Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 246: The Food Pyramid Is Getting Rewritten Again. Beef Producers Should Pay Attention. with Emma Coffman

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246: The Food Pyramid Is Getting Rewritten Again. Beef Producers Should Pay Attention. with Emma Coffman · CattleUSA Daily

• 0:00
  In today's episode with Emma Kaufman, we are breaking down
• 0:04
  the new restructuring of the food pyramid or the My Plate
• 0:08
  that just got released on January 7th and what that means
• 0:11
  for our beef industry, what that means for consumer demand.
• 0:14
  And we also just go into the trenches of nutrition, what we
• 0:18
  have seen over the past 30 years and where we are now and where
• 0:22
  we kind of hope to continue to see it go as we look forward.
• 0:26
  Before we hop into this podcast with Emma, you could take a
• 0:29
  second to make sure you are subscribed to this podcast on
• 0:32
  YouTube. You like this episode, and if
• 0:35
  you were watching on any of our other podcast platforms, take a
• 0:37
  second to go write and review it as well.
• 0:39
  Without further ado, let's go ahead and hear from Emma.
• 0:45
  Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily Podcast, your go to source for
• 0:48
  the latest livestock markets, industry insights and the
• 0:51
  updates shaping agriculture today.
• 0:53
  I'm your host Lauren Moylan, a passionate advocate for
• 0:56
  agriculture, here to keep you informed and connected.
• 1:00
  Now let's dive into today's episode.
• 1:08
  Emma, welcome back to the podcast.
• 1:11
  Once again, I am so excited for today's topic.
• 1:15
  We're kind of taking it away from the beef industry
• 1:18
  specifically for a second, but we're still talking about beef.
• 1:21
  Like we're not talking about something that every single
• 1:24
  color producer out there is really going to give a crap
• 1:26
  about, but still impacts them and their operations and beef
• 1:30
  demand and how the common public and our consumer population
• 1:36
  views beef and the importance of it.
• 1:38
  Would. I'd like to introduce our topic
• 1:40
  for today, Emma. Yes, and while most producers
• 1:44
  eat beef in their diet, a lot of misconception and misinformation
• 1:47
  has been out there about the nutritional quality of beef.
• 1:51
  So as of January 7th, Brooke Rollins and RFK Junior did come
• 1:56
  out and say that they're going to do an analysis and revamping
• 2:00
  of the My Play or the Food Pyramid.
• 2:03
  Now just some back context, the dietary guidelines typically
• 2:08
  goes like in a 5:00-ish year type of meant the last one was
• 2:12
  2020 to 2025. Now they're releasing the 2026
• 2:16
  to 2030. So it's been a wild journey.
• 2:22
  The 2020 to 2025. Wow, that was that was
• 2:26
  interesting. For those who aren't aware,
• 2:29
  there was a lot of reports coming out that was saying
• 2:33
  Cheerios on the food Compass score was scoring a 97% out of
• 2:37
  100. Chocolate covered almonds were
• 2:39
  78%, lucky charm 60%. Meanwhile beef was at 26%,
• 2:45
  cheese is at 28 and eggs were at 29.
• 2:47
  So there is a lot of demonizing our protein, naturally occurring
• 2:53
  protein and food resources, our Whole Foods industry and
• 2:58
  promoting of the ultra processed food industry, especially with
• 3:01
  cereal grains and added sugar contexts.
• 3:04
  So that is a big, big concern when it comes to education of
• 3:09
  the beef product, especially talking about our area of
• 3:14
  industry and even heart health. There's a lot of concerns
• 3:17
  talking about now finally statistics and research data
• 3:21
  starting to come out that's combating a lot of the
• 3:23
  misinformation claiming that red meat is not heart healthy for
• 3:27
  you and is not a good part of your diet.
• 3:30
  Thank goodness for those researchers.
• 3:31
  So as beef producers, we should love you and praise you because
• 3:36
  people want to listen to the data.
• 3:37
  They want to listen to the numbers, but they don't want to
• 3:39
  listen to accurate data and numbers because don't eat this
• 3:42
  It's killing you has a lot more of a click bait title than hey,
• 3:46
  actually everything he told you, JK about the American Heart
• 3:49
  founding. So, you know, also looking at
• 3:53
  some of our health numbers, we are seeing a just super scary
• 3:59
  level of unhealthiness in our country. 90% of healthcare
• 4:04
  spending is in the sector of chronic diseases that is
• 4:09
  directly tied to diet and lifestyle.
• 4:13
  That's insane. 70% of American adults are overweight or
• 4:17
  diagnosed obese. That should raise massive red
• 4:22
  flags. And I think with the change of
• 4:23
  administration, there's going to be a lot more of a light shined
• 4:27
  in those regions because RFK Junior doesn't care about
• 4:30
  funding from either big pharma or from corporate companies that
• 4:34
  are pushing the sugary drinks and almost like gasoline if you
• 4:38
  want to think about it into the car of obesity, I think that is
• 4:43
  great. And so whether you are for him
• 4:45
  or you're against him or you're kind of in the middle, and this
• 4:48
  is a big win not just for the beef industry, but for
• 4:51
  agriculture and. Absolutely.
• 4:54
  Over the past even just 1520, thirty years, we have seen a
• 4:59
  really big push from our corporations that have a lot of
• 5:04
  money to spend. And you think that the beef
• 5:07
  industry has a lot of money to spend on promotion.
• 5:09
  Look at at the processed food industry on the millions and
• 5:14
  trillions of dollars that they spend on promotion to the
• 5:19
  processed foods and really pushing policy with that as
• 5:23
  well. I think that was the biggest
• 5:24
  battle that we were facing over the past 10 years specifically
• 5:28
  because we had an uprise in our consumer population really
• 5:32
  caring about what they were putting in their bodies.
• 5:35
  I think that is 1 positive thing that kind of came out of COVID
• 5:38
  was people were really starting to ask those questions of what
• 5:41
  am I putting into my body, what is in my food?
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  And we as a beef industry and as a protein industry really
• 5:47
  responded well in that scenario. We've seen a really big intake
• 5:51
  and up just an uptick in diets like the carnivore diet and just
• 5:56
  different like whole 30 diets, paleo diets, all those things
• 6:00
  that really push a protein base and then vegetable sides and
• 6:06
  things like that. And really looking at our Whole
• 6:09
  Foods and our nutrition in that sense rather than just the like
• 6:13
  easy freezer diet meals that are in all of our grocery store
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  aisles, right? Like for years we had the Weight
• 6:20
  Watchers push and we were seeing all of those and none of that
• 6:24
  had protein as the primary source in those meals.
• 6:29
  And so it is really encouraging to see that transition really go
• 6:35
  back to our protein products again, not have that
• 6:38
  falsification of scoring saying that Honey Nut Cheerios is
• 6:42
  better for you than eggs and beef are.
• 6:45
  It's it's really encouraging for everyone, whether you're a
• 6:47
  consumer or a producer. I just, it is, it is
• 6:51
  encouraging, but it also just makes you question a lot of
• 6:55
  what's been going on behind the scenes in the past, like the
• 6:57
  previous. So much what I think they were
• 7:02
  giving lobotomies as like an entrance fee.
• 7:05
  Like, hey, you get to come sitting on these meetings, but
• 7:10
  would you like a complimentary lobotomy before you join us?
• 7:14
  Like world is Lucky Charms, let's just say, OK, maybe red
• 7:19
  meat is like you're if you were a vegetarian or vegan and you're
• 7:22
  like slowly kind of getting into the beef space and so or in the
• 7:25
  meat space and you want to like try fish or chicken.
• 7:28
  In what? World is chicken, beef, pork,
• 7:32
  lamb fish rate lower on the health score than Lucky Charms
• 7:38
  Cheerios. I think one of them was oh, non
• 7:43
  fat frozen yogurt. OK, and we wonder why we have so
• 7:47
  much obesity in the world is like, OK, so this is what I tell
• 7:50
  people all the time. Is that 50 years ago, right?
• 7:53
  Is it? Oh, wait, after you know what,
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  let's just say 30 years ago. Let's just give it a little
• 7:56
  grace. 30 years ago we started this pendulum swing of where we
• 8:02
  had a lot more people and women coming into the workforce.
• 8:05
  So we had both people in the household at work.
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  The amount of time spent at home was less, so therefore there's
• 8:12
  less time for grocery shopping and meal prepping.
• 8:16
  That's probably the most common pushback that I see online is
• 8:20
  like, well, it's really easy, but you know, I've, I've got a
• 8:22
  really hard schedule. Well, I've been there too,
• 8:25
  right? Single household, just me, my
• 8:27
  animals. And so like, I get it when
• 8:29
  you're traveling a lot, finding healthy foods can be very
• 8:32
  difficult, but fast food was supposed to be an occasional
• 8:35
  convenience, not an everyday go to.
• 8:38
  And, and I hate to say it, but like we've gotten lazy.
• 8:42
  We have gotten lazy on taking the time to find our own food
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  when it we don't have to grow it anymore.
• 8:49
  So we did that for you. Like here's some grocery stores.
• 8:51
  Now you have a plethora of different options.
• 8:54
  And don't tell me that it's hard to cook and that you don't know
• 8:56
  how to cook. You may not have like a refined
• 8:59
  skill set, but beef is what's for dinner.
• 9:02
  Insanely good resource. You can tell it what you have in
• 9:06
  your fridge, in your pantry, what kind of cut of meat you
• 9:09
  have or how to cook certain meals as maybe you're introing
• 9:13
  into the kitchen. And they will show you step by
• 9:16
  step. Not only they have recipes, but
• 9:17
  they have nutritional facts for you.
• 9:19
  They've got videos for you. Like we could not make it any
• 9:22
  easier for people to actually take that first initial step,
• 9:26
  but it's like leading a horse to water.
• 9:28
  You can't make it drink just because you say you want to get
• 9:31
  your you know, I'm talking about the first of the year, New
• 9:34
  Year's resolutions. You want to eat healthier, you
• 9:36
  want to learn how to cook, you want to lose the weight.
• 9:39
  You have to take that first step.
• 9:41
  We can't do it for you. But it's very confusing for a
• 9:45
  consumer who is just now taking interest in their food and
• 9:49
  nutrition and context when we have a little heart symbols on
• 9:55
  process ultra processed food. But meanwhile, we're saying as a
• 9:59
  doctor, you know, don't eat red beef, don't eat red meat because
• 10:03
  it is bad for your heart. I would rather someone being on
• 10:07
  the look, and I'm not a dietitian, I am not a doctor.
• 10:09
  That's a disclaimer. I am just saying that someone
• 10:12
  who's exceeding the cardiac events in her own immediate
• 10:15
  family, it's very scary, but you have to make lifestyle changes.
• 10:20
  And I'd rather that person get on a carnivore diet then other
• 10:25
  things like whether it's cereal grains, whether it's alcohol,
• 10:28
  whether it's fatty foods, anything that's adding to your
• 10:31
  cholesterol. But I don't know of anyone who's
• 10:34
  been on the carnivore diet, like an actual carnivore diet that
• 10:37
  said that they had advanced health issues.
• 10:40
  Everyone that has done it has said they've decreased those
• 10:43
  health issues and weight. So yeah, I think both of us
• 10:47
  could just get on a rampage about this because it's just
• 10:50
  absolutely senile, in my opinion, to say that something
• 10:56
  coming from a box is healthier for you than something that came
• 10:59
  out of the ground or eats the stuff growing out of the ground.
• 11:03
  Absolutely. Maybe I shouldn't say that.
• 11:05
  Exactly. I will go to bed.
• 11:09
  I will die on the hill every day.
• 11:11
  Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the biggest
• 11:14
  issue is how normalized it's become in our society as well to
• 11:18
  not have a high quality protein source with every meal.
• 11:22
  I mean, I was blessed enough to grow up on a ranch where we
• 11:26
  always had at least a couple stairs in the freezer.
• 11:30
  And so we had a high quality protein source with every single
• 11:33
  meal. Even if we were having Hamburger
• 11:36
  Helper at 9:00 at night, night because we had been out in the
• 11:39
  field all day and we come inside and the 15 year old daughter is
• 11:44
  in charge of cooking dinner. And guess what we had for dinner
• 11:46
  that night? We had Hamburger Helper a lot.
• 11:48
  Even if we were making those decisions, we still had a high
• 11:51
  quality protein source with those meals and the.
• 11:55
  Four cheese that. We're reaching right now are.
• 11:59
  You 4 cheese lasagna girl. Were you 4 cheese lasagna, The
• 12:04
  four cheese? No, I was the the for like the
• 12:08
  beef one, not the beef one, the like 4 cheese.
• 12:11
  It wasn't lasagna. It was, I don't remember.
• 12:14
  I don't remember the names of them.
• 12:15
  Emma. That was like 10 years ago.
• 12:16
  I didn't. No, I did not have a favorite.
• 12:20
  I hated the beef stroganoff one. I do remember that the beef
• 12:23
  stroganoff one was always disgusting, but I still just
• 12:28
  going back to kind of like the normalization of just processed
• 12:32
  foods and not having a high quality protein source.
• 12:35
  I understand a lot of that in our consumer population has come
• 12:38
  from different constraints, especially just economically and
• 12:43
  different things like that. But I also think that there is
• 12:45
  just a big normalization of it in our society That it is easier
• 12:51
  and cheaper to go buy fast food or heavily processed foods, or
• 12:55
  get a thing of chicken Nuggets to throw in my freezer, rather
• 12:58
  than it is to go buy a pound of ground beef and do something
• 13:01
  with that instead. Yeah, and I think it's just
• 13:04
  like, where do your priorities lie?
• 13:05
  If your priorities lie on getting something quick and
• 13:09
  sitting down and watching an hour and a half movie?
• 13:13
  Or is your is your priority of spending maybe half an hour in
• 13:16
  the kitchen? I mean, but even last night I
• 13:20
  took a chicken breast out of, I don't know, chicken on a beef
• 13:24
  podcast, but I took a chicken breast out just because every
• 13:27
  other cut of beef I had, I didn't have any ground beef,
• 13:30
  everything, all my cuts were frozen.
• 13:31
  And I was like, you know, I just want something that I can just
• 13:33
  throw on a salad real quick. And so I put it in, let it thaw
• 13:37
  out, went back to work, worked, came back and I had, I had a
• 13:42
  food made and look, sliced up some potatoes in there and some
• 13:45
  onions. And I, I had dinner in 15
• 13:48
  minutes that tasted good. That I now have leftovers for
• 13:52
  three separate meals. One of the things that the USDA
• 13:56
  has been putting out too is this reemphasis on food safety and
• 14:00
  that, you know, a fully cooked meal can last you 4 days in the
• 14:04
  fridge. So you make what something on a
• 14:07
  Sunday and then make enough of it to have maybe lunch or dinner
• 14:10
  for the next four day. I just, you know, and I know
• 14:16
  it's probably difficult if you have kids, if you're married.
• 14:19
  And those are things that I can't relate to.
• 14:21
  But as someone who works a lot of variety, different types of
• 14:25
  jobs and scheduling, I have to choose to make time for that.
• 14:29
  And I really hope that this Maha movement, I hope that continues,
• 14:34
  especially in our school systems.
• 14:35
  I did see that they started introducing whole milk back in
• 14:38
  our school, so like I see the light.
• 14:42
  In. The tunnel, but I see the light.
• 14:45
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think it's one of those
• 14:48
  things, it's like no matter what your opinions are on this
• 14:51
  administration right now, some things are going really well for
• 14:54
  the beef industry. And as far as just the
• 14:56
  restructuring of the food pyramid or the plate, no matter
• 15:01
  what what kind of version you see these days, it is really
• 15:05
  important that beef has a place on that And that are high
• 15:09
  quality proteins make it in front of our consumers eyes.
• 15:13
  And that we are teaching our producer, our consumer
• 15:15
  population at a young age, the importance of these high quality
• 15:19
  proteins and where beef plays a role in that.
• 15:22
  And how that can fit into their lifestyles, their economics,
• 15:26
  their diets, everything like that.
• 15:28
  Everything from our lower cuts of beef to our higher quality
• 15:31
  cuts of beef. How they can actually cook,
• 15:34
  prepare and serve those to them and them to them and their
• 15:38
  family to really be able to have a nutritious, high quality meal
• 15:43
  that is going to provide that longevity, that lifestyle, that
• 15:48
  healthy body that we really need to start leaning back towards in
• 15:52
  the United States rather than quick fixes and the obesity
• 15:56
  epidemic that we are still struggling with constantly.
• 16:00
  Yeah. And to your point, education,
• 16:04
  our consumers, you know, there is a big gap in where nutrition
• 16:08
  just hasn't been talked about in schools.
• 16:10
  Outside of my plate in PE class, I don't really think that there
• 16:13
  was much conversation behind our food.
• 16:15
  And hey, if you have a headache, you might be low in these
• 16:19
  vitamins. Like take this and eat this
• 16:21
  versus like going to a pill bottle for the answer for
• 16:24
  everything. Go to the doctor for a syringe
• 16:27
  for all of your issues when a lot of that can be tied back to
• 16:30
  nutritional deficiencies. It depends on your age and your
• 16:34
  gender and your activity level. And sure, you might have some
• 16:37
  predisposition to maybe some health issues, but a lot of that
• 16:41
  can be fixed or at least symptoms can be aided with
• 16:45
  culinary choices. And so I hope that this
• 16:48
  administration, like you said, whether you agree with it or
• 16:50
  not, you have to admit on the health side, it's been really
• 16:53
  impressive. And they're they mean business
• 16:56
  and their nose are to the grindstone.
• 16:58
  Changing these things are not easy.
• 17:00
  Miss someone who's seen a little glimpse into how some of this
• 17:03
  inner workings happen. It is not changing governments
• 17:08
  never easy. But I really hope there's a more
• 17:10
  of an emphasis and encouragement of educating our youth.
• 17:16
  You know, we should be talking about this.
• 17:17
  We're in their elementary middle school.
• 17:18
  Like, you know, Farmer Brown, like this is a cow and cows put
• 17:22
  out milk and milk has vitamin D in it.
• 17:24
  And vitamin D actually really helps you with not just bone
• 17:28
  health, but all these other parts of your body.
• 17:34
  You know, we talked about I made a post about hey, like just
• 17:37
  because you eat 25 grams of protein, if it's 25 grams of
• 17:41
  protein of beef versus 25 grams of protein of quote, quote plant
• 17:45
  based protein does not mean you're consuming and the
• 17:49
  bioavailability is the same for your body.
• 17:51
  Beef has amino acids, they have zinc, they have all these
• 17:55
  different additives to it. When I say additives like
• 17:59
  additional benefits to your body outside of just protein and then
• 18:03
  with plant based, you have to substitute or have it in
• 18:07
  combination with other foods in order for you to get a fraction
• 18:11
  of that and it doesn't get digested the same.
• 18:14
  And one of the comments said like, well, I don't need acids
• 18:16
  in my body. I'm like the psychedelics and
• 18:20
  and amino acids for biology are two different acids in my guy.
• 18:25
  But there's a 77 year old man who was bragging.
• 18:27
  He's like, well, I don't need you to tell me what kind of
• 18:29
  acids to put in my body. It's like, look, I don't know if
• 18:32
  you're at Woodstock or not. That was before my time, but
• 18:35
  I'll take your word for it. So we just we, you know, our,
• 18:39
  our community, our culture, our just really country needs an
• 18:44
  education. One O 1 food.
• 18:47
  And it sounds sad to say, but that's why I think you and I are
• 18:51
  so passionate. Hopefully the people who also
• 18:53
  listen to this are very passionate.
• 18:55
  You don't have to have a social media platform.
• 18:57
  You don't have to have your own podcast to share information.
• 19:00
  You can have conversations with people at the grocery store,
• 19:02
  they're looking at beef like, hey, you know what you're
• 19:05
  making. Just having conversations again
• 19:08
  in the darn cell phones down for once and just having
• 19:11
  conversation with somebody. You're going to get a lot
• 19:12
  further face to face then getting into a comment war on
• 19:16
  social media. But you can also use social
• 19:18
  media as a way to find information, share resources,
• 19:22
  share research, share beef. It's what's for dinner.
• 19:26
  There's a lot of nutritional information on there.
• 19:28
  It just talks about beef specifically.
• 19:31
  I share that with all people all the time.
• 19:33
  So no, we can't just keep complaining about people not
• 19:35
  being educated. We got to actually pitch in and
• 19:38
  help educate people as well, so we have a more face to face
• 19:42
  outreach than our government ever will.
• 19:44
  Absolutely. You said it perfectly that we
• 19:47
  have an opportunity as producers to really help this movement
• 19:51
  continue to go forward and continue pushing beef to our
• 19:54
  consumer population, whether that just be in your local
• 19:56
  communities or on a larger platform.
• 19:58
  No matter what that looks like, we all kind of have a role that
• 20:01
  we can take in that education and in pushing beef as a primary
• 20:06
  source on those plates that people are eating for all of
• 20:09
  their meals, no matter what that may be.
• 20:11
  Emma, as always, thank you for your time on the podcast today.
• 20:14
  I so enjoyed this conversation. I could talk nutrition and the
• 20:17
  science behind it and all the things all day long.
• 20:20
  So keeping it to 20 minutes was pretty difficult, but I, I'm
• 20:23
  glad that we did it. It was accomplished.
• 20:25
  And to all of our listeners, thank you for tuning into
• 20:28
  another episode of The Cattle. USA Daily podcast, we will see
• 20:31
  you all next time. Have a good one y'all.