What to Eat Now:Conversations on Food Politics with Dr. Marion Nestle

Transcript

0:06

Welcome to Kids Matter. I'm Dr. Elisa Minkin. As a pediatrician, mom and grandma, I understand how challenging it can be to help our kids grow into their best selves. We are so much more powerful together. Here I will be sharing the knowledge and wisdom of a wide range of people who understand and care deeply about children. I'm hoping for your input as well because kids really do matter. They are our future.

Alisa Minkin 0:37

Dr. Marian Nessel is the Paulette Goddard, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health emerita at NYU, my alma mater for medical school, and a leading voice in food politics, a molecular biologist and public health expert. She is the author of over 15 books. It might be over 16 at this point. Including the seminal food, politics and her recent memoir, slow Cooked, named a Public health Hero by uc, Berkeley, and ranked by Michael Pollen as one of the most powerful foodies in America. She has spent decades exposing how the food industry influences our health and science. Her latest book, what to Eat Now, A Revision of What to Eat From 2006 was released around the same time as the Food Pyramid. Guidelines was amazing timing. So I wanna start with a quote from an article I found from issues in Science and Technology summer of 2025. It's called Fixing a Dysfunctional Food System, just to kind of guide our conversation when people do not eat healthfully, several industries, profit, food, drug, and diet. For starters, eating healthfully means taking on. All of them. Countering this environment is impossibly difficult for individuals. That's why we need societal support to make helpful food choices easier and more affordable. So I wanna thank you Dr. Nessel, so much for doing this with me. I'm so excited to be here with you.

Marion Nestle 2:06

Bad to be here.

Alisa Minkin 2:09

So let's get right into it. Like I said, the timing could not be better. We have our new food pyramid and our new food guidelines. And I wanna just get right into them. What do you think about them?

Marion Nestle 2:21

I love the color and I love the idea that it's real food, and I love the eat real food message, which makes perfect sense. The philosophy behind that is if you're eating real food and you're not eating a lot of junk food. Then you're gonna be eating healthfully. You're gonna reach satiety. You're not gonna be induced to take in more calories than you need because you're eating foods that have been deliberately formulated to make you eat too much. so that's the philosophy behind it. I, that part works really well and most of the dietary guidelines. Really repeat what's been said forever, which is, oh, Michael Pollan can do it in seven words. Eat food, not too much. Mostly plants what to eat. Now I took 700 pages to say the same thing. It's a very big book. the so that part I thought was fine. And then, then it goes on and gets into the weeds. And the new food guide pyramid, which is an inverted pyramid emphasizes meat very strongly. The guidelines emphasize meat and full fat dairy. I'm not sure where that came from. I'm still puzzled by that and the, except for the satiety issue. But they do say to reduce intake of highly processed foods. It's the first time that processing has been taken on by the guidelines. I think that was good, mixed bag. They have some very odd things in them that I don't really understand very well.

Alisa Minkin 4:10

So what are those odd things? I want you to elaborate, please.

Marion Nestle 4:13

The emphasis on full fat milk I really don't understand it because the nutrients in milk are in the, mainly in the way part. And so skim milk and full fat milk have the same vitamin and mineral content. Full fat milk just has more fat and calories. It's more satiating. People like the taste of it better. And the idea is, I suppose the philosophy behind it is that if you're drinking full fat milk, you're not gonna be wanting other things because you're feeling deprived of calories or taste. I don't know. That remains to be seen. But I thought that was odd. And then there's a whole guideline on protein and that's really puzzling because Americans already eat twice the protein. They need these guidelines. Recommend doubling the amount of protein in the diet, but Americans are already eating double the amount, so I don't really understand what the point of that was. For many people, protein is a euphemism for meat and red meat at that. And the way in which the guidelines and the pyramid are organized is they definitely emphasize meat. Meat comes first and then dairy products, and then the plant foods. And then at the very tip of the, inverted pyramid in the, eat less portion of it. They have whole grains and that doesn't make sense either because whole grains are emphasized. And then the really peculiar thing is that they retain the 10% of calories from saturated fat, then tell you to eat more meat and full fat dairy products. It's going to be very difficult to keep. Saturated fat at 10% of calories if you're increasing the amount of full fat meat and dairy products. The other good thing, I thought the best thing about it was the recommendation to reduce ultra processed foods, to keep sugar to an absolute minimum, also refined carbohydrates. That's good advice.

Alisa Minkin 6:31

And, and I think some of this is a backlash, right against where they push the low fat diet. And exchange that for sugar. And that has been, you know, the, the finger is pointing at that for the cause of obesity nowadays.

Marion Nestle 6:43

a big process issue here and the dietary guidelines have always or from decades. I was on the dietary guidelines advisory committee in 1995 at that. Time. We set the research agenda. We did the research, we wrote the research report. We wrote the dietary guidelines. We turned the whole thing over to the agencies, health and human Services and agriculture, and they designed it and printed it, but basically a scientific committee did the whole thing That changed starting in 2005 when the agencies increasingly took over the process. that now the agencies set the research questions and do everything else except the research report. And in this particular instance the research report was submitted during the last administration. It was submitted at the end of December, 2025. And excuse me, the end of December. 2025. No. Ended December, 2024. Sorry. And it was submitted just at the end of the Biden administration before the Trump administration took over, and the Trump administration appointed its own scientific. Committee redo that scientific report. And that committee rejected about two thirds of the recommendations of the previous scientific committee and did its own. And that process involved a committee of nine people. Who each wrote separate of the literature on the questions that they had selected, and then those reports were turned over to an individual who wrote a scientific summary, and that summary was used as. The basis for the dietary guidelines, but we really don't know how the names of the people who were involved in the research summary were only revealed on the day that everything was released. And the people who I've talked to, two members of the scientific committee, and they said they had no idea what happened to their reports. They didn't see anything that was done with it until the day that everything was released. So it was a, was a spread of process and what's interesting about it is that a, is that Secretary Kennedy had promised that this would be gold standard science. That this would be a completely transparent. Process and that there would be no conflicts of interest. And yet seven of the nine members of that committee reported conflicts of interest with food companies or trade associations that stood to gain one way or the hour lose from the way the guidelines were produced. And four members of the committee reported ties to meat and dairy trade associations. I That's conflicts of interest. Yes, they were revealed, but that's not enough.

Alisa Minkin 9:51

Right. I think what's happening a lot is if you just say, I have a conflict somewhere in the fine print, you've done your job

Marion Nestle 9:56

you have not done your job. Everybody in science is biased and in

Alisa Minkin 10:01

right.

Marion Nestle 10:03

everybody who does nutrition, science is biased and nutrition research is really hard to do. the results are always ambiguous. They require interpretation interpretation. it depends on who's doing the interpreting. I have my biases I try to be really aware of what my biases are, but I certainly have them and so does everybody else. if you take money from the National Cattleman's Beef Association for one thing, you think it's okay to take that money. So already you have a bias. I wouldn't take money from the National Cattleman's Beef Association. That's my bias.

Alisa Minkin 10:51

But that's a clear conflict of interest and it's so ironic. That's what I'm, I didn't mean to interrupt you before, but that's what I was exactly what I was going to say is that they promise this would be science-based. They promised this would, you know, not be industry driven. And yet it seems like it's driven by different industries. How do we know what's healthy, what's not?

Marion Nestle 11:07

that's the main difference. The way my sort of sarcastic view about it is that Michael Pollan says, eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. These say eat food as much as you like. Mostly meat.

Alisa Minkin 11:21

Theory, but, but it's so hard to know what is the truth, and that's why people should read your 700 page book, every page advertisement. Now it, it's so much more complicated. Right, because when you go into the supermarket, you are hit with a million decisions and, and how do you know what is really healthy? What is hype? Right?

Marion Nestle 11:46

And you are, when you go into a supermarket, if you're trying to make healthy choices, you are fighting an entire food system on your own. Because the food system is set up to sell products to the most people and particularly the most profitable products at as higher prices they can get away with. And right now

Alisa Minkin 12:10

Right.

Marion Nestle 12:10

with high prices.

Alisa Minkin 12:13

Oh, yes they are. Oh, yes they are. But eggs have come down, so that's something.

Marion Nestle 12:17

We'll

Alisa Minkin 12:18

But what kind of eggs should you buy?

Marion Nestle 12:20

We will see anyway, the issues are complicated

Alisa Minkin 12:23

right?

Marion Nestle 12:23

and part of it is that the research is complicated. You can't do the research. You cannot lock people up 10 or 20 years and feed them one kind of diet and feed another group, another kind of diet and see what happens. You can't do that. You used to be able to do those kinds of, of studies on prisoners, but those were unethical. We don't do that anymore and that's a good thing. But there are very few studies that can be done locking people up in metabolic wards. It's usually for only a few weeks, and those are always short term studies 'cause people don't wanna be locked up and fed diets for long periods of time. So everything is inferential and you try to do the best you can on the research. And certainly when I was on the dietary guidelines advisory committee, were explicitly told The research is complicated. It's not always very clear. The American public deserves to get the best advice possible based on the existing research. Do the best you can with it. That was, those were our instructions and that's what we tried to do. the instructions now are, you can't make recommendations unless they're science-based. But that's an impossible criterion.

Alisa Minkin 13:50

Not just that, but correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like more and more of the science is funded by industry.

Marion Nestle 13:57

I to some extent, nutrition.

Alisa Minkin 13:58

to.

Marion Nestle 13:59

To some extent. I once saw, somebody once did a study to look at how much of nutrition research was industry funded, and it was something like 15%. It was not a very high percentage, but as the government funds less and less nutrition research, and it's been very underfunded for a long time. The other thing is clinical trials are really expensive. They cost a lot. You have to pay a lot of people to do the monitoring. You often have to pay subjects in these trials. They're very expensive to do. And nobody's funding that kind of thing. now it's even more difficult.

Alisa Minkin 14:41

And I'm wondering if maybe the industry funded ones are just the loudest ones, the ones that get the most press. Is that possible?

Marion Nestle 14:47

They're funnier. I post an industry, funded a research study on my blog site, food politics.com every Monday. Because I think they're hilarious. And what I find funny about them is if I know who the funder is, I know what the outcome of the study is. And I can look at the title of a research study. Figure out if I, and figure out who funded it, because I think who would do research like this except a food company that stood to gain from the results. you wouldn't fund that kind of research on individual foods. People don't eat individual foods. They eat diets that are very complicated. So the science is hard, and that's the basis. lot of the difficulty here is that, to say that you're gonna do gold standard science and nutrition is asking a lot.

Alisa Minkin 15:48

Right, right. But I think so many people are getting their information now from social media and I, I think it just easily skews in the direction of

Marion Nestle 15:59

then you're

Alisa Minkin 16:00

misinformation or poor quality information.

Marion Nestle 16:03

Then you're talking about people's personal experience. I ate this. I feel better. Therefore everybody should eat this. You wanna feel better? You should eat this. That's not science, that's anecdote.

Alisa Minkin 16:15

Right. I'm, I'm talking about promoting what are probably industry based or people with secondary gain and promoting that as this is what's healthy. You know, dietary fat is healthy. You, you thought that it was not healthy, but really, you know, it's so healthy to have dairy, fat, and meat fat. What's the science behind that?

Marion Nestle 16:32

Yeah, I've always said that, the when people say, how can you tell whether the research makes sense or not? I've always, my favorite example is Everything you ever knew about nutrition is wrong. That should send red flags into the air because that's not how science works. You rarely have a. Immediate reversal, and in this case it's of decades of saying that reduced fat diets are healthier. Does that mean that, and there were hundreds and hundreds of scientists involved in making those kinds of recommendations. Were all of them. Wrong. Is that really possible? All of them misunderstood. The research and the individuals who wrote these research reports were better and more objective and less biased than the hundreds of scientists who came before. That seems not. Entirely convincing to me. I don't wanna dismiss the re the views of previous scientists because they also felt that they were unbiased and doing the best they, the job they could in interpreting the science. So a complete reversal makes me think, Uhuh something, there's something wrong here. Let's slow down a little bit. But that's what's happened and we now need to live with it until the next set of dietary guidelines, and it'll be interesting to see what the results are. These guidelines are supposed to govern what gets served to kids in schools. And if kids in schools get served real food, I think that's a big step forward. I wanna see this government pay for that. Schools are, school meals are enormously underfunded. Where's the money gonna come from to buy more expensive food? Because it's gonna be more expensive and it has to be cooked. Lots of schools don't have kitchens. Are they gonna build kitchens in school so they can make real food good. I'm for it.

Alisa Minkin 18:47

So what do you think about Maha in general? I'm just curious because I've seen that you're pulling out the good there's, there's potential. I think really for the first time, right, that you've been doing this and some of that energy is coming from, from Maha. So I wanna hear your thoughts on that. Please.

Marion Nestle 19:01

America Healthy again, movement is in some ways very exciting. They want people eating real food. And I said, I'm for that. They're against ultra processed foods. They wanna get the chemicals out of the food supply. This is the first opportunity that we've had to really get those chemicals out of the food supply. I'm all for that. I don't think that's the most imp important issue in making kids healthy Again, if you want kids to be healthy, they have to eat healthier diets from day one. And where is the energy around? Not eating so much and get, and really doing something about processed foods. I think the color dyes, companies have said that they're gonna take the color dyes out of their products by the end of 2027. So that will happen eventually. but the. The di, the chemicals that are the agricultural chemicals and the pesticides and the herbicides, the government's not touching those because that means taking on the agriculture industry. And so Maha is coming up against the reality of American politics, whether they will be able to overcome it or not, I don't know. And it's tightly linked. To electoral politics that it's very hard to sort out the science from the politics. I

Alisa Minkin 20:33

I see this as a grassroots movement with parents saying We want a better world for our kids. I mean, I'm so much for that.

Marion Nestle 20:40

Yes. so hard to be a parent these days. My kids, the way I put it is my kids are older than I am and he I had my kids a long time ago and it was much easier then much easier.

Alisa Minkin 20:58

Parents are rising up. I see this as a rising up of saying there are pesticides in our food supply and in our air and in our water, and this is our kids' future. We have to do something about that. I'm not a political person. I'm gonna be honest. I'm sorry. But, but I mean, different people have different strengths, right? Like I'm putting you out there. So hopefully people who are more politically active, but I think we can also do things as individuals, right? I'd like to hear what you think we can do as individuals in addition to on a political level. I.

Marion Nestle 21:28

You vote with your fork. That's the, and what's interesting about these dietary guidelines is they are. Explicitly about personal responsibility. If you go on the website, then eat Real Food website and look at it. They talk about personal responsibility. This is what you are supposed to do in order to eat healthfully. You make the choices, nevermind that the food system is set up to fight those choices in every way possible. So yeah, you exercise first, personal responsibility. You go to the grocery store and you choose foods with as few chemicals in them as you can. If you have that option. And if you know where the chemicals are. I just read that there's arsenic in candy for kids. What, where is the federal agency that's supposed to be looking at that? Kind of thing. How is any consumer supposed to know that there's an arsenic in candy? Gimme a.

Alisa Minkin 22:33

from brown rice syrup, which is ironic because brown rice is often used in organic products that you're buying to try to avoid

Marion Nestle 22:39

Yeah,

Alisa Minkin 22:39

pesticides.

Marion Nestle 22:40

because rice picks up arsenic from the soil. But somebody should be monitoring that, and it can't be you, mom, because you don't have the equipment and the technique and the technology to do that kind of monitoring. If all of the foods have these chemicals in them, what are you supposed to feed your kid? I think it's a terrible situation and I, and that the idea that the Maha moms are fighting it, it seems to me it's something that we all ought to get behind.

Alisa Minkin 23:13

Right. Right. And I, I, I'm, like I said, I'm, so, I, I have, I have some hope. I have some hope here. And it's just getting out in the, in the conversation. We really haven't been talking about this. I think we get so distracted. Even, I think the food dies, honestly was a distraction. I think the pesticides and our food, air and water are something we really need to focus on more. I, I need to do more episodes on that with other people, by the way.

Marion Nestle 23:34

More important issue and

Alisa Minkin 23:36

Yeah.

Marion Nestle 23:37

touch it. I write a lot in in what to eat Now about fish. There are five chapters on fish and one of the big issues in fish is mercury in big predatory fish, particularly Alba core tuna. That's the one that everybody eats. So that's the one you're most concerned about if you do something about mercury and fish. And turn off the mercury. You have to turn off coal burning power plants because they're the source of the mercury that you can do something about. Presidents have tried to get coal burning power plants to clean up their emissions for decades, and the environmental Protection Agency has just backed off of that again, they've backed off of it. So this is an opportunity to get that cleaned up once and for all polluters need to clean up their emissions. And I, just seems so obvious to me. If we don't want mercury and fish, we have to clean up coal burning power plants.

Alisa Minkin 24:44

I see this as a bipartisan thing. I don't see this as a Republican versus a Democrat thing. You can correct me if I'm wrong.

Marion Nestle 24:50

I think it should be bipartisan. I think it's wonderful that the Republicans have taken it on the.

Alisa Minkin 24:55

My, my point was that it's, I mean, I'm sorry. I'm saying that I see this as a bipartisan failure. It should be a bipartisan project, but I see that as ultimately a failure of both Who's ever in charge. It's still being the same failure. I don't see it as belonging to a party. That ones does better than the other, but you can Me if I'm wrong.

Marion Nestle 25:12

the coal burning power plants are powerful industry. That's where the power lies. So the question is how do, how does Maha get enough power to be able to make. Real achievements that go way beyond color additives. I think color additives fine. I'm really happy about that. It's time we got rid of them. But the let's try to take on some of the more politically fraud issues. The.

Alisa Minkin 25:40

That was low hanging fruit in my opinion.

Marion Nestle 25:42

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, they, that should be easy because alternatives are available. There's, they're used in countries throughout the world. I collect cereal boxes. That's my next book, and

Alisa Minkin 25:56

know I'm excited

Marion Nestle 25:57

that's my out next September.

Alisa Minkin 25:59

and sugar and cereals.

Marion Nestle 26:01

I'm gonna add the sugarcoated next September. And so I have cereal boxes from lots of countries that don't have petroleum based dyes in them. They have vegetable based dyes. It's totally doable. The, the industry here has and general Mills and other companies have gone through experiments of taking the d the artificial dyes out. They're brighter and more, the neon colors. They, when they take them out, sales go down. It's, it's a funny thing. Brightly colored foods taste better

Alisa Minkin 26:40

dunno why that is, but I look at the zero boxes, I'm like, oh, that does not look as appealing.

Marion Nestle 26:43

right.

Alisa Minkin 26:43

It just doesn't.

Marion Nestle 26:45

The brown cereals are just not as, as appealing. And kids say they taste better if they're brightly colored, even though they're exactly the same. but it, the companies can do this and the fact that they're not, it means that profits are driving these decisions. And I think we need regulation because if you have regulation, you create a level playing field for food companies, all have to play by the same rules. If you're expecting them to do things voluntarily, nobody wants to be first. Their stockholders won't like it.

Alisa Minkin 27:22

Right, right. I mean that's, that's really the bottom line here is it's all about corporate profits and I, but I still think that we, as moms and dads. Can do something about it. Like you said, it's, it's not just vote with your individual fork. And I just wanna mention in your book I was, I was happy to see that you talked about baby food and the changes that happen with baby food over time. I wanna tell us a little bit about that.

Marion Nestle 27:45

There were lots and lots of fuss about it when my kids were little. Baby foods were loaded with salt and sugar. Just loaded with them. And it was added salt and added sugar. And there were complaints and complaints and complaints. And the companies took them out eventually so that baby foods are much healthier now. I'm a big believer in baby led weeding. You you give your kids exactly what you're eating, chopped up in small pieces and moisten so they don't choke on it and let them figure out, a lot of hand to mouth stuff. It's very good. It's very good training. Just makes it

Alisa Minkin 28:24

Percent is a pediatrician here. Agree.

Marion Nestle 28:27

just,

Alisa Minkin 28:27

watch out for choking hazards, please.

Marion Nestle 28:29

yeah, it just makes an enormous mess.

Alisa Minkin 28:33

It's hugely messy. My kitchen is full of it right now for my granddaughter.

Marion Nestle 28:37

have to put a,

Alisa Minkin 28:37

More is under the high chair than on the high chair in the end,

Marion Nestle 28:40

have to put a,

Alisa Minkin 28:40

or in her mouth or her belly.

Marion Nestle 28:42

you have to put a plastic sheet under it and then pick up your child and drop it into

Alisa Minkin 28:49

Yes,

Marion Nestle 28:51

but

Alisa Minkin 28:51

to shake the rice out of her diaper.

Marion Nestle 28:54

Exactly. You do that.

Alisa Minkin 28:59

You know, it's, it's, I'm gonna talk just a minute about the pouches with you. Okay. As a pediatrician, I need you to talk about the pouches,

Marion Nestle 29:05

Oh,

Alisa Minkin 29:05

please.

Marion Nestle 29:06

don't like the

Alisa Minkin 29:07

Let's, let's rant on those pouches.

Marion Nestle 29:10

Yeah. Let's rant on pouches. Go ahead.

Alisa Minkin 29:15

I wanna hear your view. I, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna be nice though. I'm gonna say that baby food that's prepared and pouches are convenience foods, and I'm not against them being used as convenience foods. But here's my rant. I see kids who get stuck on the puree stage, why? They need to progress through textures and they, the baby lid weaning, or whatever words you wanna call it, giving them real food, gives them a chance to have different textures, different flavors, like so many different things. It's messy, you know, it's not convenient. So I think that there's a balance. You're going out somewhere. You wanna take one of those pouches or jars or whatever. I'm fine with that, but for all the time. And then snacking, that's a whole other concept. But I wanna hear what you think. Please.

Marion Nestle 29:59

I just think they don't teach kids how to eat. They teach kids that and they're way too sweet. They claim they don't have added sugar. They don't, but they have fruit concentrate, which is a euphemism for sugar. They're too sweet. The flavors are too bland. They're not teaching kids how to chew and use their jaws and use teeth and swallow, and they're not teaching hand to mouth coordination. They don't teach kids anything about how to eat, and then they wonder why their kids are picky eaters later on. You give kids sweet stuff, they're never gonna want anything else. One of the things the new guidelines do that I is they don't give your kids sugar.

Alisa Minkin 30:44

Okay. That is a plus. That is a plus.

Marion Nestle 30:47

Because once they get hooked on sugar, they don't, they won't eat anything else and they need to be eating other things and exploring

Alisa Minkin 30:55

I,

Marion Nestle 30:56

textures.

Alisa Minkin 30:57

right. And to be fair about the fat and dairy and the fat and meat, I mean, it does counteract the rise in your glucose from all the sugary things.

Marion Nestle 31:05

I.

Alisa Minkin 31:05

So if you have your cereal with full fat milk, it does cut down on that sugar burst. But does that mean that the cereal was healthy to begin with, with or without the full fat milk?

Marion Nestle 31:14

It depends on which cereal you're eating.

Alisa Minkin 31:16

I am talking about the high sugar cereals at this point, because that's what your whole next book is gonna be about.

Marion Nestle 31:20

Oh yeah. I,

Alisa Minkin 31:21

yeah.

Marion Nestle 31:22

in the book about cereals that I, coming out next year, one of the big questions is when did it be, when did it become okay to eat sugar for breakfast? For kids to eat this kind of thing for breakfast. It's really, not particularly healthy. Anyway, that's next year's book.

Alisa Minkin 31:43

Although, I will say when I was a kid, we used to add sugar to our cereal

Marion Nestle 31:46

you, did I add sugar to my cereal? Just not very much.

Alisa Minkin 31:51

right? My point is even when they weren't adding as much to the cereal itself, you know, kids often did kids like kids like sugar, but you know, I think parents have to be parents, and that's a separate conversation with, with snacking.

Marion Nestle 32:06

Oh, yeah.

Alisa Minkin 32:06

Think you said something about that in, in your book, about how many times a day your average, I think 8-year-old snacks. Was that what I read? Something maybe not eight years old. Maybe it was eight times a day.

Marion Nestle 32:15

Meals have gone by the wayside. It's just so different than when I was growing up and even when I raised my kids, which as I said was a long time ago. The I, when I was a kid, I was hungry by the time I had dinner. I hadn't eaten anything for four or five hours. And now the idea that a kid goes for more than two hours without eating is considered, that's not good for them. But really, it's okay not to eat for a few hours. And the people lose. They forget what it feels like to be hungry. I'm greatly in favor of eating when you're hungry and not eating when you're not hungry.

Alisa Minkin 32:58

Right. But I think it does go back to the high sugar foods because typically what sugar does right, is it rises and then it falls and you feel hungry again and tired and you want to eat. So it's the cycle, and I think it's really important that fruit sugar is still sugar. It still acts the same way, right? With those pouches that are high in fruit sugar, there's still high in sugar.

Marion Nestle 33:16

There the sugar is fruit concentrate, which is a euphemism for sugar. It really am

Alisa Minkin 33:23

Right, right.

Marion Nestle 33:24

it's made. They take the sugars that are in fruit and concentrate them down. So it's basically sugar. So it's not like you're eating a piece of fruit. Nobody worries about the sugar and fruit. the juices and the concentrates that concentrate the sugar.

Alisa Minkin 33:41

And we didn't even talk. Why aren't we talking about fiber? Because in addition to fat slowing down the sugar spike, so does fiber.

Marion Nestle 33:48

And that was why I thought there should have been much more emphasis in the dietary guidelines on plant foods.

Alisa Minkin 33:55

Right.

Marion Nestle 33:55

There is a guideline on plant fruits, eat fruits and vegetables throughout the day or whatever. But you really want people eating. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains because that's where the fiber is. And the and fiber does wonderful things for the microbiome. You gotta take care of your microbiome and make sure it's well fed,

Alisa Minkin 34:20

I, we should not be edging out the, the whole plant section of the food pyramid with the dairy and meat. There cannot possibly be science behind that. Not good science.

Marion Nestle 34:29

I don't know. It's just very hard to know. You can read the research reports, but I thought the research reports were very selective in what they looked at. and certainly, in the one on. Vegetarian and vegan diets. There was very little discussion about how healthy vegetarians and vegans are and how much less of the major chronic diseases they display when, what that. that report focused on was the nutrient deficiencies. Yeah, there, there's a possibility if you don't know what you're doing to be nutrient deficient, but most people are not nutrient deficient in the United States

Alisa Minkin 35:14

Are protein deficient? What's with this protein?

Marion Nestle 35:17

or protein deficient hardly. Protein is now put in everything. I think it's funny. My favorite.

Alisa Minkin 35:24

Did you write about protein supplements in your book? I didn't read the whole book yet. At 700 pages.

Marion Nestle 35:29

Sorry. I certainly talk about protein, but the my favorite product is cookies and cream protein Cheerios,

Alisa Minkin 35:39

Oh my goodness.

Marion Nestle 35:42

Okay. Whatever if it has protein added, it's a health food, and the protein is usually pea protein.

Alisa Minkin 35:51

So what do we know about that?

Marion Nestle 35:54

Not much. If you want pea protein, eat peas.

Alisa Minkin 35:59

I think it's a substitute for soy. 'cause we're worried about the phytoestrogens maybe.

Marion Nestle 36:02

Yeah.

Alisa Minkin 36:03

I don't know.

Marion Nestle 36:04

Yeah. It

Alisa Minkin 36:04

I mean, I think common sense would be, you know, like you said, eat food not too much. Mostly plants

Marion Nestle 36:10

I mean

Alisa Minkin 36:11

still makes sense. Even the guidelines say differently.

Marion Nestle 36:14

Yeah, that takes care of it. And for this to say something different than that, and I know the people who prepared it argue that's what this says, but. I don't see that. think the understate, the understated messages throughout the guidelines and throughout the pyramid, and you only know about the pyramid from the website. There's a interactive website that is fun and it comes in stage. You have to click through it. And meat is predominates. And the okay. I'm not opposed to eating meat. I'm a omnivore,

Alisa Minkin 36:57

Right, right. But I think talking about this can help people think it through rather than just react to the noise. Right.

Marion Nestle 37:03

I would think so. Yeah, would think so.

Alisa Minkin 37:06

If they don't have time to read all 700 pages. But I mean, it, it's really good to read in pieces. I'm just saying I'm really enjoying it. And I wanna talk for a minute about seed oils because I've seen such controversy. What is this controversy over the seed oils?

Marion Nestle 37:21

it's interesting the dietary guidelines don't mention the seed oils at all. just not mentioned even though everybody knows that. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Thinks that seed oils are poison, he said so publicly. Some of it is, correlational that the rapid increase in use of seed oils occurred at a time when the prevalence of obesity was rising. Seed oils have a lot of calories. And they're highly processed. And they're concerns about the ways in which they're processed. But they're unsaturated oils and they're very good sources of the two unsaturated fatty acids that are required in the human diet because we don't make them ourselves, what the dietary guidelines say. that the source of, they give three examples of healthy fats that are sources of essential fatty acids, except that they're not. One is olive oil, which is mo, which mostly has monounsaturated fatty acids. It's a very healthy oil. The, I'm not in any way saying that it's not, but it's mostly un, mostly. A monounsaturated has very little polyunsaturated essential fatty acids. And the other two examples were butter and beef tallow, both of which are mostly saturated. Know that was head scratching. Why would you give those three examples when the best source of unsaturated of un polyunsaturated essential fatty acids are seed oils? Just don't eat too much of them. It's like everything else.

Alisa Minkin 39:13

What are the concerns that people are having about seed oil? 'cause I've heard they're inflammatory.

Marion Nestle 39:17

That they are, they make people fat. They cause inflammation. They have all of these problems about contaminants and organic solvents and that kind of thing. I don't think any of it is true. It's quite baffling to nutritionists. I have to tell you. We don't,

Alisa Minkin 39:35

Well, wait a second. I'm sorry, what? What about the contaminants? So I think you did say that that is an issue

Marion Nestle 39:39

well.

Alisa Minkin 39:40

with some of these oils more than others.

Marion Nestle 39:41

Seed oils. claim that they get rid of the organic solvents, that they're not there. By the time people and the FDA says they're okay, everybody says they're okay. I don't really understand the enormous concern about them. If you put a couple of tablespoons of seed oils in your salad. That's, this doesn't seem to me to be anything wrong with that. I like olive oil. I mostly use olive oil. I like the way it tastes and I like a lot of things about it, so I don't really get it. It doesn't seem to me that anything like that is a serious problem unless it's an enormous quantities. The real problem with seed oils is they're used to fry foods. And they're adding fats. Most people don't need the extra calories, obesity effects or overweight. 75% of American adults are overweight or obese. What's that about? That's about calories. Nobody's talking about calories.

Alisa Minkin 40:47

Because, because that is passe from some people's opinion, right? It's not calories in, calories out, it's inflammation and glucose and all these other kind of things, and there's seeds of truth to all of it. To be fair.

Marion Nestle 40:57

And grains of truth in every bit of it. Absolutely true. But to put it in context, people have eaten diets for very long time. If you are here, it's because your ancestors were eating okay. And there are many dietary patterns that promote good health. And to pick out one particular item in a diet and say, this is gonna make me healthy, this is gonna make me unhealthy. Doesn't really make sense. So you wanna look at the overall pattern. And the overall pattern is you eat real food and you don't eat a lot of junk food and you balance your calories. That takes care of it. Eat what you like. Food is one of life's greatest pleasures You wanna enjoy.

Alisa Minkin 41:42

I think everything is right. I'm sorry there. There's such extremes now and I think people want simple answers. For complicated questions, but they're also people sucking the joy outta food. Stop sucking the joy outta food.

Marion Nestle 41:57

You can restrict what you eat. You don't want to eat

Alisa Minkin 42:00

Yeah,

Marion Nestle 42:01

of foods fine. To me that would take some of the pleasure out of it,

Alisa Minkin 42:06

it's, it's, it's more than that. As a pediatrician, I, you know, as a physician, I'm concerned about the rise in eating disorders. There is. What is this thing called again? There's a orthorexia,

Marion Nestle 42:18

Yes.

Alisa Minkin 42:19

right? There's a lot of anxiety and, and orthorexia where they're, you're eliminating whole food groups because of things that they read online or having distorted diet. So that's, that's not benign at all. And that's the seed of truth behind the argument that ultra processed foods are not that bad, right? Because no food is evil. Have you heard that?

Marion Nestle 42:39

If you have 60 or 70% of your calories from ultra processed foods, you're not doing your body a lot of good. And that's where the eat real food message is so strong and seems to me to be. So worth getting behind. Because if you eat real foods that aren't heavily processed, you're gonna be getting all the vitamins and minerals you need. The basic principles of nutrition are variety, moderation, and balance. They've never checked.

Alisa Minkin 43:09

Exactly.

Marion Nestle 43:10

They've never changed. And the reason for variety is that foods have different combinations of nutrients. No one food has every nutrient that you need. You have to mix and match them. So the wider the variety of foods you eat and the less processed those foods are the better off you'll be. You'll be, and if you eat that way, you don't have to worry about it. eat that way. I happen to like real food, so it makes it much easier. And I like vegetables. That makes it much easier. If you don't like vegetables, it's harder. That's where olive oil comes in.

Alisa Minkin 43:48

Right, right. And, and avocado oil is good too, I think.

Marion Nestle 43:51

Yum. If you could afford it.

Alisa Minkin 43:54

Well, that's the thing, but it does have a, a I think a higher fry point. I think when you're frying you wanna use oils that have higher fry point, if I'm correct. And I think olive oil is not, but avocado is, I could be wrong,

Marion Nestle 44:06

Nobody

Alisa Minkin 44:07

but anyway,

Marion Nestle 44:08

avocado

Alisa Minkin 44:08

but,

Marion Nestle 44:09

too expensive.

Alisa Minkin 44:11

Well, that's the whole thing, you know, then you get to the whole equity issue. And that's why I think it's important to remember variety and moderation and not to, to demonize foods. And that's the problem with, I, I see the, the not make America healthy again. But in general, the alternative health movement tends to demonize, you know, foods. And I think that that is not good. Moderation. Variety, right. And not saying you can't have a specific.

Marion Nestle 44:36

unprocessed foods. We're not talking about a variety of junk food.

Alisa Minkin 44:39

Oh

Marion Nestle 44:40

Yeah. Yeah.

Alisa Minkin 44:40

right. But even some junk food, the reason I'm coming at this is as a pediatrician, I know that kids, the minute you start saying That's junk food, they want it more. And I think that when the parent is so anti junk food, they make these kids just Desire it more and go crazy over it. So having that, having even the so-called ultra, not be banned in limitations, I don't think, I personally do not think is a bad thing.

Marion Nestle 45:04

Yeah, I eat my share of old processed foods. I have ones I like. I just try not to make it the major source of calories in my diet. and I would never suggest that other people eat in a way that I can't do. I follow my own advice and I'm pretty yeah, I like my share. Ultra processed foods. I do. So

Alisa Minkin 45:31

Right.

Marion Nestle 45:31

oh, I'm, but I did wanna pick up on one of the things you said. These guidelines explicitly do not deal with the equity question in the fact sheet that was issued along with the guidelines. They said two things that I thought were really amazing. One was, equity is not part of this. Equity was part of the last guidelines. We are not going to care about anything having to do with equity. That is a forbidden word. they said we are evangelizing. So these guidelines are explicitly evangelical and explicitly non-equity based.

Alisa Minkin 46:16

What do you mean by evangelical?

Marion Nestle 46:18

That's, it's what they mean. They use the word evangelical. We are evangelizing for whole foods restrictions on ultra processed foods. They call them highly processed foods and pro meat and fat. That's the

Alisa Minkin 46:35

I,

Marion Nestle 46:35

that's where the evangelism comes in.

Alisa Minkin 46:38

what I hear is we are telling you to take your personal responsibility and forget about us as a population as a whole.

Marion Nestle 46:47

Yeah. This is about you. It's not about us.

Alisa Minkin 46:54

Of course that's the opposite of equity because it's a privilege to be able to make these choices,

Marion Nestle 46:57

right. You have to be able to eat. You want to eat diets that are based on real foods. You've gotta be able to afford it. I don't know about what it's like for you. I live in Manhattan where

Alisa Minkin 47:09

right.

Marion Nestle 47:10

you know, the prices are ridiculous and I cannot believe how much they've gone up. Cannot.

Alisa Minkin 47:17

It's easier said than done. It's easier said than done. The cheapest foods is the ultra processed foods,

Marion Nestle 47:21

Yeah, and the cost of ultra processed food is cheap because of the way government subsidies work, because of the way the food system is set up. If that's all you can afford, you do the best you can with it.

Alisa Minkin 47:36

but I'm still gonna go back to the Maha movement because I still have this hope. And I wanna talk for a minute about Roundup or glyphosate. I don't even how to pronounce it

Marion Nestle 47:48

is

Alisa Minkin 47:48

by Monsanto. Glyphosate.

Marion Nestle 47:50

actually, the drug company buyer owns it now.

Alisa Minkin 47:55

Oh, I thought it was Monsanto.

Marion Nestle 47:56

Monsanto was sold to buyer,

Alisa Minkin 48:00

I see. So I want, I want, I wanna talk about that for a minute because it was a new bombshell. About research on this, on this herbicide.

Marion Nestle 48:12

Actually, it wasn't a new bombshell. It was an old bombshell, but they finally got around to doing something about it, and that was one of the major papers that talked about how glyphosate or Roundup did not cause cancer or any other. A human health problem has just been retracted by the journal that published it. But this is 13 years after court cases that during the discovery process in the court cases they came up with documents that showed that Monsanto had influenced the writing of that paper that Monsanto had. Changed the way the paper was written. It paid the people who wrote it. It was basically a mon Monsanto paper, but that was not disclosed in the journal. And that paper has been cited as the primary evidence for the safety of glyphosate. And so the journal has now retracted it better late than ever. There an awful lot of people who are, who know something about science, who think that glyphosate is a carcinogen, and the World Health Organization Agency that deals with carcinogens says it's likely to be a carcinogen. What more do you need to know? We don't need it. We don't need it. I don't want it in my body. It's absolutely everywhere. It's in, it's in you. You look at the blood supply of humans and everybody has glyphosate in their blood. It can't possibly be good for us. How harmful it is. We can argue about, but it cannot possibly be good for us. It cannot possibly be good for our kids. We ought to be getting rid of it. And the producers say they can't survive without it. Without it. The wheat producers say they can't survive without it, even though wheat is not genetically modified. Glyphosate is used to dry it out. It's used to dry out oats I and billions of pounds of it. This is poi, it poisons soil. It's not good for soil. We should stop using these chemicals. We really should.

Alisa Minkin 50:43

Accept that those billions of pounds mean billions of dollars.

Marion Nestle 50:48

That's right. There are huge industries that profit enormously from use of these things. Monsanto was a company with vertical integration, so it made the genetically modified foods that were resistant to glyphosate and it made the glyphosate clever. Obviously it was to Monsanto's advantage to insist that this was a safe herbicide.

Alisa Minkin 51:16

This is just industry playbook standard.

Marion Nestle 51:18

Absolutely comes outta the industry playbook and they shouldn't be allowed to do this. Okay? Monsanto was then bought by the German drug company buyer, and Bayer's Aspirin, that company and the I couldn't believe they did that because there were already lawsuits suing Monsanto for, particularly people who were gardeners and had been doused with, glyphosate and ended up with hod non Hopkins Hodgkin's lymphoma. And there the evidence is. Correlational, but pretty strong correlation. And so there are literally thousands of lawsuits now and buyer picked that up. And you know right now they've already spent billions in compensation. There will be billions more. They're trying very hard to get them to get the Trump administration to protect them from these lawsuits. Whether it will or not, I don't know. This is a place where the Maha movement really needs to take a strong stand. hope they

Alisa Minkin 52:27

They are, they're definitely trying. There's somebody that's on social media, I can't remember her name. But I heard her speak on a podcast and the, the movement is on this, they are on this, they've been talking about this, and, and they were right. They were right. Okay.

Marion Nestle 52:42

Absolutely i'm right. And they deserve a lot of support for it.

Alisa Minkin 52:47

Yes, yes, yes. And to stop being dismissed by the mainstream media and mainstream science, et cetera, which I've heard. I, you know, I was reading on, in a blog on a pseudoscience debunking blog for a very long time, making fun of people who were saying these things about Roundup. But, but they were right that people were saying it about Roundup, that being dangerous, were right.

Marion Nestle 53:09

I think so. And

Alisa Minkin 53:10

As far as we can tell they're not.

Marion Nestle 53:13

organization agreed with them. That seems pretty impressive,

Alisa Minkin 53:17

Right. Right. And so I'm really hoping that there'll be traction and that people will rise up. I just, I need to be hopeful.

Marion Nestle 53:25

right?

Alisa Minkin 53:25

I need to be hopeful this is our children's future. Like That's

Marion Nestle 53:28

right.

Alisa Minkin 53:29

true. It's absolutely true. So I really wanna thank you. So much we could talk all day and I have to finish your book. It's 700 pages.

Marion Nestle 53:39

Sorry about that. It's

Alisa Minkin 53:41

no,

Marion Nestle 53:42

my version of Moby Dick.

Alisa Minkin 53:45

it's, but you know, but it's really good as, as a resource to look something up as opposed to, to read from first to end. And when you wanna know like the truth, you're, you're, you're, you're just straight to the point. It's just, there's a lot of information in here and it's really, really good. I, I, I highly recommend it.

Marion Nestle 54:01

Thanks.

Alisa Minkin 54:02

So thank you again so much for doing this with me. I appreciate it so tremendously. Keep up the amazing work.

Marion Nestle 54:07

Always fun to talk to you, so

Alisa Minkin 54:10

Thank you.

Marion Nestle 54:11

bye.

54:14

Thank you for listening to Kids Matter. Raising Healthy, happy Children Takes a village, and I'm grateful you are part of ours. If today's conversation resonated with you, please share this episode with another parent, grandparent, teacher, or anyone who cares about kids. Together we can build a supportive community our children deserve. I'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or suggestions for future topics at Kids Matter podcast@gmail.com. With no explanation for your voice truly matters. Until next time, keep advocating for the children in your life because kids really do matter. They are our future. I'm Dr. Elisa Minkin and this has been Kids Matter. Please note that while I am a pediatrician, I am not your child's ped. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical. For any medical concerns or decisions. Reach out to your child's healthcare professional.