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- "Humanists Take on the World" episode 34.

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Ramadan and ultra-processed food.

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(upbeat music)

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Welcome to this episode of "Humanists Take on the World."

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I am Dustin and joining me is Lauren. - Hello.

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- And with those two topics.

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Yes, it's two topics.

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I know the first one's gonna be short. I don't know how long the second one's gonna be yet.

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But I had thought it'd be funnier

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to do ultra-processed Ramadan.

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But search engine optimization is a thing

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and catchy titles are not well optimized for anything.

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- I don't think you need to explain.

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It's okay. It does make it easier to understand what the topics will be about.

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I do think it is funny that two things about food

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are to be discussed though.

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- Yes, so yes, I promised there's gonna be another,

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was going to be another episode last month.

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It didn't happen. It was going to be an interview that needed to be rescheduled

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because I happened to hurt my back.

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Literally the day that interview was supposed to happen

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and I did not want to be sitting at my desk.

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It would have hurt and not been pleasant at all.

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- Yeah. - So, and that hasn't happened in a long time.

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So that was quite annoying.

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- Yeah, it started to bounce back

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when you were over 30, 35.

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- Nearly 40. - 40? - Yeah.

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All right, so Ramadan is, I finally, two day,

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because we're recording this on Sunday, the 10th.

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Probably the day before Ramadan.

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The first I was really aware of Ramadan happening

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was when a very awkward in-law, at one point,

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showed up to Thanksgiving dinner, three hours late

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because he was Muslim and needed to wait until the sun was down.

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So, he came and met the family during Ramadan,

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Thanksgiving dinner. And then a couple years ago, I was hearing about Ramadan

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in the summer and it was like, no, it's around Thanksgiving.

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Weird. And now it's in March, so I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

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But before we get to that,

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we need to talk about what Ramadan even is.

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It is the Muslim holy month.

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On the Islamic calendar, it is the ninth month of the year.

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And it is believed by Muslims to be the month

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in which the scriptures were written.

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- Okay. - So, that is the month in which-

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- What's the significance? - Which Muhammad was, the first parts of the Quran

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were revealed to Muhammad.

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It's the month when Abraham did his thing

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and Moses did his thing, Jesus did his thing,

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and they believe that that's the month.

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- Not all the same time though. - No, different years.

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It's just different days within the month.

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- Coincidentally, very special month.

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- Okay. - So, they honor the entire month

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through fasting, prayer, reflection, and community.

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It is one of the five pillars of Islam

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and a month of fasting, of course, would be insane.

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- Right, no, we can survive that.

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- There are people who claim they can, whatever.

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- Super extreme cases, yes, people can.

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- Not a whole entire population. - No, no.

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So, they have exceptions on it

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for those who are acutely or chronically ill,

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traveling, elderly, breastfeeding, diabetic,

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pregnant, or menstruating. Also children.

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- Okay. - So, adult Muslims only, unless any of those other things.

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- Okay, healthy adult.

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- Yes, able bodied, yeah.

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- Got it, okay. - All men, most women who were able bodied, yeah.

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That fast lasts 29 to 30 days

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because it starts on the sighting of the crescent moon

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until the sighting of the next crescent moon.

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- Okay.

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So, from my understanding about how the lunar moon,

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which part of the crescent? Like, how severe of a crescent?

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Like, if you go from... - New moon.

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- New moon. - So, the sliver, the very first sliver of a, okay.

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'Cause I was gonna say, like, you look at a picture

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of a crescent, that's, I don't know,

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how many days into the, you know, the month that would be is

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all the way up to what a half moon, like, how do you measure that?

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Okay, so basically the day after the new moon.

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- Most Muslims follow the calculated date.

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- Okay. Not a, you can't always stick your head out the window

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and see the moon, so. - Some very conservative Muslims start Ramadan

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when they can see it with their own eyes.

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- Okay. - The fast is a sunrise, the sunset fast.

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So, there is a before dawn breakfast

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and a after sunset feast.

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- Pretty handy to have it in the spring

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and the fall in the winter, then, huh? - Oh yeah, yeah, that's the best.

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And it is, beyond abstaining from food and drink,

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they're also expected to abstain from tobacco, sex,

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and any sinful behavior.

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- Okay. - So a bunch of--

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- You'll gambling for you. - And when you consider the smoking rate in the Middle East,

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that's gonna be a whole bunch of really, really cranky people.

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- Just as you're supposed to be getting dinner on the table.

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- The time of year can make it a lot easier

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when you have short days. If it's in, you know, coinciding around the winter soltsus,

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it's pretty short, especially if you're up in northern parts

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of the country. If you are in an area with midnight sun,

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then depending on which there are not very many Muslims

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in places with midnight sun, but--

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- Those rules have to exist. - Greater than zero number, presumably.

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The general practice is to follow whatever's the closest big city.

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That does have a discernible day and night,

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or some more official guidance is follow the mechus schedule.

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- Okay. That seems like a pretty safe standard.

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If for some reason you just can't follow the literal.

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- But if Ramadan's on the summer soltsus,

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and you're, say, way up in Sweden or Alaska,

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you have a really, really late dinner,

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get a little bit of sleep, and then have a really early breakfast,

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or just do one meal a day while you go through that.

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- Yeah, it is a fast after all.

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- Yep. - So yeah, I can see why people might be a bit cranky,

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but I bet they feel pretty refreshed by the end of it.

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I've heard good things about, you know, some, you know,

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fasting, and it's like, I do, I've heard lots of,

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people totten a couple of weeks of it or something,

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you just cut down to one meal a day, or something. You feel, you know, then you go right back to it,

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and you get your energy back up,

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and your brain fog goes away,

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and you get back to real life.

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- And a month of intermittent fasting where you skip lunch.

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- Honestly, a lot of people could probably pull that off anyway.

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- Yeah, lots of people do that anyway.

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- Especially if the American grind,

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I can't afford to have a lunch break. - So the name of Ramadan,

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which is really fun to say.

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- Comes from the Arabic root, R-M-D,

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because in Semitic languages,

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the consonants are the only thing that traditionally has been written down.

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Vals are implied or assumed or come from context.

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- Don't even get Justin started on that.

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He will go into Greek Latin history stuff.

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And it was like, maybe some other podcast.

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- The word means scorching heat.

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- Oh. - It started out being in the summer.

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- The most punishing form of fast.

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- It started out as a pagan.

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- Ah, Arab pagan.

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- I mean, not for sure. - That's a month of fasting,

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very similar fasting rules that was coincided with markets.

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Traveling festivals and markets,

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but just don't eat during the day. Which if it's the hottest time of the year,

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don't cook when it's hot. That makes sense.

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- Yeah. - Grill up some meat once the sun goes down.

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Like, that doesn't sound like a stupid thing.

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- Well, I mean, we put in that kind of context.

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Just like, yeah, I guess that makes sense.

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We do everything we can to avoid turning the oven on

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in the summer. Like, that's not happening.

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Because it needs a barbecue's popular. - Now, that is the typical Muslim belief on the origin of it.

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There are other views on the origin

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that it was taken from Syriac Christians

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who were known for very severe lint.

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And that lint got merged in with Ramadan.

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- You okay. - Which interestingly this year,

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lint and Ramadan are overlapping.

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- They're coinciding. Everybody's happy or miserable.

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(laughing)

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- Yeah. So, why does it move around?

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Like, we have... - Oh, we gotta get into the calendar stuff.

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- Yes, there's the calendar stuff. Because if you look at holidays that, you know,

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non-Muslim holidays.

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- Actually, before we get into the calendar, can you explain what happens at the end of Ramadan?

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- Oh, yes. - That's kind of an important thing, isn't it?

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- Yeah, Ramadan ends with the night of destiny.

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- Whoa, that sounds cool.

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- It's a sword, "Cotter Night," which is the holiest night of the year.

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And it is the 23rd night of Ramadan, generally.

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And then at the very end is Edal Fatir,

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which is the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Shawal,

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which is the next lunar month. And it is a massive festival.

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- I don't know anything about Muslim holidays,

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but I do know that you can get cards

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to say happy eat on them.

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Like, this is a thing. If you're gonna know about any of them,

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this is the one you need to know about, because it's that big festival at the end of a fasting month.

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Everybody's eating, drinking, being happy.

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- And that's when couples can have sex again. - Whoa!

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- You're a month of... - Oh, baby. - One month later.

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- Oh, yeah. - So it moves around.

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Most of us are familiar with other holidays

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that are on the solar lunar calendars.

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All the Jewish holidays are on a lunar calendar,

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but it's a solar lunar calendar.

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So they shift around within a month.

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They don't shift around all across the calendar.

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- Yeah, Easter is always in the spring. - Mm-hmm.

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- On a cause always in the winter.

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- What? - Easter, Easter, Passover/Easter,

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which they're calculated slightly different so they don't always overlap.

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They're based on the new moon following the spring equinox.

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- Yeah, so you got that spring equinox

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just keeping everything in time. - And of course, virtually the entire world

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is on the Gregorian calendar,

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which is a purely solar calendar

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that the days don't shift seasons or within a season.

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- Okay, yes, the seasons do shift a little bit

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'cause the winter solstice, for example,

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is usually December 21.

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- Right. - Sometimes it's December 20, 22.

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Not huge variations, but little bits of variation.

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Nothing's perfect. But the Arabs followed the pretty standard

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solar lunar practice where you'd have a filler month,

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every so often.

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Somebody would declare it and then you'd have extra days.

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So the Romans did that before the Julian calendar,

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February was the filler month.

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- It was a whole month. - I'd love to have a year without February.

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That would be nice. - There was, and there's,

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the Jewish calendar has a short little month

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that gets added in every so often. It's an extra week or two.

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- Okay. - Just to bring it in line. The main idea being you want the lunar calendar

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to still be, like you want the same first new moon

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of the spring, to be the first new moon of the spring.

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You don't want it to become the first new moon

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of the summer, or the last new moon of, yeah.

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- All right. - So that all worked fine.

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And Ramadan or whatever version of it there was

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in pre-Islamic Arabia, it was always in the summer.

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- Okay.

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- Until the 10th year of the Paj,

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the 10th year after Muhammad marched from Medina to Mecca,

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he decreed,

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or he claimed that God told him that the year is 12 months,

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and messing with that is not okay.

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- Okay. No extra months for you.

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- Which of course, Muhammad then interpreted,

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the year is 12 months on a lunar calendar.

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Not, you need to follow the Roman calendar,

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'cause it's better. If you want a good 12 month calendar,

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that's one of the best ways to do it.

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- Not perfect, but.

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- Talking to calendar nerds about the perfect calendar,

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is hilarious, by the way.

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But it ends up resulting in a calendar that is 354

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or 355 days long.

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It's off by more than 10 days.

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- Yeah. - Every year.

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- Sound, I mean, it sounds like, oh, okay, this doesn't sound like that much,

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but we have a holiday. It's good, it jumps around.

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It jumps around a lot. So every, especially when you're on the outskirts

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of the year, all kind of aware of it,

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you forget that something exists,

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but you see it on the calendar every once in a while, you're like, wait, wasn't that in, like you?

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You're like, wasn't that in Thanksgiving or was that like a Christmas or something?

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It can really jump around every couple of years

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if you don't pay attention to it. - Yeah.

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Moving forward, a holiday advancing

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10 to 11 to 12 days a year.

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That's one month every three years.

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Earlier.

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- I think it's kind of cool to have a holiday

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that moves around. It's like, hey, it gets to see all the seasons.

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It's not stuck in just the same season, like all the other poor holidays.

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Easter is so fed up with rabbits and tulips.

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It wants to go check out, see what the snow is like.

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Now, just ram it on.

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Oh, man, so, okay, bring up Easter with that.

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It, Easter had shifted quite a lot,

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which is why we got the groin calendar. The Julian calendar was imprecise just enough

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that Easter had moved late enough

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that it was not after the first area.

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It wasn't associated with the first new moon anymore.

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So, they deleted days out of the calendar

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and they added days to the calendar,

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changed the rules on leap years.

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And that was when they added the except for years

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divisible by 100 unless divisible by 400.

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- Yeah, it's a lot of fudging numbers.

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I love it. - If you're paying attention to it every year,

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this is the beginning of a month and leading up to your major holiday,

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you're gonna be able to remember in your miles. Oh, yeah, this is gonna be about 10 to 12 days later

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earlier than last year. But when you don't pay attention,

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may I say, wait, what month is it?

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(laughs) - At least those of us who don't pay attention

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kind of flabbergasted and I hope adorably confused

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and not insulting. - Yeah.

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All right, let's go ahead and move on to the next topic.

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(upbeat rock music)

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All right, so, ultra-process foods.

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This is one that I saw.

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- Hold on, give it a second. We just triggered like 60% of the reviewers, okay?

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So let's give them a second to calm down.

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All right, now we can go in.

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All right, so ultra-process foods. This is one I saw a ton of articles on right around the New Year's.

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So basically from Christmas to the end of the first week

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of January, okay? I saw articles all throughout my RSS feeds

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about ultra-process foods and predictions

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that concern about ultra-process foods

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was gonna be the big new food trend

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and that changes in product labeling was gonna be coming

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and I've been wanting to talk about it since then,

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but having the motivation and creative energy to do it

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has been a limiting factor for me as of late.

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And today, it finally all came together.

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So, yay. - So now we're gonna judge everything you eat.

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- No. So, I was one of those people who was

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adamantly confused and dismissive and...

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- I'm that adamantly confused. Can you get more bullheaded than that?

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Adamantly confused. I'm gonna stay so confused.

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- Anytime, anybody, and we had some friends

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who were very anti-processed food, I...

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- Straight up contrarian. You were just like trying to shut the conversation down

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'cause you're like, I don't like these terms.

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You don't make sense. - Well, for one, I couldn't define it in my head

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and nobody could give me a good definition.

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So...

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- You know it when you see it is not a great way

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to describe something. - Because depending on how you're looking at it,

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is a processed food, a thing that is ingredients gone

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through in major, major industrial chemical processes

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and then extruded into a package.

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- Do you have to use the word extrude?

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- For the most extreme, yes.

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- Hot dogs. - That's definitely processed.

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Ground beef goes through processing.

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- Goes through a grinder, that's a process.

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- Broccoli goes through processing.

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- Yeah. - Everything goes through processing of some kind.

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Now, this is a thing that has been defined

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and the main person who went through defining it was...

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Carlos Augusto Montanero.

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He was a Brazilian researcher looking into initially

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malnutrition of poor Brazilians.

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- He used to see some Brazilian representation.

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- And then he started to see in the '90s,

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all of a sudden poor people started getting fat

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and rich people started getting slimmer.

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- Like full reverse. - It was the opposite of what he'd been observing

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for the 20 years of his career up to that point.

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And so he started looking into what the hell

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is making people fat. - Yeah, 'cause it's not like they were just gaining weight.

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That wasn't it. It was they went from malnourished to obese,

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which is like, "How did you do that flipper?"

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- Now, those two terms are not mutually exclusive.

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- The truth. - Which was something he was still observing.

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People who were obese and yet malnourished.

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- Yeah. - Yeah.

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- His obvious assumption was...

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There was a bunch of new products that got released on the market.

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And a lot of people, especially busy poor people,

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were eating these new convenience products

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instead of traditional Brazilian foods,

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largely beans and rice. So what's going on there?

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So he did more and more research into it.

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And in 2009, he published his major scientific paper

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on classifying the processing of food.

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This is referred to as the Nova Classification System.

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- Okay.

23:56

'Cause it's one nice thing about discussions. You have to have a mutual agreed vocabulary,

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which is what you were missing before, in which is why anybody talk about processing

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was frustrating. You're like, "So what is cooking processing?

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Is picking the bean off the vine process?"

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It's like, "No, no, there's a definition now."

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- So group one is unprocessed or minimally processed food.

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Unprocessed foods include industrial modifications

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removing unwanted parts, crushing, drying,

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fractioning, drying, grinding, pasteurizing,

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non-alcoholic fermentation, freezing,

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and other preservation techniques

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that maintain integrity without salt, sugar, oils,

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fats, or other ingredients added.

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So if it is a single ingredient,

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it is group one.

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Examples of category one would be fresh and frozen fruit.

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'Cause freezing is a non, not really major modification.

25:08

- Yeah.

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- Especially like the flash freezing that they're doing for most veggies.

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- Frozen broccoli is that is a whole part of a broccoli.

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It is not the whole plant pulled out of the ground,

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but it is a part of the, like that plant,

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that part of the plant is intact. - Brasic as?

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- Roald oats would be considered group one.

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It's gone through some processing to remove the outermost shell of the oat

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and then drying, but it's not getting,

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not going through all the stuff that instant oatmeal gets

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where it's pre-cooked and super crushed

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and all kinds of stuff. Dry beans would count, fresh meat,

25:56

including ground beef would count.

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- Okay. - Grinding is, that's not changing what it is.

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It's what you put in is what comes out.

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It's just in a slightly different form.

26:10

That's not major processing. - That's sausages.

26:13

- No.

26:16

- Okay. - Sausages are not. - Right, okay, so maybe not, okay.

26:19

So that's sausage.

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- Ground pork is group one.

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- Okay. - Sausage is not.

26:26

- Okay, because you're adding herbs. - You're adding stuff to it.

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- Sometimes stuff like sugar, salt.

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- Yes. - So you're adding extra ingredients, okay.

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- Yes. Eggs, milk, whether it's raw, pasteurized,

26:39

2% whole milk, whatever, that all counts,

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plain yogurt counts, and natural spices count.

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- Okay. - Group two is processed culinary ingredients.

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So these are the seasonings and baking ingredients

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and the lake that you will commonly find

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in a kitchen cupboard. - Okay.

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- Stuff like olive oil, salt, sugar, vinegar,

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cornstarch, honey, maple syrup, butter,

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that all counts as--

27:21

- Oh, funny, 'cause if you look at the kitchen cupboard, the difference between a sugar beet derived

27:27

bag of granulated sugar and a jar of honey,

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there is a lot of processing difference

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between those two things. - Yes.

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There is quite a bit of processing, but it's what's coming out is,

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yeah, it's group two.

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- Okay. - Group three is processed foods, not ultra processed,

27:51

regular processed. - Okay.

27:54

- So this includes food that is preserved

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with a few added ingredients, mostly salt and sugar,

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pickles, honey, that are to preserve it,

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and through baking, boiling, canning, bottling,

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and fermentation, and possibly a few other added things

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to make them taste better or last longer.

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So cheese counts in this group.

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As do canned vegetables, salted nuts, fruits,

28:32

in syrup, dried or canned fish,

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breads outside of the US, not US bread.

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- Okay, okay. - Most pastries, cakes, biscuits, and various snack foods,

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as long as they come from group one foods

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with the addition of group two ingredients.

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- Okay. - So there are breads in the US that would count as group three.

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The key thing is, all of the ingredients

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need to be from the processed culinary ingredients,

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group two, that you would typically find in a home.

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So if you're baking bread with refined flour

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and granulated sugar, beet sugar,

29:26

and baking soda, that's fine for group three.

29:31

Once you start adding things that aren't typically found

29:36

in a kitchen, that are only found in industrial processes,

29:41

you automatically move into group four. And that's when you start seeing the weird chemical names

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that freak people out. - Yes. - And have been freaking people out forever.

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The preservatives, the binding agent.

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- I fructose corn syrup is an automatic group four.

29:54

- Yeah. Yeah, okay.

29:57

It's usually industrial and cheap.

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- Group four also automatically includes anything

30:07

with hydrogenated oils, modified starches,

30:12

protein isolates, and yeah, high fructose corn syrup

30:17

is a biggie. And generally as foods that use extrusion, molding,

30:24

pre-frying, or other major processes

30:28

to take food ingredients and turn them

30:33

into something completely different. - Okay.

30:36

- Most of what is in the freezer aisle

30:40

outside of the frozen veggies?

30:42

- Yes. - You've got, you're, you know, you're pre-pastas

30:46

and pizzas and all burritos to ketos.

30:51

- So for example, falls brand, unflavered,

30:57

or the plain falls brand breakfast sausage

31:01

that we can get at Winco here. That's coming from, you know, falls brand pork products

31:07

and twin falls Idaho. That would count as group three

31:11

because it's a very simple uncooked,

31:15

they do a pretty simple process.

31:18

Maple flavored, 'cause it's not flavored with maple syrup.

31:24

- No. - The maple flavored sausage is automatically group four

31:28

'cause it's weird stuff creating the flavors.

31:31

- Okay. - They're not adding flavors, they're creating flavors.

31:35

That would be another one of the big differences.

31:38

So that is the Nova classification.

31:42

Most of the research around ultra-processed food

31:48

up to this point has been epidemiological studies,

31:53

which epidemiological studies are ones where you look

31:58

at very large data models of tens of thousands

32:06

up to possibly millions of people.

32:08

When it comes to diet, usually you're looking at food frequency surveys, they get sent out periodically

32:15

to various groups of people. And data gets cherry picked out of those.

32:22

- Yeah.

32:24

- The correct use of an epidemiological paper is to see

32:28

if there is a hypothesis there.

32:31

If you see a correlation, 'cause those cannot prove

32:36

causation, if you see correlation, they're just in precise.

32:40

It's based on people's self-reporting,

32:43

which is notoriously atrocious, and there is zero control.

32:48

- Yeah. - It's the really wide, wide, wide, wide net.

32:53

- With huge sampling bias as well.

32:55

- All right, all right. - And since the data can be massaged,

32:58

it, you can get the same epidemiological data set

33:02

to say almost whatever you want. What they are really good for is developing a hypothesis.

33:10

You see something in the data.

33:13

You try to control for it. You can't control for it.

33:18

So you then have a hypothesis that needs further research

33:23

to see if it's actually, if there's actually something there.

33:26

- Okay. - One of those, good for inspiring good studies.

33:32

Yes, where the whole point of that study should then be

33:37

to try to disprove the hypothesis.

33:40

- Yeah. - The goal of the study should never be to prove

33:43

the hypothesis, it should be tried to disprove it.

33:46

'Cause it is way easier to design a study to prove something

33:50

than it is, and get the result you want,

33:53

then try to prove it wrong.

33:56

Kevin Hall, a senior investigator

33:58

at the National Institutes of Health, whose studies obesity and diabetes

34:05

was skeptical of ultra-process foods being the problem.

34:11

- Okay.

34:14

- So he did exactly what you're supposed to do.

34:17

He designed a study to try to prove it wrong.

34:20

He got healthy adult volunteers to enroll

34:26

in a crossover study where they had two weeks

34:30

on an ultra-process diet,

34:35

followed by or preceded by two weeks on

34:40

process and unprocessed foods.

34:43

- Okay. - These were all controlled.

34:46

It was a month and total. They were all being provided foods.

34:51

They were all provided more than twice as much food

34:55

as they needed to maintain weight.

35:00

And told to eat until they were full,

35:04

or until they were done, and naturally wanted to stop.

35:08

They were also able to control for the general

35:15

dismissive concern about ultra-process foods,

35:21

which was that it's the combination of sugar salt and fat

35:24

that causes people to overeat them.

35:28

- Okay. - So it must just be that that combination.

35:33

So what he designed was a trial where the meals

35:38

that were served had the exact macronutrient combinations.

35:45

So there was the exact same amount of carbs, protein, fat,

35:50

the exact same amount of salt, exact same amount of sugar,

35:54

exact same amount of everything they could possibly get

35:57

to be the same. - Okay. - And on the ultra-processed weeks,

36:04

people ate on average 500 calories a day more.

36:07

And they all gained weight.

36:10

- Yeah. - On the minimally processed weeks, most of them lost weight.

36:16

- Even though it was the same foods.

36:21

Like a hungry man TV dinner of a meatloaf and mashed potatoes,

36:26

but instead handmade with a meatloaf and mashed potatoes,

36:30

you would eat, you would finish your hungry man

36:32

and be like, well, I could go for another.

36:35

- Yep. - I think we've all been there.

36:38

- Yeah. And it was, he was shocked.

36:41

That was not the result he was expecting.

36:45

He was expecting...

36:47

- Same. - Exactly the same. He was hoping it was going to be exactly the same.

36:53

- That was the same than the reactions to the people

36:57

will be the same. Guess what?

36:59

- And like I know I, 10 plus years ago,

37:04

I was, when I was dismissive of any talk of processed foods,

37:09

my assumption was, calories was the only thing that mattered.

37:14

- Calories in, calories out. - Yeah.

37:17

- Oh, we've all heard that mantra before.

37:19

- Now, at that time, I had successfully lost weight

37:22

but my weight got too high by cutting down on calories.

37:25

Those calories were usually in the form of large mocha's

37:31

at coffee shops and large bottles

37:36

or convenience store major cups of Mountain Dew.

37:40

- Oh, yeah, yeah. - What I was also doing each of those times

37:45

was significantly reducing the amount of sugar

37:49

I was taking in. So eventually my thinking started to move towards,

37:54

it's more about the macronutrients.

37:57

A lot of the scientific

38:04

dismissal of ultra processed foods being an issue

38:08

has been around the same assumption.

38:10

It's about macronutrients.

38:13

That's the difference. Or the nutrient density is the difference.

38:17

And now it's like, it's looking more and more like,

38:21

no, there is an actual difference.

38:23

- But what is the difference?

38:26

What's the hypothesis there? If you do this guy controlled for macros,

38:32

so same amount of salt, fat, sugar, in each meal,

38:36

but one still stimulated people to eat more food

38:39

than what was that difference?

38:42

Was it those preservatives or the extra weird ingredients

38:47

or is it something social, is it a cultural thing?

38:52

Like I'm curious, so what the guy,

38:54

or is it needs further study,

38:57

which is what it should have said at the end.

38:59

- Yes, he was not...

39:01

- Not too eager to comment on that, huh?

39:06

- His take on it was we need to figure out

39:10

what the difference is. - 'Cause if we don't, you're gonna end up with a country

39:13

full of obese, diabetic, sick people, oh wait.

39:16

- Yeah, we're already there. My assumption on it is that there are two factors at play.

39:24

One is nutrient density,

39:31

that whole foods tend to be more nutrient-densed

39:34

than highly processed foods.

39:36

Highly processed foods are cheap and convenient

39:41

and shelf-stable because they're filled with a bunch

39:43

of basically inert starchy fillers.

39:48

- Yeah, I mean look at your shredded cheese

39:50

versus your hunk of cheese. The shredded cheese is covered in the powder.

39:53

- Yeah. - You don't think, you're not eating enough of that

39:56

to make a difference, but if that's stuff like that

39:59

is on everything you eat, then maybe it does make a difference.

40:03

- So there's, I don't know. - So the nutrient density is, that is one hypothesis,

40:08

I think is, has some decent weight.

40:12

That bodies naturally can tell what we're eating

40:17

and if we need more to be healthy.

40:21

And if you aren't getting enough nutrients in your food,

40:24

your body's going to want you to eat more food.

40:27

- Okay. - So that's one hypothesis that seems reasonable.

40:32

The other is digestibility.

40:39

- Yeah, that ultra-process foods that have gone through

40:44

industrial multiplication.

40:49

- Yeah, down to atomic levels.

40:52

- When it's getting broken down to molecules

40:56

and reconstituted without natural cell walls

41:04

and that hits our stomach acid and our intestines,

41:09

more of it's going to get absorbed. Now that part doesn't fit with Kevin Hall's study,

41:18

which I was in 2019, they did that one.

41:24

It doesn't fit with that because he found

41:26

that there was a difference in amount of food consumed.

41:32

500 calories more.

41:34

So it's about 20% more food being consumed by each person.

41:40

So that's not just a digestibility thing.

41:46

If they'd been gaining weight on the ultra-processed weeks

41:51

while eating the same amount of food,

41:53

that would hold up with that one.

41:55

I think that could be, that could be also adding to the issue.

42:00

But I think there's also just ultra-process foods

42:05

are designed to be delicious.

42:14

- Yeah.

42:16

- They're designed to get you to eat more.

42:19

They're designed to get you to buy more.

42:22

Engineers are going through a lot of work

42:29

to make the absolute best possible tasting thing.

42:34

I do not think that is evil.

42:39

It is the objective of a company is to make profit.

42:45

The best way to make profit is to get people hooked

42:50

on your product. - Yeah.

42:53

I mean, we live in the shadow of Simplot.

42:55

They took that and ran with it.

42:59

Potatoes was the poor person's food.

43:02

- Yep. - And they managed to engineer it into something

43:07

that powdered potatoes, like that doesn't make sense

43:11

when you think about it. But freeze dried, mashed up, throwing a bunch of salt

43:17

and sugar. You got something that people just, you,

43:20

all right, yeah, you'll never know there's big ol' glob of it on your plate.

43:24

And I find that when you make really good foods,

43:27

like, well, I'm, I think I'm full, but I just, I don't want to stop eating.

43:30

It's like, sometimes that reward center is going nuts.

43:34

We have more foods that trigger that reward center.

43:37

But there's lots of places all over the world

43:41

that have really delicious food that don't have people who overeat.

43:44

So, yeah.

43:48

I don't know. - Yeah.

43:51

- Coming for me, I'm a fast eater too.

43:53

So, I eat quickly. I don't know why I always have.

43:57

So, I'm the first one done at the dinner table, but I'm there sitting there for another 20 minutes

44:00

while everybody else finishes eating. No.

44:03

I'll go ahead and take a couple more bites.

44:06

Get seconds to keep eating. The full signal has it reached my brain yet.

44:11

If I even have one. So, eating fast is hugely detrimental.

44:17

Your, leads to overeating.

44:19

I have not figured out a way to stop that.

44:21

So, it sounds to me like there is just this massively

44:24

complicated, vent diagram of things

44:26

that have all led to this particular health issue.

44:29

And we've only discovered maybe two of the dozen.

44:34

- Yeah. Now, when you look at the--

44:37

- How that affects public policy is a whole nother issue.

44:40

- And then if you are looking at the macronutrients as well,

44:43

the amount of processed foods,

44:47

ultra processed foods that people are eating is enough to skew that heavily as well.

44:54

Very low protein, very high carb,

44:57

pretty moderate to medium levels of fat,

45:02

which high carb high fat, everybody is in agreement is bad.

45:08

- Yeah. - Like there's nobody who disagrees

45:12

that that's a bad way to eat.

45:14

- But it's cheap. - It is.

45:16

And when people are, you know, social economic,

45:19

if you can't afford either the money or the time to cook,

45:24

you gotta pick up something on your way home from work

45:27

that somebody else is cooked, maybe, or has pre-cooked and is frozen in the aisle.

45:32

That's this whole issue. - So, a lot of these articles I've seen,

45:38

and the one I've linked to in the show notes is from NPR.

45:42

I think it's the best coverage I've seen on it.

45:45

Talk about the what should happen.

45:48

What should happen now? What are the action items on it?

45:52

The more research is definitely needed

46:00

to determine what really is the problem.

46:05

Like, there are a lot of people who suspect

46:10

high fructose corn syrup is worse

46:12

than the same amount of sugar.

46:15

- Or aspartane sugar. I mean, we've seen those flying around for years.

46:19

- That's been deep, thoroughly cooked. - Oh, yes.

46:22

- That one has, but I'm just, okay, sweeteners.

46:25

Non-chaloric sweeteners. High fructose corn syrup, there's lots of big baddies

46:29

that people like to attack frequently

46:32

that the jury's still out on it.

46:35

- No, this is-- - Mom have been straight up debunked,

46:37

but it's an easy one to keep going back to.

46:40

- The specific one on, is there actually a difference

46:43

between high fructose corn syrup and table sugar in how our bodies handle it.

46:50

There is a reasonable viewpoint that they're the same

46:55

because they're both sugar. - Thucrose is sucrose in the body, you can't tell.

46:59

- There's also a reasonable viewpoint

47:02

that high fructose corn syrup is different because it's not sucrose, it's fructose,

47:06

which the liver has to work to turn into sucrose.

47:09

And what does that mean?

47:13

- Right. If it releases the same amount of sugar

47:18

into your bloodstream, but slower,

47:20

does that not spike as much or does it cause

47:27

way too long of a elevation or what's going on there?

47:31

There is a lot of talk about what companies should be doing.

47:40

Either changing the way they make foods

47:44

or changing how they market foods.

47:46

I want the science first.

47:51

- Yeah. - On that, I want the science to figure out

47:57

what exactly is the problem before companies start producing,

48:02

figuring out how to make as much money as possible

48:09

on something they can call process instead of ultra-processed.

48:12

- My concern lies with policy was that what is the government,

48:19

the regulation going to be for what companies are allowed to say

48:25

or not say make or not make?

48:27

Because obviously when we let them run rampant,

48:30

with no science to back anybody up,

48:33

we have a nation that is full of sick people

48:35

that are just getting sicker. So we can't keep just letting it go.

48:39

- Yeah. - But you can't just tell people,

48:44

you can't have like they tried this in New York,

48:47

try to take away the sodas.

48:49

Try to take Coca-Cola away from somebody

48:52

and I swear it will be the spark of the next civil war

48:57

because socioeconomically speaking,

48:59

if you don't have good water at home

49:01

and you've been raised in a neighborhood that Coca-Cola is what you drink

49:05

and that's what everybody drinks and then the government comes and tells you know

49:08

you're gonna have to pay extra for that and you happen to be poor and you happen to be black.

49:14

You're gonna have a problem. Like there's all of these things that go into this.

49:19

- Just like with cigarettes.

49:22

- Yeah. - The tobacco companies fought regulation.

49:28

They did PR campaigns to convince people

49:34

that their products were healthy when they knew they weren't.

49:37

They paid doctors to endorse them.

49:40

They paid medical associations to stay off their back.

49:45

Big food companies, Kellogg's, Simplott and the Lake.

49:53

They're doing the same exact thing.

49:56

- We see it at Kylie's school.

49:58

The stuff that they let these kids eat at school.

50:02

The healthy breakfast should I did not consider

50:06

a chocolate muffin top to be part of that,

50:09

but those are her grains and everybody knows

50:12

you need five to six servings of greens.

50:14

Wow, really?

50:17

Okay, so okay, well maybe another different day.

50:20

Maybe that was just a bad day. Well, what about the next day?

50:23

The next day she had a granola bar with chocolate chips.

50:26

It's like, okay.

50:28

So we're okay, but she has some fresh fruit lunch.

50:32

So I'm seeing patterns here where there's this disconnect

50:38

between the school has to feed kids,

50:41

regulate what is regulated.

50:43

They need their servings of grains. They need their servings of vegetables.

50:47

And they just, they have to provide them

50:50

and whoever gives them the food, that's what they serve.

50:54

So who's giving the school's food to give out to kids?

50:57

It's gonna be those big companies.

50:59

Those big companies are more than happy to donate cereal

51:02

to a poor elementary school. Those kids need to have breakfast.

51:05

- Well, and. - But my gosh, do they really need

51:08

Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the morning? Is that for the government?

51:10

- For them, according to the government.

51:13

- It absolutely is. - And the government made those rules

51:15

because that's what business said. - Yeah.

51:19

- And Dr. Syndalfon. - Yeah, so it's okay.

51:24

We'll do our best here at home.

51:26

There is a chance.

51:28

Kevin Hall, the same researcher.

51:30

- Not healthy. - A number of the researchers that were talked to by NPR

51:35

are on the panel that will be starting in 2025

51:40

to work on the next version of the U.S. dietary guidelines.

51:43

They have this in mind.

51:46

- And we need to make sure that legislatures

51:48

who come from states that are bought

51:51

by those bigger food companies.

51:53

Like Idaho, it doesn't let Simplot root skew those results

51:58

'cause that's what happened last time.

52:03

- And when? - For that. - And every time a politician talks

52:07

about the heartland of America, that's the corn fields

52:10

that are being, where the products are being ground up

52:15

to make tons and tons and tons of products.

52:20

- The corn isn't inherently unhealthy.

52:22

Wheat is not inherently unhealthy.

52:24

So we're working on it.

52:27

And as long as you become aware of it,

52:29

and hopefully we can change policy

52:32

so that it's equitable across the U.S.

52:35

that everybody can have access to better quality food.

52:39

I mean, I'm not holding out hope.

52:42

Not now, I'm just gonna do the best we can

52:44

because we come from a place of privilege. - Most of--

52:47

- We can go by fresh produce. - Most of these articles also covered personal responsibility.

52:53

They've all opened with the stats.

52:58

The average American adult gets 60% of their daily calories

53:05

from processor ultra-process foods.

53:08

The average American child gets 70% of their calories

53:13

from processor ultra-process food.

53:16

- Yeah. - There seems to be agreement

53:22

that it should not be on consumers to make better choices.

53:26

- I don't think consumers have the ability to.

53:29

- That it should be on businesses to do better for their customers.

53:35

- Which they won't, if it's not profitable.

53:37

- Yeah. - So I get it.

53:39

- So if we want change, people need to change what they're doing.

53:47

- Flipping that ratio should be the goal.

53:52

- And doing was best for you and your family and your body

53:55

and not necessarily following the rules that we've grown.

53:58

We were brainwashed into thinking

54:00

where the rules for everybody because you can't throw a pyramid at a population

54:05

and say this is good for everybody because it's not.

54:10

So listen to your old body, figure that out.

54:13

- Yeah.

54:15

- So that is that.

54:19

(upbeat music)

54:22

- All right, we have feedback.

54:35

From the website, we actually got the comment this time,

54:42

or the feedback this time came from comments on the website.

54:46

- We have one, right?

54:49

- We have a website. - Yay! - Okay, cool.

54:52

- We can take comments. We have not gotten comments on there in a long time

54:57

and then after the last episode, we got two.

55:00

- Woohoo! - The next day.

55:02

- Well then, wow. - There we go.

55:05

Well that is when people are most likely to comment. They hear the episode when it drops.

55:08

Boom. - So from David. David wrote, "I left Mormonism over four years ago

55:14

in my late 50s. Your podcast really resonates with me.

55:17

You don't realize that you grew up in a cult until you leave.

55:21

I'm definitely T.P. in Myers-Briggs spectrum.

55:24

And on the in and gram scale,

55:26

I'm a five with a strong seven, or investigator slash skeptic.

55:33

I consider myself a secular humanist. Philosophically, I find nihilism, existentialism,

55:38

and absurdism comforting after deconstructing religion."

55:41

- I, there is a part of me that cringes,

55:47

when I hear people use labels like those

55:50

to describe themselves. To me, it sounds very much like a high schooler,

55:54

middle schooler. Then I think about when you're leaving a religion like that,

56:00

socially, you're, I mean, man, I, I, you need those.

56:05

You need to be able to completely redefine the world around you.

56:10

And I'm able to pull that cringe back and go,

56:12

"Good for you." If you find it comforting, then lean into it.

56:17

Read up more about it, listen more about it.

56:20

And I think you'll hopefully end up being

56:23

a much happier person than the long run.

56:25

'Cause there's a lot of people out there like you as we have found.

56:28

- And, and I think most,

56:33

most people who are not believers

56:35

are existentialists at some level.

56:38

You have to be to,

56:41

it's one of the easiest ways to maintain meaning in life.

56:46

- It's also one of the easiest things to read up on

56:48

and understand because it has this clearly defined thing

56:51

that people have been discussing for hundreds of years.

56:53

- Yeah. - Versus, you know, trying to come up

56:55

with your own nebulous definition

56:58

of what it means to exist. - Oh, and from Jay, this is very interesting.

57:05

Mass description of Judaism reinforces my conviction

57:07

that there is something fandom like about American liberal Judaism in the best possible way.

57:13

Just like most fandoms, they take many life lessons

57:16

from a canon of stories. They have rituals and holidays.

57:18

They discuss their stories and how they fit into the time.

57:21

They were written in modern times. They even have Daph Yomi Lake watch cycles.

57:27

They even choose their friends from their fandom.

57:29

The only thing they do that a typical religion doesn't

57:33

is acknowledge their canon of stories as fiction.

57:36

It's an excellent example of how people

57:38

can get everything they normally get from religion without having to believe in anything.

57:42

You can get a great deal of comfort and community

57:44

from something while also knowing it's fictional.

57:47

And religiously, you can get a lot

57:50

from a founding body of myths while knowing it's mythical.

57:52

- Yeah.

57:55

- That is, yeah.

57:57

Liberal, that's a great parallelism, I love that.

58:00

(laughs) - Liberal Judaism definitely has that a lot

58:04

of Episcopal churches, the...

58:07

- Oh, they all do it.

58:12

- They all do it.

58:14

- Unitarians, that is their thing. - Yeah.

58:16

- Completely, that is their thing.

58:18

So there are lots of religions that still do that.

58:22

There are the liberal ones. So yeah, those absolutely do exist.

58:27

But thank you both for writing.

58:31

You could leave a comment on the website, if you'd like,

58:37

or use the feedback form while you're there

58:39

at hdotw.com/contact, you can leave us a voice message.

58:43

At, no, actually don't leave us a voice message.

58:45

I will be retiring that. It's not worth paying money for something

58:50

that's not getting used. - Yeah. (laughs)

58:52

- So you can use the SpeakPipe button at hdotw.com/speakpipe.

58:57

You can support the show on a monthly basis with Patreon or just once with PayPal,

59:01

credit, debit, apple pay, or Google Pay,

59:03

and you can find the links at hdotw.com/donate.

59:07

Lauren, thank you for joining me.

59:09

- Thank you. - And until next time, remember, not all those who wander.

59:14

(upbeat music)

59:16

(upbeat music)

59:19

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