Finding Reliable Scientific Information

Do you want to find a stress-free way to buy your next car? Start at CarMax and shop your way. And if you want to browse with confidence, get pre-qualified online with no impact on your credit score and shop cars within your budget. From luxury cars to family rides. Carmax has options for almost every price range, including more than $25,000 cars priced under $25,000 . So hey, want to get started? Just head to Carmax.com for details and get pre-qualified today. Wanna drive? Carmax . Hertz presents it had to be new . It had to be new . It had to be new Screens that are smart quick push to start new cars for you Come and see what's new for the Chavez Gary, you got another good one lined up. We do on our nutrition, not only the good, the bad, but also the ugly. I guarantee by the time we finish this, you're gonna be hungry. Are you gonna start eating kale after this? You put hot fudge on it, I will. Little whipped cream. A lot of whipped cream. Coming right up. Star Talk Nutrition Ed ition. Welcome to Star Talk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. Star Talk begins right now . This is Star Talk Special Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist, and when you hear special edition, you know who's to my right. Hello. Hello, Gary O'Reilly. Hey Neil. And I got with us Paul McCurio. What's up? Good to see you again. Fresh off the daily show. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Daily show and the late show. Yeah. Late show counting down the minutes. Yeahah, ye, we're counting down. Okay. Counting down. Yeah. So what if what have you cooked up today? Okay. Uh that's on the food scene. That's your fault. All right, 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, a Zempic . 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 guests. Okay. So you know what you need for that. You need a nutritionist. What a good idea. And over here we value PhDs. We do. We got a PhD nutritionist. Even better. What do you think of that? We've got with us Jessica Nurik. Jessica w welcome to Star Talk. Thank you. Happy to be here. Yes. So you're you're a professional nutritionist and you have a huge online following. Very important. So that makes you, I guess, an influencer. I I suppose so. Yes . And because you are sharing your expertise with people who not only seek it because they don't know, but 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. So we're here to p pick your brain and to 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 baits 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? 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, uh infectious diseases, we're doing as good as we've ever done without the last year maybe. Based on knowledge we've gleaned in recent years. Yes, thank you. Not like uh 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. Um, 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. Use the term cardiometabolic. What what would that be? Aaron Powell Those are things like um cardiovascular disease, so people having heart attacks, type 2 diabetes. Right, so we heard that, but then you use cardiometabolic. What does that mean? I was just using the all encompassing term for what I had already said. Oh, okay. Okay. Got it, got it. She's shown off these words. Thank you for dumbing it down for me. 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 fifty years ago. Do the statistics, the percentages stack up equivalently or have we moved in a better direction? Aaron Powell Yeah, it's relative. So the the percentages are higher now. So people who have type 2 diabetes significantly higher, people who are have cardiovascular disease. But you know, as 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. What seems strange to me is that the advances in medical science and research has been in the last fifty, hundred years incredible, and yet our lifestyle outpaces that, right? Like we s yet still we have type two diabetes in 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? Well I mean we have great uh medical advancements and medical technology that help people live longer with those conditions. But Yeah I wanna I wanna eat bad and just have medicine save me. Yeah. Okay, so here we are. Here what you've landed on is the quick fix solution, which is our GLP one. So all I do, I pay, I find some money, I get my once whatever it is, self-injection tak,e 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? Well I g it depends on what you mean by the solution. If if the solution is to live longer, a lot of these memory 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. Trevor Burrus So these sort of weight loss drugs that I guess came to us from diabetes treatment. Yeah. Very fascinating uh secondary utility of those medicines. We have some benefit of track record for their use in the diabetic community , but now it's widespread for people who just simply want to lose weight. But they haven't been around for 20 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. Aaron Powell Yeah, I mean in in humans we don't have great long-term data obviously because it hasn't been out. So you have to look at animal models that kind of can accelerate long-term trials. Trevor Burrus Oh, because mice don't live that long, so you get multiple generations out of them in C. Exactly. Okay, so what have we found? They grow three heads. They have a crazy lifestyle. They party a lot, a lot of drugs. What happens to the GLP mice? A lot of smokers. 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? In order for a drug to come to market, it has to pass many different stages of clinical trial. It's very difficult. Over ninety percent of drugs fail in clinical trials. And so um in order for it to come to market, we know that it has proven its safety, right? It's shown its safety in within some acceptable limits. Within some acceptable limits. And I'm not I'm not well versed in what those limits are or or those trials. Um 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 there 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 uh monitoring as as time goes on. 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 or white men or black men, whatever. But now can we feel better that the testing regimens better represent people of Yeah. I think we're um 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. Right and Exactly. Come on. Why don't why is people not k why are they people keeping up on this stuff? I do 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 what's hap- what are people getting the right amounts of protein and fiber, et cetera, and nutrients, um, or does that fall off the charts or not addressed in the context of using these drugs? Aaron Powell Yeah, I mean what the drug really does is it it helps people to eat less, right? Because it kind of um suppresses appetite a bit for people. And so that 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 they'll opt for more healthfully. R 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 d 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? And so I think that it is addressing kind of pie hole. What does she know? What are you, a nutritionist? Oh wait. Okay. Sorry. I guess you're right. Yeah, it is addressing that at 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. 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. That's it. That's it. And then everyone responds, no, it's more complicated than that. No, it's not. Yeah, exactly. If that happens, you will lose it's a basic math. And so now we have a we have a drug that fulfills the one -sentence physicist diet book. But is it the too good to be true? So let's get back to that. So I remember when I was in seventh grade, I wrote a a paper on Ponce des Leon. And he was an explorer, I think it was Spanish, who came to the new world looking for the fountain of youth. Yep. And I remember thinking, I'm 12 years old, and I say, was he an idiot? You think he was 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. And it's something endemic within us. And now I'm I'm blaming him less for this for this urge. Now that I see it prevalent in our society and advertisement, this is the miracle kale. This is the miracle thing. The miracle drugs. 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? Yeah, I I think that it really speaks to this idea that we see the wellness industry flourishing right now and and supplements, right? Because people are just they want something that is uh flashy, exciting, but also kind of easy to do, right? Taking a supplement, taking a medication is pretty easy. I think it it's one of the more difficult things. You know what, when I got into this field, um I started really trying to understand what can we do to reduce risk of car chronic disease. That was really my goal when I first started graduate school. Um and what I realized really quickly was we have actually a lot of great data on how to prevent and reduce risk of cardio like 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, you know, it's a difficult thing to to do um and 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 um you kind of have to look at the systems in our country because we have to look at are are systems set up for more people to succeed or for more people to fail. Um 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. So that's what against forces operating against their desires. Yes. Right. The advertising presentation. And the issue is it can be 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 of questions. Get the scientist on it right now. But they probably are but in all seriousness, that's part of the quick fix, right? Like it 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? That's evil. It's it's amazing. Yes, it's called a crookie. Oh you're making this up. No. Oh now you want one. She's in from Colorado. Mountain times over here. There's a French pastry shop in my neighborhood across and you're gonna come and I'm gonna get your crookie. Okay Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with epiglys, a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema . After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four in ten people taking epglis achieved itrolate and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. Epglis, Libri Kizumap LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis, that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. Ebglis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBGLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBGLIS. Before starting EBGLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about Ebglis and visit Ebglis.lily.com or call 1-800-LillyRX or 1-800-545-5979. Do you want to find a stress-free way to buy your next car? Start at CarMax and shop your way. And if you want to browse with confidence, get pre-qualified online with no impact on your credit score and shop cars within your budget, from luxury cars to family rides. CarMax has options for almost every price range, including more than $25,000 cars priced under $25,000 . So, hey, wanna get started? Just head to CarMax.com for details and get pre-qualified today. Wanna drive CarMax Hertz presents it had to be new it had to be new it had to be new screens that are smart, we push to start new cars for you . Come and see what's new for the Chavis, link it's in cheap. Hertz Cars are new. Rent our newest fleet yet at Hertz.com . I'm Nicholas Costella and I'm a proud supporter of Star Talk on Patreon. This is Star Talk with Neil Degrasse Tyson . Let's unpack this and get into specifics. Um there's a lot of bad press on what's called ultra processed foods, right? And I'm trying to understand, I'm yet to hear anyone explain to me why ultra processed foods would be bad for Yeah, so ultra-cessproed food, that definition, first of all, we don't have a regulatory definition for what that means. So I 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 process is just simply it includes an ingredient or a processing method that you don't have access to. So you can't retire it in your kitchen. Gotcha. So what? So that's a huge variability of food, right? So that could be a Dorito chip or that could be a yogurt, right? That that's got a lot of protein and and a 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 gonna 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 gonna 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. Um, and so the idea that all ultra-processed foods are bad for us is kind of more of like a moral argument. It's like you're moralizing food at that point. Part of the problem is that for the average consumer who doesn't have time to drill down on this 'cause 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 v it's like a villainous term now with if bread fiber fiber enriched bread is not necessarily bad for you but would fall into the category of ultra processed. Right. 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. Yeah, I mean I always try to just talk about like the nutrient quality of the food. Right. So look for foods that are higher in protein, higher in fiber, lower in um added sugar, right? 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 ultraprocessed 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. Um 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 s by some estimates, seventy percent of our food environment are these ultra processed foods. And so now if you're telling us people you shouldn't eat any ultra processed foods, um it just it just loses kind of the the nutritional meaning of it. There are people that wa if it's natural, it's it's healthy. Well, arsenic is natural. Right. No one's going, Bro, you gotta try this organic arsenic. Yes or yeah. Oh please you don't wanna go just regular arsenic. Stepping back from the arsenic for a moment. For a moment. You go online , there is protein, protein, must have well raw meat, this, this, this. Why all of a sudden has protein driven feels very fattish, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Is th what's driven that is there Fad and nutrition, that never happens. Oh 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 uh prime rib? 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 Excuse me, but excuse me. Wow. Five minutes in and she's slamming the host. Blood drawn. This is great. No, she's right. She's right. I mean, you know what you need, you need a crookie. That was awesome. And so I I I agree. But yeah, just the the total immersion, especially in this country where there's no shortage of food everywhere. Yeah. That it's just people probably, I will concede, think more about food than about astrophysics. Okay. So pick it up from there. Go ahead. 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 uh particularly with social media, um people like kind of scary claims, you know, uh things that are gonna be very eye-catching. And so people clickbait and pe so people will do that on social media and it's very of interest to people because they're thinking about food and they want to be healt hier. And so I think that that's why it's so susceptible to the other. So pick up the protein angles now. Well the r the fun in terms of that, studies show most people are getting adequate amounts of uh protein from red meat. And isn't this sort of more of a marketing story than anything else? 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. Um some demographics. From red meat or anywhere else. Yeah. Yeah. From anywhere else and probably over consuming red meat to be honest. Is this driven by the manosphere and the the bros you just want to bulk up? Make the muscle happy. Yeah, I think a large m part of it on social media is certainly driven by, you know, this like carnivore movement and and yes, the manosphere, as you say. Um I I think also you have to think about in terms of protein, 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. Trevor Burrus And underinformed vegetarians too. Trevor Burrus Underinformed like yes, because if you're if you're going to follow like a vegan diet, it take you certainly can get enough protein, an adequate protein, but but it takes a bit more like knowledge in terms of what sources you're getting that from And so so those those specific demographics we're looking at, but on average, Americans get adequate protein. So then the question touching the manosphere is necessary. There's what the nutrition ist would say is the right amount of protein. If I give myself more than that, what happens to my body? Well it depends how much. Obviously, anything, if you're i consuming over consuming anything, it can be detrimental, but most people aren't over consuming protein. Um 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'd recommend. No, but if if if we get more, does that make my muscles bigger? I mean, what what what are people getting out of out of exceeding the recommendation It depends on the rest of your diet, but they're just over consuming calories at that point. So they're not gonna there's a limit to what you're doing if you're doing resistance training in the same thing . I need more protein than your normal amount in order to to bulk up. Yeah, if you're if you're physically active and you're doing a lot of weightlifting, uh you you are probably gonna want a bit more protein. It can be. It can be. It depends how many times you pick it up. It depends on how much your remote control weighs. That would probably not necessitate more protein though. If you glued your remote control to the barbell, yeah. Which I have. 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 in physics ? Wait, the pharaohs had a food pyramid? I didn't. Well they just have pyramids. There you go. Yeah, I heard someone call the new pyramid a food tornado because it's a flipped pyramid. Okay, so they flipped it. I grew up there was no food pyramid. That's how old I am. Then they put in a food pyramid. Yeah. And I found it confusing because the top of a pyramid, that's the pinnacle. Right. And there was like red meat at the top of their pyramid. And at the bottom, I don't care about the bottom of the pyramid, that was oats and grains and things. So the message to me felt a little weird It was sponsored by the cattle farmers. By by how I look at a pyramid v that food pyramid versus how I think about pyramids. So there's a new pyramid today? When did that come out? Nobody told me. Yeah, so the it's the dietary guidelines. 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 amount means eat sparingly because that's how I learned. I have a completely different sense of it. And he dresses as a pharaoh when he eats, which is a totally weird. Oh no, you did the dance. 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 and USDA US Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services. Yes. Gotcha. So those two departments kind of work on it together. And the 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's 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 plate fruits and vegetables, a grains group, a protein group, and then milk. it's a that kind of feels very doable. It feels intuitive because that's how you eat. Exactly. Yes. And as a as someone who taught nutrition. That's a pie chart. Brussels sprouts pie . Sounds delicious So we've had that since twenty eleven. And that seems like a sensible graphic. It was quite sensible. And what was that? Tell me. How were those angles? It was half fruits and vegetables and then a quarter uh grains, a quarter protein, and then dairy. And then a fork. That was that was the visual representation. So we had that dairy dairy was separate from the circle? Yeah, it was like a cup of milk. A cup of milk. Okay. Dairy lobby got in there. Yeah. Okay. Yes, it did. And and so again, the the this is a visual representation of the dietary guidelines. So you have dietary guidelines. And feels very, very easily interpretable.. Yes And it 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 twenty twenty six 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. Okay. Um what's what's happening there? 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 the 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 on the pyramid. And animal proteins are very, like, very visible at the very top. Um, and then also vegetables at the top. But so the physics pyramid. It's top of the pyramid. So now you're talking about the widest part of the pyramid. 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 antiprocessing because nothing sells says healthy like steak and butter every day, right? Like so Aaron Powell Yeah. So many of the people who worked on these dietary guidelines have conflicts of interest with the beef or dairy industry. Yeah, so if you look before, um uh this is kind of uh a narrative that has kind of always been present, like conflicts of interest with different industries, many different industries. Um but if if you look at the previous scientific committee who worked on the dietary guidelines, they actually had very few conflicts of interest. So I have a question. Who selects the scientists who are on these committees who make these recommendations? Yeah, so usually it's um it's the current administration and again it's 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, Why don't scientists choose themselves? Why is it connected into government agencies? Because they're government guidelines that will come out. And so it is it it's's an independent group that's that's chosen um 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 guys. And those people on that panel are all roided up guys who only eat meat. No. Not traditionally. Yeah, but but any bias among those scientists it becomes a bias in the final recommendations, correct? I mean I I I suppose if uh if there is bias. The the idea is that it's independent, that they're just looking at the science, that they're coming out with a science. Yeah. So the scientific report is is usually pretty unbiased. That comes out and but then what happens to become policy. Then it has to become policy. Then it has to become the actual guidelines. And okay. So what's happened lately? 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.' Thsere usually a lot of lobbying that happens by the beef and dairy industry and the 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 change the guidelines previously. It's more like the foods that they tell you to eat, they'll talk in 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 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 and 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 it's a crook. So it's a well in these guidelines, it the thing the problem with these guidelines right now is that as you say, meat is very present on the visual representation and and in the lexicon and what 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 the time. Yeah. So it's a misdirectional. So w what is going on there? Why would they intentionally want to confuse people on that issue? 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. Just to be clear, it's 10% of your calories. 10% of total calories. But they want to be promoting more meat, right? I mean, um some of the people leading our agencies are have identified as carnivore people and and so that it's kind of an ideology. So it's ideology overriding scientific evidence, essentially. And they're clearly the and maybe the lobby the the strength of the lobby is the same. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I so I think now that you 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. Didn't you try to eat it because you thought it was a piece of pie? No, it just looked like shelving. Yeah. Right? And it looked like a picture with food on shelves. Well that was the original pyramid. The original pyramid was a little bit the inverted one, I feel the same way. The inverted one is just a bunch of foods thrown on like on clip art. Yeah. Oh y yeses.,, clip art Yes. It's clip art. Yeah. They've invested so much time and effort in that, haven't they? Just clip art. I was so confused because it really looks like 1990s clip art . Oh god. Yeah, I think. Only because there's still a little bit of math in there because you're communicating fract uh angular fractions on a circle. That's true. Whereas just clip art, yeah. Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with Epgl is, a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four in ten people taking Epglis achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at sixteen weeks, and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. Epglis, Library Kissumap LBKZ, a 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBGLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBGLIS. Before starting EBGLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about EBGLIS and visit EBGLIS.lily.com or call 1-800-LillyRX or 1-800-545-5979. How do you cash back with Chase Freedom Unlimited? Flights booked. Bags packed. Kids packed. Cashback on vacation mode. Earn 5% cash back on Chase Travel with Chase Freedom Unlimited. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JP Morgan Shasbake and A member FDIC. Hertz presents it had to be new . It had to be new it had to be new Screens that are smart, quick push to start, new cars for you Come and see what's new Forte Chubbies, blink it's and cheap. Hertz cars are new. Rent our newest tweet yet at hurts.com We've discussed what can and cannot and maybe the biases and the carnivores that 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. Okay. Oh, don't get me going about seed oils. Here we go. Oh, hold me back. Yeah, so if we just get specific here, that'd be fun to know what the latest thinking is on all of this. Yeah. Seed oils are are quite villainized right now. What's an example of a seed oil? A seed oil are oils that come from seeds, sunflower oil, safflower oil, canola oil, which is rape seed oil. Those types of oils are are polyunsaturated fatty acid. Mm-hmm. Sesame oil. Like toasted sesame oil, which I put on my fried rice. I can't use what 's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with it. Oh you have to as a last as a last dressing oil. So tell me what has been the thinking about seed oils? Yeah. Yeah. So in nutrition science, the thinking has been that they're polyunsaturated fatty acids and they're um 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. Do you let bacon grease sit, it hardens, right? Because usually animal fats are saturated fats. So they're hard at room temperature. So that's saturated fat. And you have monounsaturated fats. Those are uh 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 a bond um for a hydrogen bond. Okay. And what's an example of that? Polyunsaturated would be seed oils. So regarding the seed oil, what what is sort of the knock on it and and is there data that backs that up? Yeah so in nutrition science we have pretty uh strong data to show again global nutrition science data to show that diets that are relatively high in polyunsaturated fatty acids to satur ated fats. So you're eating more monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids and less saturated fats are heart-healthy, are more healthful dietary patterns. We see this in longitudinal epidemiological studies. So longitudinal is across populations? 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, um that that's what we tend to see. We see this in studies that replace saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats or uh or monounsaturated fats. Um we see that improvement in health outcomes. Everything you said sounds positive. So why would there be a resistance to seed oils? There tends to be this thing in nutrition um where and in 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. Trevor Burrus So these are people who say that these are bad for you. Yeah. So what's what's a list of what's bad for you that they would claim? So seed oils are are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, linoleic acid, alpha linolenic 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 that when you look at the conversion of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid, it's it doesn't convert effectively at all in in the human body. Um it's less than one percent, usually closer to point one percent 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 science-y 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. And we actually see the exact opposite, which happens all the time in science. 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. 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 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 w the science shows that they're they're quite healthful. But it means you have counterparts online who would also be judged as influencers the who people are listening to in this regard. So I'm now know nothing about anything and I see you over here and And Yeah, because if you got a ring light, then you know everything. And the and the inflammation people over here, who how am I gonna decide? It's a good question. And I think as scientists we've been failing the that we we've been losing that war, um, so to speak, because we haven't been going to spaces where people are to bring them information. Um, you know, for a long time it's been quite frowned upon to go to social media or spaces where people are and and uh if you're an academic or if you're a scientist. Right, right. Um I and and you know, I think that's changing now because we're seeing how important it is. Um but I think we need more of it. And so, you know, we need more people to go and it kind of explain the science because I'll be honest, even I I, when 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 they were. I was like, yeah, seed oils are unhealth healthy. 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 uh, 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 uh are using to put into all of these foods. And so we do tend to overconsume these these oils. 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 in her stir fries, right? Or whatever food she's cooking. Um which which we would argue is is a healthful way to use those oils. But but you you know you could lead a horse to water, right? In terms of y we make the argument here, y educate people. But do they want to be educated on some level? Have they shut down? Because there's a there's a movement out there that 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. But you know what I mean? Like what's that it 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? 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 and it's an easy sw ap, 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. 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 on food dyes. I mean probably not a great idea to give your child lots of bright, colourful candy and because as a parent you're probably not gonna 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 Yeah, I think food dyes is a really good other example. So so these synthetic food dyes that we have, we have five of them that are really prevalent in the food supply. So red forty, blue one, blue two, yellow five, and yellow six. 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 um social media that they that other countries have banned them. Aaron Powell There are other foods that are touted and as a scientist I I tilt my head and I say, huh? You know, uh nowadays you know you're earning too much money when on your shelf you have four different kinds of salt. So what does the nutritionist say about the various kinds of salt that are available? Because you know, if a a chemist would say it's sodium chloride, but a nutritionist would have to say something about the color and the and the Himalayan air in which it was crystallized. Yes, or two. Or alpacas. Yes, alpacas. Just play along, buddy. You can't just play along. 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 um fortify salt in in our country with iodine and and to help you know reduce risk of goiters, which has been extremely effective Aaron Powell So there's some uh health kick movements that are just based on belief systems rather than on scientific evidence, it sounds many. Yeah, many on social media are based on belief systems. Or fallacies. Like the naturalistic fallacy. Right. That'd be like raw milk or something like that. Yeah. What about the raw movement? Yeah. Tell me about raw milk. Yeah, I think this again, uh kind of is this idea that natural is better, right? So milk comes naturally raw. Coming out of the udder, I would suspect. Yes. Correct. I also learned that um there's a misconception. I uh 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. These are people who didn't learn about this. By pasteurization at the age of 12. Stop. So that's interesting. They thought it was an additive. Yeah, so I made a video about how it's just, you know, there's a couple types of pasteurizing, but the most common one is heating milk to about 165 degrees Fahrenheit for 50 Right, not even boiling. Not even. Yeah. And it makes your milk safer. Um and it doesn't uh meaningfully change the nutritional content of the milk. And so you know, I think when people learned this, they they uh some people were more accepting of pasteurization. So again, knowledge is power, right? We can't. 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? I think that's correct. That's correct fact. True fact. True data. True Dat.. And howdy I gotta hear you say that. Say true dat. True dat . That was good. That was good. That was awesome. That was But you said that before. That was that was not a Colorado True Dat. My girl's been up in the hood a few times. So if they believe in this raw milk thing, that just sounds like a herd looking for a shepherd. Exactly. That's exactly right. I mean they'd 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 nineteenth century tradition of dying from E. coli got ruined. Like that's what you want. You want to sort of eliminate those problems, right? 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. Is it because it's so effective it's a victim of its own success? It's a victim of its own success. Just like vaccines, just like food fortification, just like pasteurization. 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, 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 I think a lot of people arrive confused because they hear one person saying one thing, another person saying another thing. Even with pedigree. That person might even have pedigree. Yeah, which uh 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 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 listen to me because I'm telling you and I have a PhD, like I'm gonna give you information, and then you go look if that's actually accurate , and I'll give you the places to go look. Um, 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 com 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, which people that that's a big thing, cherry picking studies. You take that one study. Especially if it resonates with a preexisting. Exactly. If it confirms your bias. Yes. Then then you're like, that study says this. But what do the seventy-two other studies say that have also looked at this question and have kind 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. Are you finding that this guided discovery approach for an audience is better than you're wrong? Oh yes. Yeah. I I don't think that people respond well to your wrong um just traditionally so i posted a little explainer video attempting how however feebly to guide people how when and where they can find objectively true information on the internet and or the the have the ch highest chance of it being objectively true. And one of them was websites that are either academic, so dot edu or or dot org, provided it's not a lobbying group , tend to have more reliable information than just somebody's fly-by-night uh blog 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. And then like a week later, the C D C changed their vaccine guidelines on their website. And it was like , damn. What 's and so what what's a person to do at this point? Yeah. Other than just tune into you, what maybe that's all they should do. That ''s its it.. That That's it. Follow me. Landed there. I'm going to we're going to make a motion that we get rid of the CDC and replace it with you. 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 CDC is saying, which we never which never happens. Never, ever. Like I think people need to really understand how unprecedented that is. Um, and so uh 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 AAP, which is the American Academy of Pediatrics, um, or or ACOG, 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''ss it not the greatest kind of solution at this time, but we are seeing no other path. We are seeing misinformation coming out of our government websites right now. I want a one-stop shop, give me all the solutions I care about. The simplicity of it is dangerous, right? If you take a thirty thousand foot view of the the nutrition discussion, it's let's go back to the old days. Let's do red meat and raw milk and not process