? So besides just eat, you know, making sure you are eating enough protein. Make sure you're eating enough fiber. And if you can't eat fiber, then get a supplement that can help you with like getting that fiber. Cause it keeps you full longer, faster, not faster, but longer. It helps with your absorption of your nutrients. So if you're not absorbing your nutrients, the other problem is that you may eat more because you don't feel like you're eating properly. Does that make sense?
17:43 Speaker 02 Yeah. Also in nature, again, it goes back to like my, my nature kind of binding philosophy for nutrition. Like in nature, fiber is everywhere, you know, every plant.
17:53 Jen Cohen? Yes.
17:54 Speaker 02 Every plant has some type of fiber in it in nature. It's only when we live in our modern world that we have the ability to mechanically get rid of fiber that we, that we're not getting enough. So if you were to eat in a more natural way, like as we were built to eat, you would, you should be getting more fiber.
18:11 Jen Cohen? And I think they say what you should be eating between 25 and 30 grams of fiber per day. Right? Now, I guess depending on the size of the person, but I think if you can do that, like that's why incorporating fruits and vegetables is so important. Taking a supplement, that's where I think where the supplements come. Like I was saying earlier, I think sometimes we're supplementing not for our body, but for what people think is like what's popular, right? Like you're taking the, the trendiest supplement.
18:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, some really edge obscure thing.
18:39 Jen Cohen? Right. Versus what your body actually, what you actually need. Like if you know your somebody's not eating enough fiber, then take that as a supplement. If your someone's not eating enough fats, like fatty fish, then you could have like take an omega. Like making sure you're supplementing for yourself will help balance out your, your nutrition or your nutrients properly. Does that make sense? I think those are good ones. What else did we miss? Eating enough protein, eating enough fiber. Don't overly restrict your calories.
19:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:09 Jen Cohen? That's another big one. I think people sometimes think in order to lose weight, they have to eat less. That's another big common myth because sometimes what happens is we end up eating more down the road because we're trying to eat less at a certain time. That's different than depr- that's different than deprivation.
19:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think don't, yeah, you don't want to deprive yourself like.
19:33 Jen Cohen? No, that's different though. Like, like, for example, you're like, okay, I'm only going to have this one egg for breakfast. Right? Versus having the egg, the avocado, the piece of whole grain toast. We end, that's different than deprivation is like, I'm not going to eat that piece of chocolate. I'm not going to eat that piece of chocolate. And then you end up like, you know,
19:51 Speaker 02 Binging on it.
19:52 Jen Cohen? Binging on a chocolate cake. This is different. I think that like, there's a misconception, a big nutrition mistake is that like we're eating less is more. Actually, sometimes eating more is more.
20:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, especially with regard to like protein. I think people need to eat more actual food to avoid snacks. And that's why I always go back to the jungle analogy, like if you stick to actual food, like how you would eat in the jungle. If you stick to actual food, you'll find yourself satiated a lot. But like more with more consistency and a lot faster. And the whole process is a lot more enjoyable. When you try to like have these like clever little tricks and eat these kind of made in a lab foods that everyone seems to be eating now, some cool thing that's being pushed on TikTok or just.
20:36 Jen Cohen? What is it?
20:36 Speaker 02 I just, all of these things, I, I can't even, I'm so divorced from that stuff that I don't even know the name of it. But I see like, and I'm not going to name names because I don't know, I don't know who's been on this podcast before, but like all these things, like, you know, you know what I mean? Like things made in a lab versus things that are natural.
20:51 Jen Cohen? That's a bunch of nonsense. We're going to do a podcast about that right, right now, which is like, these like crazy, like, you know, myths and debunking some of these things.
21:00 Speaker 02 Nobody I know who's in really good shape and no high level athlete consumes more than 20% of their diet in, in these kind of edge. Manmade foods, every, especially athletes, every high, high, high performing athlete and they'll have probably two, three, four foods that they religiously like, they almost worship these foods. Because they think they have these like magical powers to make them function better. And it's because they kind of do, like every athlete I know has like, whenever I look at what they eat, they, they always talk about two or three or four foods that they absolutely love.
21:36 Speaker 02 And they're usually, actually, this is one more thing I would say is nutrient density, like focus, people don't focus enough on like nutrient density, not just macro, but micro. Like the hidden invisible nutrients inside food. A lot of this has to do with color. So like colorful foods.
21:53 Jen Cohen? I was just gonna say that, you know, it's funny. I was just gonna say that, cause actually what I was actually gonna say what you were saying is like, I have, and I, I agree with what you were saying, but I also think that there's a little bit of a caveat to that. And that is, it's really important to have, I eat, I'm eat, I eat very boring, right? Like I eat the same things over and over again.
22:11 Speaker 02 To someone else it's boring or to you it's boring?
22:13 Jen Cohen? To anybody is boring, right? Like I eat the same thing over and over again. But I will say that I, I do, even though I think it's important, I do think that I did my body an injustice, which is like, I think variety actually works better overall for your overall health. Like, because if you're not eating a variety of foods, you might be missing out on some nutrients that you otherwise need. Like for me, forever, I would have like, I loved asparagus and chicken, or like, you know, or asparagus and salmon. But like, I missed out on a whole, you know, rainbow of other vegetables that are really important.
22:51 Speaker 02 Literally rainbow, like in terms of.
22:53 Jen Cohen? Literally a rainbow, like all the colors. Like, I feel like it's really important to incorporate colorful food into your diet.
23:01 Speaker 02 And again, this goes back to how we're built.
23:03 Jen Cohen? Yeah.
23:04 Speaker 02 Why do like candy companies and just food companies in general? So they just recently banned red, whatever.
23:11 Jen Cohen? Thank God, red dye.
23:12 Speaker 02 Red dye, number forty, but they're just, they're gonna switch it to red dye number thirty nine or whatever. So I don't buy any of this shit to be honest, I'm not. That excited about, uh, uh, we're moving in the right direction, but like, I'm not trusting the food companies and the food scientists.
23:25 Jen Cohen? Totally.
23:25 Speaker 02 To be my like health czar all of a sudden, but what I would say is why do they force these dyes into food? Because it tricks your brain into thinking it's nutrients and your brain wants nutrients, especially for kids, but adults too. The reason why they are, why are they, why do you have to add color to these made in the lab foods? Because otherwise your brain will be like, that's bullshit. I don't want that. That has no nutrients in it. But with the color, all of a sudden your brain's like, oh, give me some of that, right?
23:54 Jen Cohen? I also think though, that people do that. I think that's also because if it looks good, people are, it's more enticing to eat.
24:00 Speaker 02 For sure, because we're, we're wired to eat foods based visually, yeah.
24:04 Jen Cohen? You know, I recently went to a restaurant here. I'm, I'm really, I'm so upset about this. I, I, I really am like, first of all, I go to this, this restaurant like at least five times a week for, like this to me was like the thing that I, I thought it was the cleanest version, right? Like it was, I get a chicken kebab and salad, like I, and I loved it. I love the chicken.
24:28 Speaker 02 Okay.
24:28 Jen Cohen? And, and the garlic sauce on the side. And it was like, it's something that I felt like was the healthiest version, like at the restaurant. So I would, I would like force people to go with me, like, and, and whenever I do go out to eat.
24:39 Speaker 02 The garlic sauce, like the white dip.
24:41 Jen Cohen? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:42 Speaker 02 My wife loves that stuff.
24:43 Jen Cohen? I love it. I love the garlic sauce with the white, oh.
24:46 Speaker 02 It's good, it's good.
24:47 Jen Cohen? It's delicious. So I would literally force whoever I would be having like a meal with, I'd be like, let's go to this restaurant, right? And recently I found out, and the chicken is like, they grilled the chicken in front of you, like they put it on the barbecue.
25:01 Speaker 02 I think I know where this story is gonna go.
25:03 Jen Cohen? And I'm like, and I was like, I thought it was super healthy, right? And I asked them, I'm like, how, what's in the marinade? It's so delicious. And like, I, like, I've asked a couple of times. And I, and I got the basics the first time. Oh, it's olive oil. We put some yogurt in it.
25:17 Speaker 02 Olive oil.
25:18 Jen Cohen? Yeah, okay, no, but then they told me that they're like, the, the one guy was like, and we use egg color number forty. I'm like, huh? And he's like, I'm like, it wasn't, I'm like. Isn't this saffron the color? I'm like, they're like, no, it's yellow egg forty. I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes in the back. I'm like, let me see what you're talking about. He brings out.
25:38 Speaker 02 I haven't pulled it out for you.
25:39 Jen Cohen? Yes, he brought out the food coloring that they add to the recipe to make it look yellow, to make it look like they're using saffron.
25:46 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:46 Jen Cohen? Because saffron is a really.
25:47 Speaker 02 Saffron's expensive.
25:48 Jen Cohen? Saffron's a really.
25:49 Speaker 02 Saffron in your food.
25:50 Jen Cohen? Well, saffron's a really expensive spice, right? And I'm pay like the chicken.
25:54 Speaker 02 You can get Spanish saffron, it's cheaper, but yeah, it's.
25:57 Jen Cohen? Okay, but the chicken skewer is twenty two dollars. It's not like it's so cheap. And I assumed that it was like a spice that they were using. I told, he broke my heart when he brought out the egg color number forty.
26:11 Speaker 02 To make it a little yellow.
26:12 Jen Cohen? To make it yellow.
26:14 Speaker 02 Is that in the chicken or the sauce?
26:16 Jen Cohen? In the marin, no, in the marinade that he marinates the chicken in.
26:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
26:19 Jen Cohen? And so it took me four people to get me to the actual answer. The first three people just said, oh, it's olive oil, the lemon juice. They use all the basic ingredients. So I thought, oh, great. But it was the actual, the guy told me that.
26:32 Speaker 02 Even the olive oil, look.
26:34 Jen Cohen? Oh, wait, isn't that horrible?
26:36 Speaker 02 I'm gonna say no. And the reason I'm gonna say no is because, look, you have to get out of this idea. By you, I mean everyone, people listening. And I tell my clients, I tell my family, I tell everyone, like, you can't be so naive. Their job, the restaurant's job, food company's job is not to make you healthy.
26:51 Jen Cohen? I know.
26:51 Speaker 02 Their job is to make them profit. And I understand that, like, I'm a businessman. I am not expecting them to make me healthy. Okay, it's not going to happen. They are going to make as much profit for themselves as possible. So provided they're not overtly poisoning you and you don't know, never go back or give a bad review on Yelp or whatever, it's not gonna hurt their bottom line. What they want to do is lower their expenses, meaning using cheap ingredients. So when they say olive oil, sure, it's olive oil. Really, it's like pure extra virgin olive oil? No. Chances are it's a blend of olive oil and canola oil. I walked past a very famous chain, and I'm not gonna say who.
27:31 Jen Cohen? Who?
27:32 Speaker 02 Can I say who?
27:33 Jen Cohen? Why not?
27:34 Speaker 02 I'm gonna crush people's soul.
27:36 Jen Cohen? Okay, who?
27:37 Speaker 02 It's California Chicken Cafe.
27:38 Jen Cohen? Oh, I love that place.
27:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'm gonna ruin everyone's day. So I walked past, and by the way, I love California Chicken Cafe. And from time to time, I still get it. But they were my neighbors, so I had a gym literally right next to them. And I knew everyone and I walked past.
27:52 Jen Cohen? Tell me, tell me, I wanna know.
27:53 Speaker 02 I didn't wanna know this, but I had already. I walked past and I saw them loading the crates and it said olive oil. So they're loading their olive oil. And I looked and it's not even in fine print, but these are in big industrial crates that they get. And it said seventy five percent canola, twenty five percent olive oil. So it was an olive oil blend and it's three quarters canola oil, which is seed oil. Now, some people find this controversial. It's not. Take it from me, you shouldn't be eating seed oil, okay? Seed oil is the number one poison in the Western food supply. And it's the reason why Westerners are so fat and everyone else is not is because of seed oil. Straight up and down.
28:31 Jen Cohen? Why do you think that?
28:32 Speaker 02 Why do I think that seed oil is so bad?
28:34 Jen Cohen? Yeah.
28:34 Speaker 02 Because it literally triggers the inflammatory process that leads to fat storage.
28:38 Jen Cohen? Wow.
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30:35 Jen Cohen? So that's really interesting. So I that suit to me, there's a, there's a fine line between being, is that deception? Because people are going to California, and I'll tell you why. People are going to California Chicken Cafe, my, for me, it's called the Pita Grill. And I would go there all the time and I was really, I, I like, I thought I was like doing a healthy thing for myself. Like I thought like this is like, I'm going here because I believed it to be the healthier option. I didn't think that they would be using that ingredient like food coloring. Like to me, I think there is like a level of deception because people are going to these places because they think they're doing something healthy for themselves. I agree with you though. It is deception.
31:16 Jen Cohen? It's not the restaurant's job to make me healthy. I, I hear that and I, and I think it's like their job is, is for their bottom line and for their profit. Absolutely. But there is something to be said for these places that kind of position themselves as like healthy options and then they're doing things that are kind of not that healthy.
31:35 Speaker 02 They're all doing it, okay, like.
31:37 Jen Cohen? I know.
31:37 Speaker 02 I refuse. One of my life philosophies is I refuse to be a victim of any, in any way.
31:42 Jen Cohen? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
31:42 Speaker 02 If I feel any sense of victimhood in myself, I extinguish it immediately. And I see that with the, I see that with a lot of, a lot of people around food now. Oh, they're trying to poison us. Oh, big, big farmer.
31:55 Jen Cohen? No, you're right.
31:56 Speaker 02 Big food and they're all in it and like, all right, whatever. Of course they are, they're, it's a fucking business. Like honestly, it's a, sorry to.
32:03 Jen Cohen? No, you're right.
32:04 Speaker 02 Excuse my French. It's a fucking business. Grow up, like grow up, like this is not their job. It's your job. You feed your kids what they should be feeding. Go and get an apple. They're not poisoning the apples. I mean, I know they put wax and stuff on it, but go wash the apple. Give your kid an apple. Stop buying things in a package and expecting just because there's a picture of a child with a rainbow over the top, that it's healthy. Of course it's fucking not, it's a picture.
32:29 Jen Cohen? I agree, but what, this is where the fine line becomes, right? I believe that we all have to take ownership for our own health for sure, right? And I don't disagree with you what you're saying. I, I believe though, that if someone is under the impression that they are doing something healthy for you and they're not, they're not outwardly giving you the facts, how, we, we should all be our own investigative journalists. And like, like I didn't get to the bottom of what those ingredients were in that chicken skewer, or how they marinate the chicken, until I asked four different people. The first three people did not disclose the food coloring. And it's not like it's a recipe that they're like putting on the, on the door, saying, by the way, this is the rest. This is the ingredients.
33:13 Jen Cohen? Enter at your own risk.
33:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:15 Jen Cohen? Right? So I had to like literally go to like the fourth person who then at least gave me the, the truth. I don't think that's fair. Just like if at like the chicken cafe or wherever, they're saying to you, oh, you know what? We're using, we're using olive oil, but are they?
33:31 Speaker 02 I, I, I mean, it depends on what the law is.
33:33 Jen Cohen? There's a deception piece that I don't like.
33:36 Speaker 02 There is a deception piece.
33:36 Jen Cohen? I'm not saying you've got to like make me healthy. I'm not saying that the restaurant, it's beholden on them. No, of course it's my responsibility, but at least like provide fat, the facts to me and then let me make my own decision.
33:48 Speaker 02 Look, if I were the president, which I'll never be because I'm an immigrant, I'm not allowed to be president. But if I was president, I would pass a law. Stating like like saying that things like the olive oil thing would be illegal. If you say it's olive oil, it has to be hundred percent pure olive oil, but.
34:03 Jen Cohen? But I guess it's but then again, like not to get into the nuance, right?
34:06 Speaker 02 But technically.
34:08 Jen Cohen? No, but then again, it is technically all it is olive oil.
34:12 Speaker 02 It's a small percentage of olive oil, yeah.
34:14 Jen Cohen? But they they omitted the fact that there's also seed oil.
34:17 Speaker 02 It should at least be fifty one percent, but again, like.
34:20 Jen Cohen? It's omission.
34:20 Speaker 02 There are so it would it would so it will be years. I think we should start moving in that process. So I'm happy that we banned red, whatever the hell it is. But these companies are going to be as low as they can legally get away with. Or at least that makes sense for their business that you that's what you have to expect. You have to expect almost nothing from these companies because their job is to make profit.
34:42 Jen Cohen? Yeah.
34:42 Speaker 02 And we should change the law so that the low bar that we have, the extremely low bar, especially in America. In England, where I'm from, artificial food coloring has been banned for decades.
34:54 Jen Cohen? I know, by the way, Canada too. This is a US thing.
34:57 Speaker 02 Because it was linked to ADD.
34:58 Jen Cohen? Yeah, there's a lot, but the thing is like that's the whole thing right now in the US, right? Like things are in the US nutrition wise is not it. They are adding all this shit to the food.
35:07 Speaker 02 The bar is on the floor, the FDA. But what I will say is the FDA, I'm pretty sure, I think it's well known that they're a corrupt organization. So I would probably, instead of going after each individual food company, I would look more at the structure of the FDA. Because they their job is overtly not to make profit. Their job is to protect and serve and benefit the people. And so I don't think they're doing their job. So if I was to go after anyone, I wouldn't go after California Chicken Cafe. Because I don't think what they're doing is even illegal. I think I would go, A, it's more practical to go to the top and try to change the laws from the top. And B, they're saying.
35:48 Jen Cohen? They're trying to do that. That's that's like a big movement right now is that because, yeah, I agree with you. Like they're adding things in the in the US they're not. And it it has to come from a it has to be from much more of the topic. It can't nothing gets changed at the at the in the middle.
36:02 Speaker 02 McDonald's, I blame FDA.
36:04 Jen Cohen? Yeah, I understand that. Guys, now I'm like even more angry because I would love to have a chicken kebab and I'm not going to do it.
36:12 Speaker 02 I'll make you some chicken.
36:13 Jen Cohen? Okay, thank you. Well, but like I, like I said earlier, like I don't like to eat every meal out. But when I do go out, I like to know that I, I like to believe that I'm eating.
36:21 Speaker 02 Do your research. Yeah, do your research. That's what I would say like, fine. And again.
36:25 Jen Cohen? And stay away from, you said another big mistake is you think a, a big thing is staying away from seed oils because it's such an inflammatory.
36:33 Speaker 02 If I were to give someone one nutrition tip.
36:35 Jen Cohen? Yeah.
36:35 Speaker 02 You know, it's stay away from seed oils. Kind of thing. It's not just about fat. It's about, it's linked to everything. You know, it's linked, people say that it's, and this sounds so dramatic, but I, I believe it. It's, it's, it's as bad, if not worse than smoking. Like it's linked to every, because it's, because fats are part of, like fatty acids are part of every single cell in your body. They, they make up essentially the structure of your body. If your fatty acid profile is wrong, it makes sense that every single process in your body is going to be affected negatively by that. And seed oils are super high in omega sixes, um, which is a fatty acid that gets basically represented in every single cell in your body.
37:16 Speaker 02 So it can affect anything and everything and it's rampant in us. There's a reason we love fats and our body absorbs fats. We need fats, but if you have the wrong fats, they will, it will kill you. And if you have the right fats, it will do the opposite.
37:32 Jen Cohen? How dramatic. What a dramatic ending. So everyone stay away from seed oils and watch your portions.
37:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:40 Jen Cohen? Thank you. Have a great one, guys. Bye bye.
Previous Episode 423: Jason Chambers: Below Deck's Captain on Navigating Fame, Fatherhood, and Luxury Yachts Next Episode 425: Shannon Race: Secrets to Standing Out in Saturated Markets + Branding and Marketing Insights Page updated November 4, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
