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A Nutrition Science Legend Explains What to Eat Now · HER

0:07
Pam Peeke, MD: Hi, I am Dr.
0:08
Pam Peak, and This is episode 546 of the Bold And the Brave Her.
0:17
Podcast Today, I'm joined by someone I have revered forever.
0:22
We share a common background academically and you'll hear about that.
0:27
But I have been doing the Happy Dance ever since.
0:30
she and her team said yes.
0:32
Why?
0:32
Of course, let's share about this extraordinary new book.
0:38
Alright.
0:39
We're so delighted to be joined by Dr.
0:43
Marian Nessel.
0:44
She is literally a nutrition science legend, and I say that
0:49
to embarrass the crap out of her.
0:51
but she, but she is, and most people know her name because of
0:55
her 95 books that she's written.
0:58
some of which most of us have, ordered.
1:01
Held onto over generations.
1:03
I mean, seriously.
1:05
my gosh, what she has done, to the nutrition industry is extraordinary
1:11
because I'm gonna tell you something.
1:13
She has attitude.
1:15
She has some serious attitude, And the attitude is extraordinary because when
1:21
she faces the food industry, they usually have their first nightmare, of the day.
1:27
And That is that, oh God, she's going to talk about.
1:31
The food industry.
1:32
so she wrote a book called What to Eat.
1:36
And that book, I think the grand majority of people still have a
1:40
copy of and I refer to all the time.
1:43
And then for reason, she's going to divulge, she is going to share why
1:49
she wrote the new book, what to Eat.
1:52
Now.
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Dr.
1:54
Nessel is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Medicine, food Studies
1:58
and Public Health emerita at New York University, in the department.
2:03
She chaired from 1988 to 2003.
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And from which she retired in September of 2017.
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She's also visiting professor of Nutrition Sciences at Cornell.
2:17
She holds honorary degrees from just about everybody she is extremely highly
2:23
sided in the scientific literature.
2:26
Marian, welcome to the Herb Podcast.
2:29
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Glad to be here.
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Thank you for the embarrassing introduction.
2:33
Pam Peeke, MD: I know I'm here to embarrass.
2:35
Uh, no.
2:36
Look, folks out there with her podcast land.
2:40
Today I am a fan girl.
2:43
Okay, so I'm just gonna act like one because Marian has always been,
2:47
such an extraordinary, legend.
2:50
I have read her, studies, her books for years.
2:53
I've referred to them for years, and now I have the absolute pleasure of this.
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Amazing interview to talk about this new book where she kicked some serious
3:04
nutrition science ass, and did what she always does, which is, you know, come at
3:09
it with attitude, which I absolutely love.
3:13
She does not hold back.
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She talks about, this wild and crazy world of nutrition science.
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Now get your fingers off that TikTok right now.
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Come on now.
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That's not where you learn nutrition.
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I saw you out there in the Herb Podcast land.
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Alright, Marian.
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seriously, you have been at this, for decades and, we're all happy
3:35
about that and you are still.
3:36
Kicking it, which we love.
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You're crushing it actually.
3:40
And so we all want your brain, we all want your energy.
3:44
after, you know, doing this for so long now, you wrote this book, what
3:48
To Eat Now You added that one word.
3:51
Why did you write this book?
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Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Well, it was a pandemic project.
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I was holed up in Ithaca.
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during the pandemic where upstate New York where my partner lives,
4:03
and it's pretty quiet up there and I thought, I need a project.
4:09
And so I looked at what to eat and thought, gee, this really reads well.
4:13
Timeless Classic except it's out of date.
4:17
And.
4:18
Pam Peeke, MD: Damnit.
4:18
I hate it when that
4:19
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: You know, it's a, it's really, it feels a little dated
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and maybe a publisher, the publisher would be interested in updating it.
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And eventually the publisher was, and I promised the publisher I could
4:33
knock off and update in six months.
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And here we.
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Pam Peeke, MD: Okay, now what's with the four years?
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Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I have never underestimated the amount of
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work involved in doing anything.
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I mean, I just had no idea.
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they said you have to use at least 40% of the original text.
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or you, have to supply at least 40% new text.
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I think I supplied 90% new text, certainly 80%.
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Basically, the book had to be completely rewritten.
5:11
There was not a single product that I used as an example in 2006 that still existed.
5:19
You can't buy a single one of those products at supermarkets.
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Now they're gone.
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They've disappeared.
5:27
and I still mourn, Haagen Ducks frozen yogurt.
5:31
I
5:31
like that stuff, which I used as the example to discuss
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food labels doesn't exist.
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So that was one sort of obvious change.
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I hadn't really been paying very close attention, and I was
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just shocked by the changes.
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The most obvious was that the walls of Coke and Pepsi that would line the store
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when you walked in weren't there anymore.
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They'd been replaced by bottled waters, flavored, usually fruit flavored waters
6:03
of one kind or another house brand.
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ones, I mean one of the big changes is the influx of house brands and every major
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supermarket chain has its own house brand.
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Kroger has it, Walmart has it, target has it Wegman's has it.
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They all have it.
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so that was a big change.
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And then.
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could hardly find organic foods 20 years ago.
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Now they're everywhere.
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Could hardly find international foods.
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Now they're everywhere.
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plant-based meats are new.
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Ultraprocessed foods are new, new term since the book came out.
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Big, very important concept, and I think one of the biggest changes is
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people are buying groceries online.
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The pandemic did that big time, but it took off and it's not going back to pre
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pandemic levels, and almost a third.
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Of grocery sales are online now, which has changed the organization of supermarkets
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And also changed what people are buying.
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so all of that's new.
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And as I went through each aisle of the supermarket.
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it wasn't just a matter of updating and changing the references and updating
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what's the new rules And the new laws And the new regulations And the new concerns.
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It was really doing much more than that.
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I don't know.
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I got to write that book twice.
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I mean, and I should say it's a very big book.
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Oh my
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Pam Peeke, MD: Let's see.
7:41
Let's see how big it is.
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Come on now.
7:43
Okay.
7:43
No, no, but do it on the side so I can see how fat it is.
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Oh my God, this thing is huge.
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Do you use that like as a door stop or you know.
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Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I don't know.
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I mean, it's just, it's uh, it's 700 pages.
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It's amazing.
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People are telling me that it's very easy to read, so that's nice.
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Pam Peeke, MD: you've always known how to write well.
8:06
You know, you don't, over sciencey it.
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you basically keep it fairly practical,
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Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Well, yeah, I, mean, I wrote this not to tell people
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what to eat because I would never do that.
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but I wrote, I want people to.
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Pam Peeke, MD: Oh, come on.
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Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Um, really, I don't tell people what to eat.
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I don't, you know, I'll tell 'em what I eat, but as far as it'll go.
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I want people to think about food issues and advocate for a better food system,
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and that's really what this book is about, is how to think about food issues.
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Here are the issues, here are the trade-offs.
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Here are the things you need to think about if you wanna think about them.
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And if you don't.
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Just go to the store and buy what you want and don't give it a.
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Pam Peeke, MD: So what are the, You know, I, I was looking at the book,
8:52
You know, you've got the basics, which I love, diet and health, duh.
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You know, decoding the food labels.
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I mean, the food labels have gone through a few little changes
9:02
in the last generation, right?
9:05
Yeah.
9:05
And the health claims endorsements And the, the whole
9:09
issue of, Diets and dieting.
9:11
Give us, just a, very brief little touch base on diets and dieting.
9:17
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Well, all diets work if you stick to them.
9:20
They all work.
9:21
Pam Peeke, MD: Okay.
9:22
Let's move
9:23
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Every, every single one of them
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will work if you follow it.
9:27
you know, the big ones now are high protein diets.
9:30
that's the current fad that'll change eventually.
9:34
Right now, everybody's pushing protein, which as a nutritionist I find hilarious
9:38
because, um, most people eat twice the protein they need already, and
9:43
you certainly don't need anymore.
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Pam Peeke, MD: And you just pee it out anyway.
9:47
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Um, no, you, You know, you use the amino acids for
9:51
building blocks and if you've got too
9:53
much,
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you're, yeah, you're burning it off as energy and storing it as fat
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and doing all those other things.
10:00
But protein is unlikely to be harmful and or seriously harmful in, in
10:05
large quantities, but it makes no sense to me to, You know, eat protein
10:11
supplements or proteins in everything.
10:14
It's in potato chips.
10:16
It's in soft drinks, it's in beer, it's in, I mean,
10:21
Pam Peeke, MD: Wait a minute, it's in my chair.
10:23
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Yeah.
10:23
It's being, it's being added to everything these days.
10:28
Pam Peeke, MD: I know, I, I think part of it is, some of my fellow board
10:32
members with the American College of Sports Medicine, are some of the top
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names, you know, Stu Phillips up at McMaster and, and his work with protein.
10:42
what we now have is, interesting enhancement of our knowledge
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base based upon both gender.
10:50
And age specific, after you turned, you know, 60 or 70 sort of fell
10:55
off a cliff in, And so much of the research, it's like, I don't
10:59
know, just figure it out out there.
11:00
If you end up being a hundred year old, God bless you.
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You know, it's like, well wait a minute.
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And then we were thinking for a long time in medicine, You know, don't over
11:09
protein older people only to find out older people actually need, you know, a
11:14
hell of a lot more protein than they've been getting because they're nutrition.
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They're not eating.
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That's the whole point.
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They're, they're eating so little And what they eat is like, you
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know, really seriously, you just ate a couple corn flakes and you
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know, like, You know, I, I got it.
11:30
No you don't.
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No.
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It's called protein.
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You need it.
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and of course when you're facing frailty, when you're facing the,
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sarcopenia, you know, when you drop, age related muscle during your.
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You sixties, you need to be able to be on top of all of that and be proactive.
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And I think that that's a very good thing.
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we're looking at protein and health in that regard.
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And I'm also extremely happy to see that there's some gender
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specific research coming out.
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Oh my goodness.
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Women and men.
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You know, when I was at the NIH, Bernadine Healy showed up.
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She was the first woman And the only woman to ever run the joint.
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first thing out of her mouth was not a penny to anyone unless you
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include women in your research if it's appropriate, right?
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And I was like, you go girl.
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And of
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course she was.
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I know.
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And then, you know, they started calling her the B word, ends with
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an H and I said, bring it on, man.
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and she was fearless.
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She just said no.
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Mm-hmm.
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Looking at every single grant, You know, where are women?
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Come on now, and stop extrapolating.
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So that was an exciting thing.
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But that also happened in nutrition, right?
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so that's a very good thing.
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So now.
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That's diets and dieting.
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it's pretty crazy out there now.
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Right off the bat, I saw a fantastic interview with you
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where you had major attitude.
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This was wonderful.
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Here it comes.
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All right.
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That interview was when they were talking about breakfast, the three squares
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a day, but You know, people having breakfast and you did the cave woman
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thing, and I've been doing it forever.
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I fell off my chair.
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I said, Marian and I are aligned.
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Can you please give us
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the breakfast talk?
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Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: not a breakfast eater,
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I think.
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I think.
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I
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think you should eat when you're hungry.
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I don't get hungry till about 11.
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I don't know what meal of the day That is, but that's when I feel
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like eating and I don't really wanna eat anything before then.
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And I certainly don't wanna eat anything when I first wake up.
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I know This is completely contrary to nutrition advice, that breakfast is
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the most important meal of the day.
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But that advice was designed by breakfast cereal companies.
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They, they sp, they sponsored all the research uh, on the
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importance of breakfast.
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Pam Peeke, MD: no bias there.
14:01
Come on now.
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Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: not.
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Absolutely not.
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and particularly the cereal companies wanted breakfast equated with cereal.
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so they did a lot of research to show how healthy everybody was.
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If they had cereal first thing in the morning, that's fine.
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If you wanna eat breakfast, that's fine.
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I just don't.
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Pam Peeke, MD: Isn't that interesting?
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You know, what we're taught basically, You know, just looking at, You know,
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the new, concepts, around metabolism And the metabolome and all the rest.
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But they usually say is they say, well, Insulin secretion is most efficient
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early, like in the morning, that could be 11 o'clock, but in the morning.
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And that by the time you hit around, after three o'clock, four
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o'clock, it becomes less efficient.
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Meaning that you're really not metabolizing optimally, meaning that, you
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know, there's a greater chance that if you do take in your carbs and all the other
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little goodies, later in the day, and certainly when you're having a Mount St.
15:03
Pasta for dinner.
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Um.
15:05
and it's usually a late dinner that your insulin's like me, meh.
15:09
You know, what do we do with this stuff?
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And, And so you're more likely to pile on the, the calories, And the fat.
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So This is one of the reasons why, it works that way.
15:21
But I think a lot of, you know, when I saw you say that, you also brought
15:27
up, You know, the caveman thing.
15:29
So go through that.
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Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Oh, you mean the paleo diet?
15:33
Pam Peeke, MD: Well, no, no, no.
15:33
Actually the fact that This is what I always say.
15:37
And you said the same thing.
15:39
What you said was, okay, let's go back to, You know, caveman cave woman.
15:44
they get up in the morning with the Tweety birds because You know, you don't
15:47
wanna hang around the cave for too long.
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Gotta get out there and guess what you got to eat so it's
15:53
time to forage and hang out.
15:55
Right?
15:55
So you don't.
15:56
Yeah, hunt and gather.
15:58
Forage and gather.
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Just do it.
16:00
And so what ended up happening was, you know, they were lucky
16:03
to score a meal every day, right?
16:06
I mean, like a real meal meal.
16:08
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Well, they survived.
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They must have had something.
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They kept them going.
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Pam Peeke, MD: Well, no, but you know what's really cool, Marian, is
16:15
that, the way I look at it is this goes to Satchin Panda's work at the
16:20
Salk Institute and Ter Longo at USC.
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And This is where you're looking at circadian rhythm.
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I'm a real circadian rhythm person.
16:29
Honor the clock is what I like to say.
16:33
So if you really look at the secretion of hormones.
16:36
Throughout the 24 hour cycle, everything from melatonin at nighttime, you know,
16:42
to insulin and, corticosteroids, you know, cortisol in the morning,
16:46
which actually find is that they all follow a circadian rhythm.
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There's a reason why there was a very lovely Nobel Prize handed out
16:53
in 2021 on this whole thing when they kind of figured this out.
16:57
So, circadian rhythm is very important at the end of the day.
17:02
your entire metabolism was built around this.
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when can you most efficiently, chew up those calories and utilize them for
17:10
fuel when you're rocking and rolling.
17:11
So, I loved what you said.
17:13
You said, well think a cat cake woman.
17:15
What does she do?
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Like, you know, get up and go, Hey, let's start with breakfast.
17:19
I was like, what?
17:20
No, you gotta score some food.
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Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: And get your step counts in at the same time.
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you know what I think is really interesting is what the new GLP one
17:33
drugs are doing about our knowledge, about how all of this works.
17:37
We're learning so much from them.
17:40
They're so fascinating.
17:41
I, I mean, I'm completely riveted by them because they make people not as hungry.
17:47
but not as hungry selectively, you know, they're not as hungry for junk
17:52
food and Ooh, isn't that interesting?
17:56
so they want healthier foods and they're looking for healthier eating
18:00
and, well, it's gonna be interesting to see how all that works out.
18:05
Pam Peeke, MD: Well, you know, I'm watching.
18:07
The evolution of the glp.
18:09
a lot of my, colleagues are actually involved with the trials.
18:13
And what's interesting is that they started with one receptor, agonist, and
18:19
now they're just, they're, up to four
18:21
now.
18:21
Um.
18:21
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: them all in.
18:23
Pam Peeke, MD: Yeah, just roll 'em in, you know, G-L-P-G-I-P,
18:26
everybody let's just do it.
18:28
And then they they had a little whoopsy moment when they went, uhoh,
18:32
we're losing a lot of lean mass.
18:34
What's going on here?
18:35
And it's like, yeah, you are, for a lot of reasons, You know, it's both direct.
18:40
effect on the muscle itself, as well as the fact that, you know, a funny thing
18:45
happens, people just don't eat that much.
18:47
so, next thing You know, they're not eating protein.
18:51
What's also, you said selective people find a number.
18:55
There's a sub-sector of people who do not find protein to be tasty anymore.
19:00
Who knew.
19:00
And so they're eating less protein and there go the muscles,
19:04
and that's a very bad thing.
19:05
Last time I looked
19:07
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Yeah, I'm not sure the protein
19:09
powders make up for it either.
19:11
Pam Peeke, MD: Yeah, well that's actually an incredibly good point.
19:15
I'm a firm believer in trying to get everything through whole food, and there
19:19
are plenty of tasty ways to get protein out there, whether it's vegetarian or,
19:25
you know, however you wanna play the game.
19:27
you can do it and make it really, really tasty, but that means you
19:31
have to, oh no, the four letter word.
19:34
Cook.
19:35
And so how many people are actually doing that?
19:39
Come on now.
19:41
Well, you and I were weaned on, okay.
19:43
So what you ha all of you in the Herb Podcast land have to know is that Dr.
19:48
Nestle and I, both are graduates of uc, Berkeley.
19:51
And that should explain everything, but I digress.
19:54
so, Dr.
19:55
Nessel, stayed for her PhD in nutrition science, and uh,
20:01
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: biology.
20:02
Pam Peeke, MD: oh, molecular biology.
20:03
That's right.
20:04
It was molecular biology.
20:05
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: a bench scientist
20:07
Pam Peeke, MD: That's right.
20:07
You were bench all the way.
20:10
That's right.
20:11
So I did undergrad And then I did grad, I did a master's in public health public
20:15
policy before I went on to med school.
20:17
So you went the PhD route?
20:19
I went the MD route.
20:21
but we both shared wild and crazy times.
20:23
'cause I went to the Berkeley co-op all the time and I lived there and I cooked.
20:30
I made my own bread.
20:32
I did everything I mean the produce that the co-op was to die
20:37
for, and I mean, I don't know.
20:39
I'm trying to remember, but I think it was organic, right?
20:42
It was the
20:44
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: to know.
20:44
But they, they had a really great selection and there's still a couple
20:48
of places in Berkeley that still have the best produce I've ever seen.
20:53
People in California are so lucky, they have no idea.
20:57
Pam Peeke, MD: I know and it is just, oh my gosh.
21:00
I lived on North Side up near the Rose Garden a lot of my professors
21:04
lived up in that area too.
21:06
So we hung, and it was a good time.
21:09
Linus Pawing showed up, taught biochemistry.
21:13
Okay.
21:13
I was there for that.
21:15
he lived up on, on North side as well with his little paper bag.
21:20
and his lunch in those, You know, little brown bag thing.
21:23
It was kind of cool.
21:24
So you, you know, just talking to you brings me right down memory lane because
21:29
we had a different appreciation of food then for me, whole food was whole food.
21:36
I mean, you ate produce, and
21:38
you cooked.
21:39
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: as much processed food then.
21:41
There really was.
21:42
There really wasn't, or what We're now calling Ultraprocessed.
21:46
Pam Peeke, MD: Okay.
21:46
Now you've mentioned that twice.
21:48
So tag you're it.
21:49
You're gonna have to explain this because you know that the hellscape out there.
21:55
I'm trying to explain Ultra Pro, what is this?
21:59
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: It's a term that's new since the
22:02
first edition of the book.
22:03
So, and I think it's a very important concept.
22:07
It was, invented by Carlos Montero, who's a professor of public health at
22:11
the University of San Paulo in Brazil.
22:14
Okay.
22:14
Brazil we're Americans.
22:16
We don't care what happens in Latin America.
22:19
but this was a very important concept and he divided foods into a
22:25
classification system called Nova, which what he named it, that divides
22:31
foods by their degree of process.
22:34
he did.
22:35
The first three categories are food and they're unprocessed foods, you
22:40
know, apples off the tree, corn off the cob, that kind of thing.
22:45
And then processed culinary ingredients, which are things like salt, sugar, fat,
22:50
that you add to unprocessed foods in order to make them processed, which includes.
22:58
foods that are frozen and foods that are canned but minimal processing.
23:03
And then the fourth category he called ultra processing, which are industrially
23:07
transformed foods that don't look anything like the foods they came from.
23:13
Require elaborate equipment to turn into these things.
23:17
usually have a lot of additives.
23:20
As well as Salter and Fat are designed to be irresistibly delicious, if not.
23:28
Addictive and are, you can't make them in your home kitchen because
23:33
you don't have the additives or you don't have the equipment.
23:37
once those categories were established, it became possible to do research.
23:42
And there have now been more than a thousand studies with the
23:46
word ultraprocessed in the title.
23:48
And of those, there are more than a hundred clinical trials.
23:52
And of those clinical trials, 90% show that ultraprocessed diets,
23:59
diets in which the majority of calories come from ultraprocessed
24:02
foods, increase the risk of.
24:06
Obesity, type two diabetes, heart disease, cancer, overall
24:10
mortality, the whole works.
24:12
Those are observational studies.
24:14
They can only show correlation.
24:17
They can't show causation.
24:20
But there are now three or four clinical trials extremely well-controlled that
24:26
demonstrate that Ultraprocessed foods induce people to eat more calories.
24:32
Than if they're eating relatively unprocessed diets,
24:36
but a lot more calories.
24:38
So in the first study, 500 more calories a day in the second to 800, And in
24:44
the third a thousand more calories.
24:46
So for me, that's reason enough to, to sort of cut back on these things.
24:52
Nobody in the United States needs extra calories these days.
24:57
Pam Peeke, MD: Yeah.
24:57
You know, when I wrote my book, my last book was The Hunger Fix.
25:01
It was the first consumer book on food and addiction.
25:05
And This is after, Ashley Gerhardt had done her work at Yale and she's
25:10
now at Michigan, and developed the, food addiction scale based upon
25:14
the addiction scale that people.
25:16
Typically use for everything from alcohol to drugs and back and forth.
25:21
And I knew this, I could listen to this on the part of my patient's.
25:25
they were absolutely hooked.
25:27
there was no question.
25:28
the other thing I ended up doing was I was asked by one of the largest, addiction
25:33
groups in the country, to come and to try to address the issue of addictive eating.
25:40
Because what would happen is they'd go to some fancy schmancy rehab, spend a
25:44
lot of time in California just saying, and they're at a fancy schmancy rehab.
25:51
And, and This is what they would do.
25:52
First I had to observe, you know, most of this was not
25:55
shocking, but it was kind of wild.
25:57
And so they'd be off there.
25:58
Now, no one's on just one thing anymore.
26:01
They're on like e all of the above at whatever time and whatever date.
26:06
So it's alcohol and pills and injections and, it's a wild west out there and it,
26:13
it just breaks my heart, when I see that, when I see a, a person coming in who's
26:17
just, you know, so we get 'em through the hell of that, then This is what they do.
26:22
They start, drinking can, after can of monster.
26:28
Red Bull.
26:29
so what they're doing is the action is taking place in the nucleus accumbens,
26:33
which is the reward center of the brain.
26:36
what they're trying to do is they're trying to get, as it were,
26:39
a legal high, they want to get.
26:43
As much pleasure and as much dopamine release as they can get.
26:48
That would even come within spitting distance of heroin, meth,
26:54
fentanyl, God knows what else, you know, alcohol and back and forth.
26:58
So they would, I mean.
26:59
Seriously, they would pour a cup of coffee and like half a
27:04
bag of, sugar would go into it.
27:07
And it was unbelievable.
27:08
It just, whoa, whoa, we gotta deal with this.
27:11
And, the same thing with food, per se.
27:14
And of course, cigarettes smoking is illegal high, so you'd see a lot
27:18
of smoking and a lot of this crazy, you know, eating thing going on.
27:22
So what we decided to do, I put together a culinary team.
27:26
of wild and crazy people, right?
27:28
chefs and rds and culinary nutritionists.
27:32
Okay, so people who really had a hell of a background and I grabbed them
27:36
all and I said, we are gonna fight it out with the, with the high level
27:41
sugar stuff And the, caffeine stuff.
27:44
And we created menus that were 50 times more delicious And the
27:50
stuff they were trying to get.
27:51
And then I converted them over to water.
27:55
With, beautiful fruit cut up in the water.
27:58
they'd never tasted this.
28:00
All they'd ever had was that other crap.
28:02
if you do this gradually over time, a little miracle took place.
28:08
And the other thing that really cuts down on addiction is physical activity.
28:12
Oh, it's
28:12
huge.
28:13
I mean.
28:14
Well, the research shows that you get 10 times seriously.
28:20
the rehab benefit from physical activity than if they're just sitting around
28:24
feeling bad about themselves, So get 'em out there, throw balls, do whatever, run.
28:29
I don't care what you do.
28:30
Just, you know, get your ass up and
28:32
moving.
28:32
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: move.
28:33
Pam Peeke, MD: Yeah, man.
28:34
You know, they set up volleyball courts and they beat each other
28:37
up and it was great stuff.
28:38
So you gotta take it seriously.
28:41
So when people say, oh, I think I'm addicted to it, you are guaranteed.
28:46
I can guarantee you are because it's, it's like a bingeable thing, right?
28:51
So if you can't say, remember the old Lays, potato chip, ad,
28:55
if you can't have just one.
28:57
If you can't have just one.
28:59
Okay.
29:00
That sucker in front of you, whatever it is.
29:03
Liquid.
29:03
Liquid or solid.
29:04
That is a
29:05
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Well, that's the whole point.
29:07
You know, I mean, food companies are not social service agencies and
29:11
they're not public health agencies.
29:13
They want you to eat as much as you possibly can of what
29:17
they're making, because they've got stockholders to please.
29:21
Pam Peeke, MD: Well there's a lot of that going on and you know, you have this,
29:25
One, section called the center aisles.
29:27
I always love the center aisles when you write that 'cause
29:30
it's going to be held to pay.
29:32
And This is where you went into Ultraprocessed.
29:35
the serials are just amazing.
29:37
I have a serial story And the serial story I'm gonna tell you when we come back.
30:43
And we're back.
30:44
Okay.
30:44
It's serial time.
30:46
So I just interviewed a kind of an amazing person, on my, podcast.
30:52
this was, fairly recently.
30:54
her name is Natalie Grabow, and she became, quite the, uh, You know,
31:00
sensation, all over the internet.
31:03
Why?
31:03
Well, she's 80.
31:05
she was the first woman at the age of 80 to ever successfully
31:10
complete the Iron Man.
31:13
Triathlon World Championship in Kona.
31:17
Now I'm a triathlete.
31:18
I'm here to tell you that sucker is kick ass.
31:22
And there were 30 year olds who didn't finish and here she is, she's kind of
31:28
trooping through and she finished.
31:30
the best part of it And the reason why it was so popular is about, mm, I
31:35
would say 10 feet right before she hit.
31:38
You know, there's always an archway, which is the.
31:40
Finish line And we wear, chips, they're attached to our ankle or
31:45
someplace, And so we have to get across the archway for the chip to
31:50
go ding, And then to give you your.
31:53
Time, your actual time, you got to get out of that.
31:55
So just as she's 10 feet away, she face plants.
32:00
I mean, to tell you, it was
32:01
gorgeous.
32:02
So she's running along.
32:03
No, it was kind of cool.
32:04
You know, she's, she's swinging with the program here.
32:07
What happened is the computer carpet had some wrinkles in it and she,
32:12
stumbled over one of those wrinkles.
32:13
'cause let's just say a whole lot of people had been ahead of her.
32:17
know, this was 16 hours and 44 minutes or something, because
32:21
you had to make it in 17 hours.
32:23
So she made it, You know, she picked herself up.
32:26
She had that look about her, kind of reminded me of you.
32:28
She's just like, who is the moron?
32:30
Who, you know, put the wrinkle here.
32:32
I'm gonna slap 'em.
32:33
and she had that little look, you know, it was like, oh my God.
32:36
You know, I, I fell.
32:38
Oh no.
32:39
She was like, come on over here.
32:41
If you did this to me, I'm gonna show you which way is up.
32:44
So then she went right through the archway.
32:45
The whole place fell apart and you know, whatever.
32:48
So I said, I gotta talk to her.
32:50
So we did.
32:51
She and I have become kind of really cool friends now.
32:54
So the first thing I asked, You know, as we were getting to know
32:58
each other, I said, girlfriend, What do you have for breakfast?
33:02
Because you see, since she's an ex, You know, she's more of an extreme exerciser.
33:07
She's going to eat more.
33:08
they just do, so she's up at about five and she's caregiving her husband
33:13
there's some stuff going on there.
33:14
It's all good.
33:15
She has it all scheduled.
33:17
So I said, what do you eat?
33:18
And she goes, Cheerios.
33:21
And I'm like, let me just get this straight.
33:23
You're 80, you're, you're one of the, you just went into the Iron
33:27
Man Hall of Fame, the Guinness Book.
33:30
People just gave you your certificate and you eat Cheerios.
33:33
And she goes, I said, how long have you been doing that?
33:36
And she said, Hmm.
33:37
Most of my life.
33:40
says, but they're healthy because I put blueberries on them.
33:45
So I'm sitting there, I'm going, Natalie, I love you.
33:49
I just love you.
33:50
And I said, do you ever get tired of Cheerios?
33:53
You know, like, you got to back up somewhere.
33:55
She goes, oh yeah.
33:57
And I said, well, what do you, what do you eat?
33:59
She says, frosted mini.
34:00
Mini
34:01
wheats.
34:02
So I.
34:04
So now you know we have an N of we have an an N of one experiment, which
34:10
is her level of physical activity.
34:14
Just supervenes over all the other stuff she does.
34:17
And then I said, well, what's your treat?
34:19
She says, oh, well I do that dark chocolate.
34:21
And I said, yeah, bring it on girlfriend.
34:24
And then I said, what else?
34:25
She goes, marshmallows.
34:26
I just love marshmallows.
34:28
And I said, really?
34:29
She goes, yeah, handfuls great stuff.
34:32
And I just said, I love you more.
34:35
Alright.
34:35
And then of course she has her protein and she has her
34:39
vegetables and everything else.
34:40
I just thought it was.
34:42
Beautiful that she's not following some, you know, kind of obsessive, tech bro.
34:49
You know how the guys are going with, you know, you have to eat exactly this
34:53
and so the reason why I bring that up is because there's a lot of wiggle room here.
34:58
You know,
34:59
there's so much wiggle room.
35:02
So talk to me about wiggle
35:03
room.
35:03
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: first of all, I, That is cereals.
35:07
Pam Peeke, MD: Ah, you got, you have to talk to Natalie.
35:10
I'll hook you
35:11
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I've collected cereal boxes for years,
35:14
especially ones with completely ridiculous health claims on them.
35:18
And I have a co-author And we wrote a book about, food and nutrition policy
35:23
using cereal boxes to illustrate, and it's gonna come out in September, 2026.
35:30
It's called.
35:30
Pam Peeke, MD: you're gonna be
35:31
back.
35:31
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: is called sugar coated.
35:33
Um, and, and it's coming out and you know, I do almost the same thing,
35:39
but I eat mini wheats because they have a lot more fiber than Cheerios.
35:45
So I like, I like having a high fiber breakfast when I get around to eating
35:50
it, and, and I always have fruit with it.
35:53
Pam Peeke, MD: Okay.
35:54
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: the day.
35:55
Pam Peeke, MD: Everyone out there in the Herb podcast land wants to know
35:58
what you eat, so we want to hear it.
36:00
So right around 11 o'clock, when you're getting a little hungry, what do you eat?
36:04
Come on
36:04
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: And then post mini wheats, no, no sugar,
36:07
no salt, and I add my own sugar.
36:10
And even adding my own sugar is gonna be a lot less than, unsweetened
36:15
cereals, and I have blueberries or some other kind of berries with
36:18
it that starts the day after that.
36:20
It's a free for all.
36:21
It just depends on what I'm doing and where I am and what's happening.
36:26
Pam Peeke, MD: So are you a flexitarian?
36:28
What are you?
36:29
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I'm an omnivore.
36:31
I eat every, I eat everything.
36:32
I eat everything.
36:33
Pam Peeke, MD: in front of you,
36:34
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I follow my own advice.
36:36
I don't find it very hard to follow, you know, easily summarized
36:41
by Michael Pollan as eat food.
36:43
Not too much.
36:44
Mostly plants.
36:45
As long as the food is not too ultraprocessed.
36:48
I have my favorite Ultraprocessed Foods.
36:51
If you ask me my favorite food,
36:53
Pam Peeke, MD: Okay, go for it.
36:54
I'm waiting.
36:54
I'm waiting.
36:55
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: ice cream.
36:57
Pam Peeke, MD: I love ice
36:58
cream.
36:58
It's fantastic.
36:59
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I
37:00
do too.
37:00
I do too.
37:00
Pam Peeke, MD: high quality ice
37:02
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Oh yeah, me
37:02
too.
37:02
Pam Peeke, MD: have it.
37:03
I don't want trash.
37:04
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I want really good ice cream and
37:05
I particularly like Ginger.
37:07
but you know, I think that the idea that one diet is a prescription
37:13
for everybody makes no sense.
37:15
You look at worldwide diets, they're completely different.
37:19
they vary in every possible way, but the basic principles of good nutrition
37:25
are always the same, and that's to eat a wide variety of relatively
37:29
unprocessed foods in reasonable amounts.
37:34
Pam Peeke, MD: I know.
37:34
And then obviously match it.
37:36
Match it with physical activity.
37:39
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: yeah.
37:39
Pam Peeke, MD: never notice, I don't use the E word exercise.
37:42
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: No, I live in New York.
37:43
I don't exercise.
37:44
I just live in New York and I don't have a car.
37:48
I don't have a car.
37:51
Pam Peeke, MD: What words of advice do you have for people out there as we do
37:54
the close now, as they feel hopeless, seeking out help from TikTok, Google.
38:02
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: You know, food is one of life's.
38:04
Most important pleasures, and it's really important to enjoy your food, and I
38:10
just wish everybody wouldn't worry so much about it and just eat real food.
38:16
Don't eat a lot of junk food.
38:18
Make sure you eat your vegetables and don't worry about it.
38:22
Eat what you like.
38:23
Have fun with it.
38:24
Food is wonderful fun.
38:26
Pam Peeke, MD: And act like a cave woman.
38:28
That's what I have to say.
38:30
I love it.
38:30
Everyone out there, I've had the absolute pleasure of having, someone
38:35
I've revered for so long, Dr.
38:38
Marian Nessel, she is the author of God Knows How many books, but the most
38:42
important one right now is what To Eat now, what to Eat Now, And then in next
38:50
year you're gonna get sugarcoated too.
38:52
There's another one coming down the pike.
38:54
Miriam, I can't begin to thank you.
38:58
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Oh, well thank you.
38:59
It was a pleasure to be here.
39:01
It is great to see you again.
39:03
Pam Peeke, MD: Awesome.
39:03
And I wanna thank my sponsors Solar Array Vitamins, minerals
39:07
and Herbs, rooted in nature and their new her Life Stages products.
39:11
Scope it all out@solararray.com
39:14
and take a moment, leave a review for us now because we love to hear from you.
39:19
This has been a production of Podcast Health and remember,
39:23
you're in this world for a limited time, but the things you can.
39:27
Do with that time are not so come on out there.
39:31
Carpe dm.
39:32
Seize the day.
39:33
Thanks for listening everyone.