Busting Nutrition Myths with Jessica Knurick

Are seed oils really that bad? Are people getting enough protein? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Paul Mecurio, & Gary O’Reilly cut through the noise on health myths, food misinformation, and the forces making it harder than ever to eat well with nutrition scientist, Jessica Knurick, PhD.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gary, you got another good one lined up.

• 0:01Gary O'Reilly?

  We do.

• 0:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On nutrition, not only the good, the bad, but also the ugly.

• 0:05Gary O'Reilly?

  I guarantee by the time we finish this, you're gonna be hungry.

• 0:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you gonna start eating kale after this? You put hot fudge on it, I will. A little whipped cream. Lot of whipped cream. Coming right up. StarTalk Nutrition Edition.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Special Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. And when you hear "special edition," you know who's to my right.

• 0:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Hello.

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hello, Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Hey, Neil.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I got with us Paul Mecurio. What's up? Good to see you again. Fresh off The Daily Show. Yeah, yeah. The Late Show and all that good stuff. Daily Show and The Late Show. Late Show counting down the minutes. Yeah, yeah, we're counting down. Okay, counting down. Yeah. So what have you cooked up today?

• 1:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, that's on the food scene. That's your fault.

• 1:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Alright, so America has long been struggling with its health and especially nutrition. But now it feels like it's even harder to navigate with viral food trends, Ozempic. It's never felt more complicated to make healthy choices. We're going to discuss, yes, we are, popular health myths and how to deal with those in power and how they are pushing misinformation. So Neil, if you would introduce our guest.

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you know what you need for that. You need a nutritionist.

• 1:38Gary O'Reilly?

  What a good idea.

• 1:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And over here, we value PhDs.

• 1:42Gary O'Reilly?

  We do.

• 1:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got a PhD nutritionist.

• 1:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Even better.

• 1:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you think of that? We've got with us Jessica Nurek. Jessica, welcome to StarTalk.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Thank you. Happy to be here.

• 1:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, so you're a professional nutritionist and you have a huge online following. Very important. So that makes you, I guess, an influencer.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  I suppose so.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. And because you are sharing your expertise with people who not only seek it because they don't know, they might seek it because they wonder if they're doing the right thing or not. And there's so many people in that situation. Of course, not only domestically, but surely around the world.

• 2:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 2:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It can't just be American folks who want to be healthy. So we're here to pick your brain. And find out what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong. So Gary led off by saying, you know, America, we're, we're kind of in a nutrition doldrums. But that begs the question, was there ever a time when we were healthier? I mean, I look at old ads for food and I look at things people were eating and movies and TV shows, none of that looks good. I think we have made some progress, haven't we?

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on what we mean by healthier, right? Because if you're, if we're talking about life expectancy, we're certainly doing as good as we've ever done. If you're talking about, you know, infectious diseases, we're doing as good as we've ever done, without the last year, maybe. And, but, but if you're talking-

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're talking about the, the effort to combat infectious diseases-

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Based on knowledge we've gleaned in recent years.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Yes, thank you. Not like, not getting infectious diseases, right. Combating infectious diseases. But if you look at lifestyle-related chronic disease, we're certainly in a place where the vast majority of Americans have at least one chronic health condition, something like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cardiometabolic disease. And, and a lot of that, again, is related to lifestyle. So things like your diet, your physical activity, your stress levels, your sleep levels. And so that's where we are kind of missing the mark in this country and, and we could be doing better.

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You used the term cardiometabolic. What, what would that be?

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Those are things like cardiovascular disease, so people having heart attacks, type 2 diabetes.

• 3:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so we heard that, but then you used cardiometabolic. What does that mean?

• 3:56Speaker 02

  I was just using the all-encompassing term for what I had already said.

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. Okay, got it, got it. Because we know cardiovascular-

• 4:03Paul Mecurio?

  She's very smart and you need to keep up.

• 4:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's shown off these words.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  Just like, things that have to do with your heart and your metabolism.

• 4:10Paul Mecurio?

  Thank you for dumbing it down for me.

• 4:13Gary O'Reilly?

  So when you, when you talk about we're in a better place, when you look at the numbers, our population is that much larger than it was 50 years ago, do the statistics, the percentages stack up equivalently or have we moved in a better direction?

• 4:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's relative. So the, the percentages are higher now. So people who have type 2 diabetes, significantly higher. People who are, have cardiometabolic- ...vascular disease, but you know, as I mentioned, we're living a lot longer now. And so part of chronic disease is it takes quite a few decades to to see chronic disease on average. And so the longer someone lives, the more likely they are to get a chronic disease.

• 4:48Paul Mecurio?

  What seems strange to me is that the advances in medical science and researchers have been in the last fifty, hundred years incredible. And yet, our lifestyle outpaces that, right? Like, yet still we have type two diabetes and these issues. It seems a little counterintuitive to me. I would think that, given how sophisticated we are scientifically, especially when it comes to nutrition, that we would sort of be able to sort of stem that tide a little bit.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, we have great medical advancements and medical technology that help people live longer with those conditions.

• 5:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I wanna, I wanna eat bad and just have medicine save me.

• 5:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that, that, that checks out, right?

• 5:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so there we are. What you've landed on is the quick fix solution, which is our GLP-1. So all I do, I pay, I find some money, I get my once, whatever it is.

• 5:39Paul Mecurio?

  Take a shot.

• 5:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Take a shot, take the tablet. When was the last time the quick fix was the solution? Or are we just kicking this can down the road?

• 5:48Speaker 02

  Well, I get, it depends on what you mean by the solution. If, if the solution is to live longer, a lot of these medications help us do that, help people to live longer. And so they are effective in that way. You know, if we're talking about prevention, we're, we're looking at more lifestyle related things. Things like your diet, things like your activity, your sleep, your stress. And that's where we would look at preventing these chronic diseases or at least mitigating them so that you wait ten more years until, until you get some sort of chronic health condition.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these sort of weight loss drugs that I guess came to us from diabetes treatment. Yeah, very fascinating secondary utility of those medicines. We have some benefit of, of track record for their use in the diabetic community. But now it's widespread for people just simply wanna lose weight.

• 6:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But they haven't been around for twenty years. How can we know the long-term effects of a miracle drug over a period longer than the time the drug has been around?

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, in, in humans, we don't have great long-term data, obviously, because it hasn't been out. Um, so, so you have to look at animal models that kind of can accelerate long-term trials.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, because mice don't live that long, so you get multiple generations out of them and see.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what have we found? Do they grow three heads?

• 7:03Paul Mecurio?

  They have a crazy lifestyle. They party a lot, a lot of drugs.

• 7:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What happens to the GLP mice?

• 7:09Paul Mecurio?

  A lot of smokers.

• 7:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Smoking mice.

• 7:11Paul Mecurio?

  It's very stressful to be a mouse.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What happens to them, you know, over the long-term effects on humans? We, I guess, we have to infer that, like you said, from these other animals. What have we learned?

• 7:20Speaker 02

  In order for a drug to come to market, it has to pass many different stages of clinical trial. It's very difficult. Over 90% of drugs fail in clinical trials. And so, in order for it to come to market, we know that it has proven its safety, right? It's shown its safety in these trials.

• 7:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Within some acceptable limits.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Within some acceptable limits. And I'm not, I'm not well-versed in what those limits are, or those trials. But, but that's how it came to market. And so, so there's a good estimate by scientists that, or a good assessment, that it's safe long-term. And there's obviously follow-up studies as well. And so, they'll be testing this and they'll be monitoring as, as time goes on.

• 7:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And also, today, we're testing on all kinds of people. I mean, there's a day they only tested on men, or on, you know, or white men, or black men, whatever. But now, can we feel better that the testing regimens better represent people of all types?

• 8:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, just in general. Yeah, I think, I think we're, we're getting there. I think you're right. For a long time, testing was just done in men on many things. And they just assumed that women were small men.

• 8:29Paul Mecurio?

  Wait, they're not? Exactly. Come on, why, why is people not, why are people keeping up on this stuff? I have a question about nutrition in the context of these drugs. So, is it quantity versus quality? In other words, you're losing weight, but does it address diet quality in the context of those drugs? What's hap, are people getting the right amounts of protein and fiber, etc., and nutrients? Or does that fall off the charts or not addressed in the context of using these drugs?

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, what the drug really does is it, it helps people to eat less, right? Because it kind of suppresses appetite a bit for people. And so, there's nothing inherent in that that says you have to choose high-quality foods now when you choose what foods to eat. But, there is, there is some understanding. I think when I have just, and this is just anecdotal, when I've talked to people on these drugs, it gets them into the mindset of eating more healthfully. And so, that's what they do. They'll opt for more health.

• 9:28Paul Mecurio?

  That was my next question is, does it? Or do we not have enough evidence yet? Does it rewire the brain? If I get off that drug, am I rewired going forward? Because it seems to me, okay, it doesn't make me want to eat more, but it's not sort of affecting the quality of what I'm eating. So it isn't, it isn't addressing the elephant in the room, which is the quality of our diet. And so isn't this sort of a panacea in some way, or a false hope that like, I'll take this, I'll be fine, I'll get off it and I'll continue to be fine? But that's not the case?

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Well, I would argue that probably the most important thing, if I had to choose the most important thing, is the amount of food that someone eats. And so I think that it is addressing.

• 10:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get your pie hole. Shut your pie hole.

• 10:11Paul Mecurio?

  Well, what does she know? What are you, a nutritionist? Oh, wait, okay, sorry. I guess you're right.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is addressing that, that aspect of it, which I think is probably one of the more important aspects. And so if, if someone can be on it, and then they, they kind of get a sense of what that feels like to be eating that amount of food. And also trying to, obviously, we always want people to improve their diet quality, but it is addressing kind of one of the more important things.

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I tweeted some years ago. I said, if a diet book were written by a physicist, it would be one sentence long. Okay? Consume food at a lower calorie rate than you burn it. That's it.

• 10:49Paul Mecurio?

  That's it.

• 10:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it. And then everyone was like, no, it's more complicated than that. No, it's not.

• 10:54Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 10:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If that happens, you will lose weight. And so now we have, we have a drug that fulfills the one sentence physicist diet book.

• 11:04Gary O'Reilly?

  But is it the too good to be true?

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let's get back to that. So I remember when I was in seventh grade, I wrote a, a paper on Ponce de Leon. And he was an explorer, I think it was Spanish, who came to the New World looking for the Fountain of Youth. And I remember thinking, I'm 12 years old, and I say, Was he an idiot? You think you just drink from some gush of water from the ground and then you live forever? He's gotta be an idiot. What's going on here? And then I got older and I realized people are always looking for the quick fix.

• 11:40Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 11:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's something endemic within us. And now I'm blaming him less for this urge now that I see it prevalent in our society and advertisement. This is the miracle, kale. This is the miracle, the miracle.

• 11:56Paul Mecurio?

  There's a pill to grow more hair, literally.

• 11:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So are we just so lazy? We will not accept the possibility that to be healthy requires a little more work than one magic solution. So could you just address people's urges to have instant fixes?

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that it really speaks to this idea that we see the wellness industry flourishing right now and supplements, right? Because people are just, they want something that is flashy, exciting, but also kind of easy to do, right? Taking a supplement, taking a medication is pretty easy. I think it's one of the more difficult things. You know, when I got into this field, I started really trying to understand what can we do to reduce risk of chronic disease? That was really my goal when I first started graduate school. And what I realized really quickly was we have actually a lot of great data on how to prevent and reduce risk of chronic disease. What we don't have is people actually adopting those behaviors. And so I think one of the things has to do with it's difficult to get people to adopt.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  You know, it's a difficult thing to do and to adopt healthful eating and to get eight hours of sleep a night and all of the things that we would say reduce risk of disease. But also more than that, you kind of have to look at the systems in our country. Because we have to look at are our systems set up for more people to succeed or for more people to fail? And a lot of times people are kind of swimming upstream, trying to make these healthful decisions. And so I think that plays into it too.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's against forces operating against their desires.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 13:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Advertising presumably as well.

• 13:30Paul Mecurio?

  Exactly. Can in the food science world, can you work on having kale taste like fried chicken? Because if you can, then I think we're gonna solve a lot.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  My food scientist colleagues are working on that.

• 13:40Paul Mecurio?

  I think my job is done here.

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get the scientist on it right now.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  They probably are.

• 13:46Paul Mecurio?

  In all seriousness, that's part of the quick fix, right? Like it is work, not just in terms of physical work, exercise, but like you literally have to sort of. Turn away from, they make a crookie, which is a croissant and a cookie combined, right?

• 14:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, that's evil.

• 14:01Paul Mecurio?

  It's amazing, though. Yes, it's called a crookie.

• 14:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, you're making this up?

• 14:05Paul Mecurio?

  No, there's a friend, there's, yeah.

• 14:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, now you want one?

• 14:08Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's in from Colorado. It hasn't crossed the Mississippi into the mountain time zone yet.

• 14:14Paul Mecurio?

  There's a French pastry shop in my neighborhood across, you're gonna come and I'm gonna get you a crookie. Okay?

• 14:30Speaker 04

  I'm Nicholas Costella and I'm a proud supporter of StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's unpack this and get into specifics. There's a lot of bad press on what's called ultra-processed foods, right? And I'm trying to understand, I've yet to hear anyone explain to me why ultra-processed foods would be bad for you. It's just declared. And even if it is bad for you, why is it bad for you? I'd like to know that, please.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I'd like a lot of different kinds of ultra-processed foods.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, so ultra-processed food, that definition, first of all, we don't have a regulatory definition for what that means. So I think the FDA is trying to establish some sort of definition, but in the science world, we do have a definition. It comes from the NOVA classification, which is a research group out of Brazil. And so if you ever see like research studies talking about ultra-processed food, it's most likely using that definition. And so it categorizes foods into four different foods. So there's unprocessed, minimally processed, processed, and ultra-processed. And the definition of ultra-processed is just simply, it includes an ingredient or a processing method that you don't have access to. So you can't replicate it in your kitchen.

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha. So what? So?

• 15:54Speaker 02

  So that's a huge variability of food, right? So that could be a Dorito chip, or that could be a yogurt, right? That's got a lot of protein and good nutrients in it. And so there's a lot of different foods within that category that nutritionally, we would say some are much better than others, right? Some are going to be really high in fat and salt and sugar, which makes a food really satiating and hyperpalatable and low in fiber. And so it's going to be really easy to overeat those. But others are going to be very nutrient dense within that category. And a lot of times, just adding a preservative that we don't have access to would make something ultra-processed in the scientific definition. And so the idea that all ultra-processed foods are bad for us is kind of more of like a moral argument.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  It's like you're moralizing food at that point.

• 16:41Paul Mecurio?

  But that is part of the problem is that for the average consumer who doesn't have time to drill down on this because they have family and work and six kids and blah, blah, blah. It's like it's it's become muddied in a way for people, right? And so almost that term is like a villainous term now. With your bread fiber, fiber and rich bread is not necessarily bad for you, but would fall into the category of ultra-processed.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:06Paul Mecurio?

  So how do you get the average consumer to differentiate between the very bad ultra-processed food and the not very bad ultra-processed food?

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I always try to just talk about like the nutrient quality of the food, right? So so look for foods that are higher in protein, higher in fiber, lower in added sugar, right? So so looking at those types of foods that that you can make better choices. Because a lot of the reason, the reason we have so many ultra-processed foods is because we have a food environment that relies on these prepackaged foods that have to travel far, that have to sit on shelves. And so, you know, we've gotten away in this country from like local foods quite a bit. And so so that's why, you know, up to by some estimates, 70% of our food environment are these ultra-processed foods. And so now, if you're telling people you shouldn't eat any ultra-processed foods, it just it just loses kind of the nutritional meaning of the term.

• 18:00Paul Mecurio?

  There are people, if it's natural, it's it's healthy. Well, arsenic is natural.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:06Paul Mecurio?

  No one's going, bro, you got to try this organic arsenic. Right, it's organic arsenic. Yes, oh, please, you don't want to go just regular arsenic.

• 18:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Stepping back from the arsenic for a moment.

• 18:15Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  For a moment.

• 18:17Gary O'Reilly?

  You go online, there is protein, protein, must have raw meat, this, this, that. Why all of a sudden has protein?

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It feels very faddish, actually.

• 18:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:27Gary O'Reilly?

  What's driven that? Is there a...

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Fad in nutrition? That never happens.

• 18:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly. So, is there, is there strength behind this? Or is this just, it's the next fashion statement, I'm wearing a suit made of a prime rib?

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and why, why is your field so fad susceptible?

• 18:44Speaker 02

  I think because we all eat at least three times a day. And so it's always on our mind, right? Like, not everyone's thinking about astrophysics, but people are always thinking...

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me? But, excuse me?

• 18:56Paul Mecurio?

  Wow.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  I mean, I have.

• 18:57Paul Mecurio?

  Minutes in and she's slamming the host.

• 18:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Blood drawn.

• 19:00Paul Mecurio?

  This is great.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  I know.

• 19:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, she's right, she's right. I mean...

• 19:04Paul Mecurio?

  You know, you need, you need a crookie, that was awesome.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because what I heard was that people who are on the GLP-1, it diminishes the food fog that we might live in. Where you're always thinking about, when is my next meal? What am I gonna have? And so, I, I agree.

• 19:20Gary O'Reilly?

  It diminishes appetite.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just the, the total immersion, especially in this country where there's no shortage of food everywhere.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That it's just, people probably, I will concede, think more about food than about astrophysics. Okay, so, so pick it up from there, go ahead.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, I mean, if, if you're constantly thinking about it, and food, by the way, is not just nutrition. That's how I think about it as a nutrition scientist. But, you know, it's also culture, and it's also how people show love. And it also, it's, it's integrated in our lives. And so, people are constantly thinking about it. And so I think, I think it's very susceptible to these, these fads because, particularly with social media, people like kind of scary claims, you know, things that are gonna be very eye-catching. And so, people clickbait. And so people will do that on social media. And it's of interest to people because they're thinking about food and they wanna be healthier. And so I think that that's why it's so susceptible.

• 20:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, pick up the protein angle now.

• 20:15Paul Mecurio?

  Well, in terms of that, studies show most people are getting adequate amounts of protein from red meat. And isn't this sort of more of a marketing story than anything else?

• 20:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think right now what we're seeing is a fad with protein. I think if you look at all of the data sets, you know, from NHANES and other data sets, we, it shows that most Americans on average are getting adequate amounts of protein. Some demographics-

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From red meat or anywhere else?

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's not this whole source of protein.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  From anywhere else and probably over consuming red meat, to be honest.

• 20:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Is this driven by the manosphere and the bros who just want to bulk up, make the muscle happen?

• 20:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think a large part of it on social media is certainly driven by, you know, this like carnivore movement and, and yes, the manosphere, as you say. I, I think also you have to think about in terms of protein, um, what, what types of protein you're getting. And so, and there's certain demographics that are, are maybe a bit deficient in protein. You know, older adults, we tend to see could use a bit more protein. People recovering from injuries or surgery could use a bit more protein.

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And under informed vegetarians too.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Under informed, like, yes, because if you're, if you're going to follow like a vegan diet, it take, you certainly can get enough protein and adequate protein, but, but it takes a bit more like knowledge in terms of what sources you're getting that food from. And so, so those, those specific demographics we're looking at, but on average, Americans get adequate protein.

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So then the question, touching the manosphere, if necessary, there's what the nutritionists would say is the right amount of protein. If I give myself more than that, what happens to my body?

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Well, it depends how much. Obviously, anything, if you're consuming, over consuming anything, it can be detrimental, but most people aren't over consuming protein and could probably, you know, they just raised the like recommended amount of protein in the latest dietary guidelines. And that falls in line with, with research. Like there's, there's not a huge like concern there for the average American, but it is a bit higher than what we've recommended.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but if, if you get more, does that make my muscles bigger? I mean, what, what, what are people getting out of, out of exceeding the recommended dose of protein in a day? What, what are they getting out of it?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  It depends on the rest of your diet, but they're just over consuming calories at that point. So they're not, there's a, there's a limit to what-

• 22:29Gary O'Reilly?

  If you're doing resistance training-

• 22:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And my muscles have to rebuild.

• 22:34Paul Mecurio?

  That's right.

• 22:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I need more protein than your normal amount in order to bulk up.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're, if you're physically active and you're doing a lot of weightlifting, you, you are probably going to want a bit more protein.

• 22:45Paul Mecurio?

  Physically active, picking up a remote control. I'm just curious.

• 22:49Gary O'Reilly?

  It can be.

• 22:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It can be.

• 22:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Depends how many times you pick it up.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It depends on how much your remote control weighs.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  That would probably not necessitate more protein though.

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you glued your remote control to the barbell, yeah.

• 23:00Paul Mecurio?

  Which I have.

• 23:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Makes sense. All right, going back into something you just said a little while ago, about the layers of different processed and ultra-processed foods. Are we into that food pyramid? Because I thought like the pharaohs, we'd got rid of that some time ago. But it's back? What sort of, is it inverted?

• 23:19Paul Mecurio?

  And it's been flipped.

• 23:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, the pharaohs had a food pyramid? I didn't know. Oh, they just had pyramids.

• 23:24Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I heard someone call the new pyramid a food tornado.

• 23:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, okay. So they flipped it.

• 23:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I grew up, there was no food pyramid. That's how old I am. Then they put in a food pyramid.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I found it confusing because the top of a pyramid, that's the pinnacle.

• 23:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 23:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there was like red meat at the top of their pyramid. And at the bottom, I don't care about the bottom of a pyramid, that was oats and grains and things. So the message to me felt a little weird.

• 23:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Sponsored by the cattle farmers.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By, by how I look at a pyramid, that food pyramid versus how I think about pyramids. So there's a new pyramid today? When did that come out? Nobody told me.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the, it's the dietary guideline. So the pyramid is the visual representation of the guidelines. So the first food pyramid came out in the early 90s, which is funny that you say that because I, I was a, in elementary school when the food pyramid was out. And so that's, that makes sense to me as a pyramid, that the smallest amounts eat sparingly because that's how I learned it.

• 24:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The most cherished amount right at the top. I have a completely different sense of it.

• 24:26Paul Mecurio?

  And he dresses as a pharaoh when he eats, which is a totally weird thing when you go out to dinner with him. It's very awkward, but.

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Walk like an Egyptian.

• 24:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh no, you did the dance.

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I had to do it. Does it in every restaurant.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we have dietary guidelines that come out every five years. Um, that's mandated. It's a group of scientists that get together. They work on a scientific report for two years and then they, um, they present it to US, the USDA and HHS. And then we have new dietary guidelines that come out and the.

• 24:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  USDA, US Department of Agriculture.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Health and Human Services.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Yes. So those two departments kind of work on it together. And there's always a visual representation of the dietary guidelines. The original one was the food pyramid. In 2005, that changed to something called my pyramid that no one knows about. But it was a very confusing pyramid, even more confusing than the first one. Um, and then in 2011, the, under the Obama administration, we got my plate. And so that was a plate that had half your, uh, half your plate, fruits and vegetables, a grains group, a protein group, and then milk.

• 25:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so it's a, that kind of feels very doable.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  It feels intuitive because that's how you eat.

• 25:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Yes. And, and as a, as someone who taught nutrition.

• 25:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a pie chart.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  It's easy to teach.

• 25:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Except it's not a pie. It's just a chart. Yeah, don't say pie.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  It's fruits and vegetables.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fruit and vegetable pie.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  So.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brussels sprouts.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  Sounds delicious.

• 25:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh man.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  So we've had that since 2011.

• 25:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that seems like a sensible.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  It was sensible. It was quite sensible.

• 25:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what was that? Tell me. How were those angles?

• 25:56Speaker 02

  It was half fruits and vegetables and then a quarter grains, a quarter protein, and then dairy, and then a fork. That was, that was the visual representation. So we had that.

• 26:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dairy, dairy was separate from this circle?

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was like a cup of milk.

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A cup of milk. Okay.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  It just kind of showed.

• 26:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dairy lobby got in there. Yeah, okay.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  Yes, it did. And, and so again, the, this is a visual representation of the dietary guidelines. So you have dietary guidelines.

• 26:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And feels very, very easily interpretable.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Yes. And, and as someone who taught nutrition, it was easy to teach, right? To, to kind of show you a plate. It was intuitive for people. So in 2026, the new dietary guidelines came out and they changed that. So we no longer use my plate this year. And now we have a reverse pyramid. So the top is the biggest part and the bottom is the smallest part.

• 26:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 26:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what's, what's happening there?

• 26:47Speaker 02

  And so what they did, it's very interesting. If you go and you read the dietary guidelines, the actual guidelines themselves aren't all that different than our previous version of the dietary guidelines, which had my plate as the visual. And so they say to get a variety of proteins from plant and animal sources, they keep saturated fat to less than 10% of calories, they say to limit added sugar. So a lot of very similar things, but the visual representation is very different, right? And so if you compare like my plate to the new pyramid, the new pyramid really only shows animal proteins. I mean, they have like, if you look at it, they have a couple of beans, I think, on the, it's just kind of a bunch of foods on the pyramid. And animal proteins are very like, very visible

• 27:30Speaker 02

  at the very top, and then also vegetables at the top.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's the top of an inverted pyramid.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  It's the top of an inverted pyramid.

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now you're talking about the widest part of the pyramid.

• 27:39Paul Mecurio?

  But they're promoting much more animal protein over plant-based, and it sort of, it almost makes it feel like what they're telling you is that just go with natural anti-processing, because nothing says healthy like steak and butter every day, right? Like, so that's where the confusion comes in.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, so many of the people who worked on these dietary guidelines have conflicts of interest with the beef or dairy industry, which is interesting.

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wouldn't that have been true before?

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, so if you look before, this is kind of a narrative that has kind of always been present, like conflicts of interest with different industries, many different industries. But if you look at the previous scientific committee who worked on the dietary guidelines, they actually had very few conflicts of interest.

• 28:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I have a question. Who selects the scientists who are on these committees who make these recommendations?

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, so usually it's the current administration, and again, it's the USDA and HHS who kind of work on this together. So a committee of, it's about 20 scientists are usually chosen, and they're like-

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why don't scientists choose themselves? Why is it connected into government agencies?

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Because they're government guidelines that will come out. And so it is, it's an independent group that's chosen. And then they work, again, for like, two years on a report, on a scientific report. So they look at all global nutrition science, and then they formulate kind of the scientific report that is meant to inform the dietary guidelines.

• 29:02Paul Mecurio?

  And those people on that panel are all roided up guys who only eat meat.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  No, not traditionally.

• 29:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but any bias among those scientists, it becomes a bias in the final recommendations, correct?

• 29:14Speaker 02

  I mean, I suppose if there is bias, the idea is that it's independent, that they're just looking at the science.

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Has that been maintained going forward?

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the scientific report is usually pretty unbiased. That comes out, and but then what happens?

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then it has to become policy.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  Then it has to become policy. Then it has to become the actual guidelines.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what's happened lately?

• 29:36Speaker 02

  So between, well, this is traditionally how it's always worked. So the scientific committee will submit the report, and then there's this period of time, usually like a year, where they will take the scientific report and then they will create the dietary guidelines. And in between those two things happening, there's usually a lot of lobbying that happens by the beef and dairy industry and the corporate food industry. And so they sometimes will water down language. I don't think there's a lot of examples where they actually completely changed the guidelines previously. It's more like, the foods that they tell you to eat, they'll talk in our language that we speak, like foods, and then the foods they tell you not to eat, they'll change it to like nutrients that we don't really think about, right? So like, eat less saturated fat, instead of eat less meat. Those types of things. So some of that can happen.

• 30:21Paul Mecurio?

  But then it's promoting foods that are high in saturated fat. So this is where, like, it puts a lot of focus on what to avoid, but not much clarity in what to prioritize, which is great, because nothing helps people eat better than being stressed out about what you eat. You just end up standing over the sink, stress eating, because I'm not sure if this, I should be, I need a crookie. Like, you know?

• 30:45Speaker 02

  Well, in these guidelines, the problem with these guidelines right now is that, as you say, meat is very present on the visual representation, and in the lexicon, and how we're talking about it. And when you look at the actual guidelines, they actually keep the recommendation to keep saturated fat less than 10%. And it's virtually impossible to eat most of your protein from animal meats and keep saturated fat less than 10%. So the visual representation is very confusing, because it's very difficult, even as a nutrition professional, to devise a diet that actually follows all of those.

• 31:18Paul Mecurio?

  That confusion is intentional. Yeah. So. It's a misdirectional. So what is going on there? Why would they intentionally want to confuse people on that issue?

• 31:29Speaker 02

  I mean, I can only hypothesize that it's because if you look at the scientific evidence, you look at global nutrition research, there's no scientific rationale for increasing to recommend more saturated fat. The recommendation of less than 10% is globally recommended and that's in line with scientific evidence.

• 31:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, it's 10% of your calories?

• 31:51Speaker 02

  10% of total calories. But they want to be promoting more meat, right? I mean, some of the people leading our agencies have identified as carnivore people and so that it's kind of an ideology. So it's ideology overriding scientific evidence, essentially.

• 32:07Paul Mecurio?

  And maybe the lobby, the strength of the lobby.

• 32:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think now that you've mentioned, I have seen this inverted pyramid and I didn't know what to make of it. I mean, it's just, it looked like just shelves.

• 32:20Paul Mecurio?

  Didn't you try to eat it because you thought it was a piece of pie?

• 32:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it just looked like shelving, right? And it looked like a picture with food on shelves.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Well, that was the original pyramid. The original pyramid.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The inverted one, I feel the same way.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  The inverted one is just a bunch of foods thrown on, like on clip art.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, oh, yes, yes, clip art.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  On a triangle.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it's clip art. So I don't, you know, I can't.

• 32:44Gary O'Reilly?

  They've invested so much time and effort in there, haven't they? Just clip art.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  I was so confused because it really looks like 1990s clip art.

• 32:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, God.

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I just, I like the pie plate, even though it's not a pie. Only because there's still a little bit of math in there because you're communicating angular fractions on a circle.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 33:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whereas just clip art pastiched onto a surface.

• 33:28Gary O'Reilly?

  We've discussed what can and cannot and maybe the biases and the carnivores are ruling the earth. What about the police lineup and the villains? Who's in this lineup? I'll start you off with seed oils.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 33:40Gary O'Reilly?

  And we'll kind of go from there.

• 33:41Paul Mecurio?

  No, don't get me going about seed oils.

• 33:43Gary O'Reilly?

  There we go. Maybe that would be a trigger.

• 33:45Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, hold me back.

• 33:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so if we just get specific here, that'd be fun to know.

• 33:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What the latest thinking is on all of this.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, seed oils are quite villainized right now.

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's an example of a seed oil?

• 33:56Speaker 02

  A seed oil are oils that come from seeds. Sunflower oil, safflower oil.

• 34:00Paul Mecurio?

  Canola.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  Canola oil, which is rape seed oil. Those types of oils are polyunsaturated fatty acids.

• 34:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is this sesame oil?

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, sesame oil.

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like toasted sesame oil, which I put on my fried rice? I can't use... So what's wrong with that?

• 34:13Speaker 02

  There's nothing...

• 34:14Paul Mecurio?

  Well, you put toasted sesame oil?

• 34:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you have to, as a last dressing on top.

• 34:18Paul Mecurio?

  Why don't you bring some in?

• 34:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tell me.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  Those are seed oils.

• 34:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What has been the thinking about seed oils?

• 34:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, so in nutrition science, the thinking has been that they're polyunsaturated fatty acids and they're healthful oils to include in your diet. So there's three different types of fatty acids that we eat. So you have saturated fats.

• 34:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  If you let bacon grease sit, it hardens, right? Because usually animal fats are saturated fats.

• 34:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, got it.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  So they're hard at room temperature.

• 34:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's saturated fat.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  And you have monounsaturated fats. Those are things like avocados. Avocado oil, olive oil. Those are monounsaturated fats. And then you have polyunsaturated fats. And that chemically just means there's multiple places where you're missing a bond, for a hydrogen bond.

• 35:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and what's an example of that?

• 35:04Speaker 02

  Polyunsaturated would be seed oils.

• 35:06Paul Mecurio?

  So regarding the seed oil, what is sort of the knock on it? And is there data that backs that up?

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, so in nutrition science, we have pretty strong data to show, again, global nutrition science data, to show that diets that are relatively high in polyunsaturated fatty acids to saturated fats, so you're eating more monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids and less saturated fats, are heart healthy, are more healthful dietary patterns. And we see this in longitudinal epidemiological studies.

• 35:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So longitudinal is across populations?

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, so when you're looking, well, when you're looking at populations, like large populations over time, and you're looking at their dietary eating patterns, and then you're looking at health outcomes. That's what we tend to see. We see this in studies that replace saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats or monounsaturated fats. We see that improvement in health outcomes.

• 36:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything you said sounds positive. So why would there be a resistance to seed oils?

• 36:07Speaker 02

  There tends to be this thing in nutrition where, and the way that misinformation spreads really quickly, is they take a mechanism of action and then they say that that's going to happen in a human model, which we know that that's not really the case. Most mechanisms, most hypotheses based off of mechanisms don't actually end up doing what we think they're going to do.

• 36:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these are people who say that these are bad for you?

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's a list of what's bad for you that they would claim?

• 36:34Speaker 02

  So seed oils are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, linoleic acid, alpha-linoleic acid. Linoleic acid converts to something called arachidonic acid. And arachidonic acid can be inflammatory. They can have pro-inflammatory markers. And so this is where this comes from. But the problem is, is that when you look at the conversion of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid, it doesn't convert effectively at all in the human body. It's less than 1%, usually closer to 0.1% conversion. And so if you're just looking at that conversion and saying, well, this can convert to this and this can cause inflammation, that's where that comes from. And it sounds sciency and it sounds like they know what they're talking about, except for when you actually look at it in a human, it doesn't pan out.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  And we actually see the exact opposite, which happens all the time in science.

• 37:21Paul Mecurio?

  But what is the motivation for doing that? For taking that leap to push people to think a certain way about something when the data shows otherwise? And I know I'm asking you to sort of read tea leaves here, but you're the expert.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think that it has to do with this anti-science movement that we're living in right now. I think it speaks to this idea of like, oh, the scientists are wrong. The government is wrong. They're lying to us because seed oils have been recommended because they're polyunsaturated fats and the science shows that they're quite healthful.

• 37:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it means you have counterparts online who would also be judged as influencers, who people are listening to in this regard. So I now know nothing about anything and I see you over here and

• 38:10Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, because if you got a ring light, then you know everything.

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the inflammation people over here, how am I going to decide?

• 38:17Speaker 02

  It's a good question, and I think as scientists, we've been failing that we've been losing that war, so to speak, because we haven't been going to spaces where people are to bring them information. You know, for a long time, it's been quite frowned upon to go to social media or spaces where people are and if you're an academic or if you're a scientist.

• 38:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  And you know, I think that's changing now because we're seeing how important it is. But I think we need more of it, and so, you know, we need more people to go and kind of explain the science. Because I'll be honest, even I, when I first got into this field, because this has been a narrative for a very long time, that like seed oils are unhealthy. And so I just assumed that they were. I was like, yeah, seed oils are unhealthy. And then I learned kind of the science behind it and what the evidence actually shows, and I changed my mind and realized that they're not actually unhealthy. But a part of that comes from this idea that seed oils are cheap and they're flavorless relatively. And so they're in a lot of these low nutrient ultra-processed foods. That's the oil that these food companies are putting, are using to put into all of these foods. And so we do tend to overconsume these oils.

• 39:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So some guilt by association there.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  I believe so, because it's very easy to kind of villainize them because they're in all of these foods that we would recommend people to consume less of, right? But which is a very different way to consume them than if you're just doing what my mother-in-law does, who's from Romania, who just uses, you know, corn oil or seed oils in her stir fries, right? Or whatever food she's cooking, which we would argue is a healthful way to use those oils.

• 39:48Paul Mecurio?

  But you know, you could lead a horse to water, right? In terms of, we make the argument here, educate people. But do they want to be educated on some level? Have they shut down? Because there's a movement out there, like canola oil is like uranium. Meanwhile, these same people are eating deep-fried cheeseburgers wrapped in donuts. And I know because I had six of them on the way here. You know what I mean? Like, it becomes a larger question, I guess, beyond your expertise of just anybody's. It's like, what's going on in our society where people are just shutting down on full explanations on things?

• 40:23Speaker 02

  I think that we have all, we all kind of understand that we have an issue in our country with chronic disease, that we see chronic disease rates increasing, and we see more than half the country having some sort of chronic disease. And so, we all kind of understand the issue. And I think, when you can point to something like seed oils, then I think that that's easy for people to kind of understand. And they're like, yes, let's get the seed oils out, and it's an easy swap, right? So, if you tell somebody, we can switch seed oils out and put beef tallow in, and you can still eat fast food french fries and be fine, that's an easier sell for people than saying, hey, we should probably eat less french fries. And it doesn't really matter the fat.

• 41:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Is this the same thing with food dyes? They're not really creating chronic disease. There's other things that are doing that, but there's a war on food dyes. I mean, probably not a great idea to give your child lots of bright, colorful candy. And because as a parent, you're probably not going to like the results. But I just think, are the attacks on certain food groups or supplements just misguided, when there should be other areas that need to be focused upon?

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think food dyes is a really good other example. So, these synthetic food dyes that we have, we have five of them that are really prevalent in the food supply. So, red 40, blue 1, blue 2, yellow 5, and yellow 6. Those are the five. They've all been deemed safe by the FDA. They've all been deemed safe by EFSA in the European Union. They've all been deemed safe in Australia. They've all been deemed safe in Canada. I think that's a big misconception, and that might come as a surprise to some people, because there's a lot of narrative out on social media that they, that other countries have banned them.

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are other foods that are touted, and as a scientist, I tilt my head and I say, huh? You know, nowadays, you know you're earning too much money when on your shelf you have four different kinds of salt.

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what does nutritionist say about the various kinds of salt that are available? Because, you know, if a chemist would say sodium chloride, but a nutritionist would have to say something about the color and the Himalayan air in which it was crystallized.

• 42:30Paul Mecurio?

  It was brought down a mountain by sheep.

• 42:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yes, yes.

• 42:33Paul Mecurio?

  At 2:00 in the morning.

• 42:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or alpacas.

• 42:35Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 42:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I don't think there's sheep in the Himalayas.

• 42:38Paul Mecurio?

  Just play along, buddy. You can't just play along, can you?

• 42:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get the species of animal right for the part of the world.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, salt is salt, right? So, salt is going to enact the same things in your body as any kind of salt. So, pink Himalayan sea salt or sodium chloride, the white iodized salt. I think where a lot of these, like, new salts come from is this idea, because we fortify salt in our country with iodine and to help, you know, reduce risk of goiters, which has been extremely effective, an extremely effective public health kind of movement.

• 43:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, there's some health kick movements that are just based on belief systems rather than on scientific evidence, it sounds?

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Many, yeah, many on social media are based on belief systems.

• 43:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Many.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Or fallacies, like the naturalistic fallacy.

• 43:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 43:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Maybe like raw milk or something like that.

• 43:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what about the raw movement?

• 43:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 43:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell me about raw milk.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think this, again, kind of is this idea that natural is better, right? So, milk comes naturally raw.

• 43:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming out of the udder, I would suspect.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 43:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's processed by mammary glands.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  Correct. I also learned that there's a misconception, it's cool to have the social media following that I have because I can interact with a lot of people, and so I found that there was a big misconception of what pasteurization is. Many people thought that we were adding chemicals to milk in the pasteurization process, and they didn't realize that it's literally just heating milk.

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are people who didn't pay attention in middle school when you learn about this.

• 44:07Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, I can't imagine why they would get bored by pasteurization at the age of 12, but...

• 44:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's interesting. They thought it's an additive.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I made a video about how it's just, you know, there's a couple of types of pasteurizing, but the most common one is is heating milk to about 165 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds and then rapidly cooling it. And that's it.

• 44:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's the temperature of most people's morning coffee.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Right, not even boiling, right?

• 44:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not even.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so it and it kills pathogens and it makes your milk safer. And it doesn't meaningfully change the nutritional content of the milk. And so, you know, I think when people learned this, they they some people were more accepting of pasteurization. So again, knowledge is power, right?

• 44:48Paul Mecurio?

  So when they're advocating raw milk is more natural, are they really saying they're accepting a higher risk of known pathogens for the benefit that hasn't been clearly demonstrated in data yet?

• 44:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that's

• 45:00Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 45:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's correct fact, true fact, chew dat.

• 45:03Paul Mecurio?

  And how do you?

• 45:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta hear you say that. Say chew dat.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Chew dat.

• 45:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was good.

• 45:09Paul Mecurio?

  That was awesome.

• 45:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was, like you said that before, that was that was not a Colorado chew dat. My girl's been up in the hood a few times.

• 45:18Paul Mecurio?

  She has another side to her.

• 45:19Gary O'Reilly?

  So if they believe in this raw milk thing, it just sounds like a herd looking for a shepherd.

• 45:24Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. I mean, they say they say it's ruining milk. Yeah, well, I mean, but there are pathogens. It's ruining milk like the way the, you know, 19th century tradition of dying from E. coli got ruined. Like, that's what you want. You want to sort of eliminate those problems, right?

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, this is kind of a larger issue of what we're seeing right now in terms of like attacks on public health interventions that have that we know have worked and and we forget the years before the public health interventions were implemented.

• 45:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it because it's so effective, it's a victim of its own success?

• 45:54Speaker 02

  It's a victim of its own success, just like vaccines, just like food fortification, just like pasteurization.

• 46:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what do we do about this? Because there are people who turn to government for their guidance more than they might turn to scientists. Or even so, there might be people who turn to online scientists who are either charlatans or are lone wolves in their view relative to scientific consensus. In your attempts, efforts to reach people.

• 46:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are they responsive when you say this is the scientific consensus? Because I know some people say it's not the consensus. Is this one person who says the consensus is wrong, they must be right? How do you, because if you interact with your followers, where are they before they arrive at your corner of the block?

• 46:42Speaker 02

  I think a lot of people arrive confused because they hear one person saying one thing, another person saying another thing.

• 46:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even with pedigree, that person might even have pedigree.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, which makes it more insidious and more dangerous because then, you know, they have that perceived authority. And so what I've tried to do and what I've realized is a lot of people don't know what scientific consensus means. And so trying to explain the difference between just me telling you, don't, don't listen to me because I'm telling you and I have a PhD. Like, I'm going to give you information and then you go look if that's actually accurate. And I'll give you the places to go look and, and understanding what scientific consensus is. So in nutrition especially, because nutrition science is like a baby science. And so, you know, relative to other sciences out there. And so a study can come out and it can say something completely different than, than what the consensus says. But that's a single study. And so if you just cherry pick that study, right?

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Which people, that, that's a big thing, cherry picking studies. You take that one study and you say-

• 47:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Especially if it resonates with a pre-existing leaning that you have. Confirm a bias.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Yes, then, then you're like, that study says this. But what do the 72 other studies say that have also looked at this question? And have, and are kind of going in this direction? That's an outlier study, right? So we have to look at everything together and that's what consensus does. So when you look at some of these medical organizations or these scientific organizations, that's what they're looking at. They're looking at the thousand studies that have been published in this area, not just one. And then one new study may be published and it may be very interesting and it may lead us down another path. But that one study is not going to refute consensus unless we build upon that and we see more and more studies come out.

• 48:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Are you finding that this guided discovery approach for an audience is better than, you're wrong?

• 48:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, yeah. I, I don't think that people respond well to your wrong, traditionally.

• 48:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I posted a little explainer video attempting, however feebly, to guide people how, when and where they can find- Objectively true information on the internet and or the have the highest chance of it being objectively true. And one of them was websites that are either academic, so dot edu or a dot org, provided it's not a lobbying group, tend to have more reliable information than just somebody's fly by night.

• 49:00Speaker 02

  Blog.

• 49:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Blog. And at the time, this was like days before things changed, I said, dot G O V sites tend to be honest and accurate.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then like a week later, the C D C changed their vaccine guidelines on their website. And it was like, damn. What was what's and so what what's a person to do at this point?

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Other than just tune into you, but maybe that's all they should do. That.

• 49:33Paul Mecurio?

  That's it.

• 49:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  Just follow me.

• 49:36Gary O'Reilly?

  You landed there.

• 49:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Landed there.

• 49:38Paul Mecurio?

  I'm going to I'm going to make a motion that we get rid of the C D C and replace it with you.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Don't do that. But, um, yeah, I think we're living in a really tough time right now when we're seeing medical organizations combat what the C D C is saying, which we never, which never happens.

• 49:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Never, ever.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  Like, I think people need to really understand how unprecedented that is. Um, and so what I would recommend is kind of look at global scientific consensus. So look at kind of these global organizations, look at these medical organizations, um, you know, like the A A P, which is the American Academy of Pediatrics, um, or or A C O G, which is for gynecology, gynecologists and obstetrics. Um, look at these different medical organizations, see what they're putting out, um, and which is difficult when you're just one person to kind of like go to all these different areas. So I understand that that that's it's not the greatest kind of solution at this time, but we are seeing.

• 50:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There may be no other path.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  We are seeing misinformation coming out of our government websites right now.

• 50:33Gary O'Reilly?

  This goes back to someone wanting the quick fix. They want a one stop shop. Give me all the solutions.

• 50:37Paul Mecurio?

  Well, that's the thing.

• 50:38Gary O'Reilly?

  And that's how people are preying on it.

• 50:39Paul Mecurio?

  The simplicity of it is dangerous, right? If you take a 30,000 foot view of the nutrition discussion, it's let's go back to the old days. Let's do red meat and raw milk and not processed foods. Well, you know, the old days, you died at 42.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 50:56Paul Mecurio?

  So maybe we rethink that a little bit.

• 50:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 50:58Paul Mecurio?

  And and that's where people sort of miss that step, I think.

• 51:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I kind of felt the same way about the paleo diet. You know, let's eat the way cavemen did. Right. Yeah, and die at thirty, you know. Really? With a spear in your back?

• 51:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doing bad art on a wall? You know, that's not good art. It's a guy who's a caveman who drew something and it's not good. Can I share with you my own nutrition guideline?

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 51:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here we go. I eat whatever the hell I want and I exercise for health. And if I judge that my vitamins were not quite complete that day, I'll take a vitamin supplement. That's how I live, because I like food. How do you judge if your vitamins sup- Oh, I know, I know vitamin contents of all the foods. Oh, okay. I'm very knowledgeable. He's a scientist. I'm very- You literally read, little read it? No, I read nutritional labels, you know, protein, carbohydrates, fat, and I know how my metabolism does it. But I eat for pleasure and I exercise for health. And which of these two, like, I know you'll probably say both, but I know when I'm exercising, oh my gosh, I'm king of the world. I never feel that way after I eat kale.

• 52:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anti-kale lobby. I'm being honest with you. But you do after Cheetos. Oh, yeah. Oh, Cheetos? The Cheeto high, nothing like it. So, no, whatever I just told you notwithstanding, what's your advice going forward here?

• 52:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, exercise is great, so keep exercising. Um, I, I think that it's really important to understand in nutrition science that the, the basis of nutrition science, like, the basis of what we would explain to you as a, as a healthful dietary eating pattern, um, is pretty unchanged for, over the last many decades. And so, for, for how much we always are like, oh, nutrition's so confusing, it's always changing. It's actually not, just the discourse about it is constantly changing because people are trying to manipulate the narrative. And so, you know, if you're thinking about a healthy dietary eating pattern, center your diet on plants, right, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, um, get a variety of protein from animal and plant-based sources, eat as many kind of like whole nutrient-dense foods as possible,

• 53:03Speaker 02

  and, and limit kind of these low-nutrient ultra-processed foods. But again, there's some variability in that definition. And so, that's why I kind of say low-nutrient ultra-processed foods. Kind of, you know, understand that there's not a lot, all the sensational claims about nutrition, it's usually someone who's trying to sell you something on the back end of those sensational claims.

• 53:23Paul Mecurio?

  There you go.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  And so if you can kind of avoid getting down that path, so like if a video starts and says, are you poisoning your kids?

• 53:30Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  That's not going to be good information. That person is not going to give you-

• 53:34Paul Mecurio?

  I'm selling liver enhancement pills on my website.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  There is going to be a list of, of supplements to sell you in the link in the bio, almost, almost certainly. Right? And so just kind of like, look for those, look for those things that people are doing on social media to kind of get your attention and then sell you something on the back end. And understand that from a nutrition perspective, it's pretty boring, it's pretty, like not that complex of, of what we would say is, is a healthful dietary eating pattern.

• 53:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how do we find you online?

• 54:00Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm on Instagram and-

• 54:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that your biggest exposure to your following?

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, Instagram, yeah.

• 54:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you have a Substack?

• 54:07Speaker 02

  And I have a Substack that I publish a couple times a week.

• 54:09Paul Mecurio?

  And I don't know if you, I feel like we bonded. Could I get a free nutrition plan from you? Like, I don't want to be charged.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Sure. Eat more fruits and vegetables.

• 54:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 54:19Paul Mecurio?

  All right.

• 54:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's free.

• 54:21Paul Mecurio?

  Pretty much it. You've got what you paid for.

• 54:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when is your Substack becoming a book?

• 54:26Speaker 02

  Um, it's a ways out yet, so, um, the hope is, uh, early 2027.

• 54:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My gosh, all right, we'll look for you. And maybe get your back.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll talk about the book.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  That'd be great, yeah.

• 54:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 54:39Paul Mecurio?

  Maybe bring a little food next time. A little snack for us.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  Didn't you tell me I brought Twinkies? You started this, I say.

• 54:44Paul Mecurio?

  You're sounding bitter now, after your free food plan. Well, I got my free nutrition plan.

• 54:49Speaker 02

  And a pizza, a pepperoni pizza?

• 54:51Paul Mecurio?

  You're right.

• 54:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Me and pepperoni go way back. So, thank you for joining us here on StarTalk.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 54:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And enlightening our StarTalk special edition audience. Gary, always good to have you. And Paul, always good to have you. And you have the title Baron.

• 55:06Paul Mecurio?

  Yes, I was knighted in this room.

• 55:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I have to, we have to work on that.

• 55:10Paul Mecurio?

  Yes, please.

• 55:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll get that going.

• 55:12Paul Mecurio?

  I don't see a red carpet anywhere, it's very upsetting.

• 55:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's fine. All right, this has been StarTalk Special Edition, uh, the Nutrition Edition.

• 55:20Paul Mecurio?

  Ooh.

• 55:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See what I did there?

• 55:22Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 55:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that was clever.

• 55:24Paul Mecurio?

  Rolls right off the tongue.

• 55:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until next time, Neil deGrasse Tyson here, keep looking up.