Skip to content

By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.

Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

Why Eating Well Is So Confusing | Daniel Lieberman

THE WAY APP: Get 30 FREE days and begin your journey towards peace, calm and wellbeing.

Dr. Rangan ChatterjeehostDaniel Liebermanguest
Nov 11, 20261h 37mWatch on YouTube

Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.

Great conversations run long. Their best ideas don't have to.

uListen is free on iPhone, iPad, Android, Chrome, and Claude.

See how

Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 0:12

    Intro

    1. RC

      Why are we all so confused about food?

    2. DL

      Well, I think the basic answer is that we evolved to know a lot to get our food, right? If you're a hunter-gatherer, you s- you have

  2. 0:12 – 4:01

    Why Is Eating Well So Confusing?

    1. DL

      to learn a lot when you're growing up to hunt, to gather, et cetera. And, uh, you eat what you get, right? You eat what you hunt, you eat what you gather. That's... And I've had the chance to even observe that, right? And then, um, after, you know, starting about 12,000 years ago, people started farming, and farmers eat what they grow. So again, you had to know how to, how to grow your food, how to... and how to prepare it, how to process it. Now we're in this really bizarre world, which only started a few generations ago, where, you know, when you and I walk into a, a supermarket, I think in the UK, I read the average UK supermarket has 30,000 different products. 30,000 different products, a, a large percentage of them ultra-processed, and how the hell are we supposed to choose what we're supposed to eat amidst all that abundance? We never evolved to do that. So that's confusing. And then the second problem is that look at the environment of information that we get about food. It's confusing. There are all these different diets, low calorie, low carb, low this, low that. I... Eliminate this, eliminate that. You pick up the newspaper or click on a website, and one day you read that butter is gonna kill you, and the next day you read that butter is maybe not so bad, and, uh, that mushrooms are gonna cause cancer or that mushrooms prevent heart disease. You are constantly whiplashed by conflicting information, people trying to sell us optimal diets about this, optimal diets about that, and no wonder we're, we're confused. We- we're, we're in a, we're in a, an environment that we never evolved to cope with.

    2. RC

      Yeah. If I think about the two previous occasions when you came on this podcast, we were talking about the book just before Fed Up, which was called Exercised, right? In that book, you make the case that humans have not evolved to exercise, right? And, and I remember chatting to you last time and, and putting to you this idea that if someone from a hunter-gatherer tribe saw you on a treadmill for an hour-

    3. DL

      They'd think I'm mad.

    4. RC

      Yeah. It's go-

    5. DL

      [laughs] What the hell are you doing?

    6. RC

      Where are you going? I'm not going anywhere.

    7. DL

      [laughs]

    8. RC

      I'm just here trying to expend some energy.

    9. DL

      [laughs]

    10. RC

      So, uh, what... I guess what I'm trying to get to, Daniel, is this idea that maybe we need to be a bit kinder to ourselves when it comes to exercise and when it comes to diet, to go, actually, we've evolved for a different environment. We've evolved with different skills, but to navigate the world today, we need brand-new skills.

    11. DL

      That's exactly right. We evolved to get our food. Now we have to, now we have to choose our food, which we never had to do before, and we have to choose our food in an environment where there are all kinds of companies out there tr- offering us foods that appeal to our, you know, our, our cravings, um, to our convenience, to our, you know, our pocketbooks, right? And, uh, but a lot of those foods are making us sick. And so two things, and you just mentioned the most important one. When people are struggling, they're struggling to lose weight, they're struggling to get the right diet, they're struggling to figure out what to eat, they're struggling what to feed their families, and they feel like there's something wrong with them, that somehow there's, you know, there's a problem, um, and that they're at fault, it's not their fault. I think we need to be more compassionate and more understanding and help people understand that their, you know, their confusion and challenges and difficulties are normal. That's-- It's completely normal. And then secondly, we need to help us, each other, come up with better ways to help us navigate this modern environment which we're now living in, and that's not gonna be easy. But it starts with information. It's... and, and... but there's much more to it than information. But first, as you know, Francis Bacon said, knowl- "Knowledge is power." And so helping us understand this confusion and helping us, you know, get the basic information, which not even, as you know, not even medics are taught, right? I mean, this... it's not taught to, to physicians. So, so we, you know, we need to th- rethink, um, our, our relationship to food.

  3. 4:01 – 15:20

    Evolution, Food Cravings & Weight Gain

    1. RC

      One of the things I enjoy about reading your books is that there's lots of storytelling in the books, and you have had, because of your job, some of the most wonderful or, or what sound like wonderful experiences to me, right? You've been hanging out and living with, uh, the Maasai, the Hadza tribe. You've been to the, is it the Tarahumara tribe?

    2. DL

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      This running tribe. You've hung out with them. You've had tortillas with them. You've-

    4. DL

      Run with them, yeah.

    5. RC

      Yeah, right? So you have an insight into a lot of these communities around the world that people like me will often talk about and reference, but we haven't actually gone and, and lived there. And one of the things in Fed Up I really enjoyed reading about was when you were with the Hadza, and I think you guys invited them over for some food-

    6. DL

      [laughs]

    7. RC

      ... and they all binged and overate.

    8. DL

      [laughs]

    9. RC

      Right? So, so can you tell us a little bit about that, and what can we learn from that?

    10. DL

      Well, look, so the Hadza are, you know, the, one of the last tribes of people on the planet who are hunter-gatherers, and in fact, most of the Hadza are no longer hunting and gathering. So there's only about 200, 250 who are still... You know, they get up in the morning, and they don't have any food. There's no kitchen. There's no refrigerator. They go out, and every day they get-- find the food that they're going to eat, um, and, and eat it in the, you know, when th- when they're out foraging and hunting, uh, and/or bring it back. And, um, and so it's, it's, you know, it's illuminating. It's a, it's, it's a window. They're not like, they're not like living fossils, you know? They're not absolute representatives of what our ancestors were like, but it gives us a sense of what being a hunter-gatherer was like. And, [laughs] and, uh, and so, you know, I... and I... and, and I have had a wonderful time, you know, and when every time they dig up a tuber, I, I ask if I can eat it and, you know, I accompanied them hunting and all that. But, um, when I was there once and on our last day, I was with some other anthropologists, and we had, we had brought our own food, of course, because we're not gonna mooch off them. And, um, and we had all this extra food left be- and we're gonna drive back to, to, to town. And so we, we, we invite them to dinner, and, and they, they brought some of their, they brought some food that they had hunted, but we cooked Like everything we had left. We had all this rice. We had, uh, like the guy, because we had a cook with us, he made these like cakes, and he, which he smothered with jam. Um, uh, he made ugali, which is the kind of classic dish that everybody eats in East Africa. It's basically, um, cornmeal that's boiled into a kind of porridge, just like polenta without cheese and, yeah.

    11. RC

      It's what Kipchoge eats, doesn't it, before he runs, I believe.

    12. DL

      Absolutely. All the Kenyans eat that, and Tanzanians eat that. And then we had some vegetables and some meat, et cetera, and I have never seen anybody eat so many carbs, right? So, you know, if you think about the paleo diet, the paleo diet, you know, you don't eat any grains and any cereals. You, you know, you eat mostly meat and some vegetables, et cetera. These so-called [laughs] these, you know, these hunter-gatherers w-... it was the least paleo meal I've ever seen in my life. They ate so much rice, so much ugali. Um, you know, they had some meat. Um, they ate as much cake as they possibly could, and then afterwards they, they rolled cigarettes, and some of them had, had some cannabis. I mean, it was, it was, you know, it just, it's just evidence that people are people, right? If, if you give hunter-gatherers the kind of foods that are available to, you know, Americans or, or, or, or people here in England, they're gonna do the same thing, right? We love carbs. We love sugar. We love fat. Uh, it's not that there, there's something virtuous about hunter-gatherers. It's just they don't have access to the kinds of abundance that we have. In Lake Ayasa, you don't say, "Gee, you know, I think I'm gonna have kudu today with a side of, of this kind of tuber and maybe of some of those berries," right? You just go out. If you hunt a kudu, you'll have kudu. But if you don't hunt a kudu, you'll have something else. You, you eat what you, what you f- forage. You eat what you hunt, and that depends on what you manage to find. You're not... But whereas we, you know, are we gonna have Chinese for lunch, or should we go out for I- for a pizza, or should we have a, you know, shall we have a curry? Um, you know, go to the supermarket. Again, you have 30,000 different kinds of foods to buy. We make choices, but, but that's a completely modern, strange, bizarre thing to do.

    13. RC

      Yeah. It makes me think actually about one of the most effective interventions I managed to help patients with over the years, meal planners. So many of my patients in the past would tell me, "You know, one of the biggest sources of stresses is trying to decide what to cook." And I said, "Okay, well, what happens if we literally write out what you're having for dinner seven days a week, and what if you just literally roll that out all year? Mondays you know what you're having. Tuesdays you know..." We used to do that in the UK, like Friday lunches were always fish. I'm not saying that's the only thing people need to think about, but I can tell you that made a massive impact because it reduced this decision-making fatigue that maybe many modern humans face.

    14. DL

      I... That's a wonderful strategy. Another is when you go shopping, make sure you eat before you go.

    15. RC

      That's what you do, isn't it?

    16. DL

      Yeah, I do. Al- always. I mean, I never go sh- [laughs] almost never, and when I don't eat before I go shopping, I'm just like everybody else. I'm much more vulnerable to buying stuff I shouldn't be, be buying.

    17. RC

      Another thing I was reflecting on whilst reading the book is this idea, did humans ever think about health when it came to food, right? So is it simply a case of we wake up, we don't have any storage, we don't have food, we're gonna eat whatever the hell we can find? Today, of course, we're trying to navigate the food environment. We're trying to make healthy choices, but did our ancestors ever think about health when making food choices?

    18. DL

      I seriously doubt it. There's two ways to answer that question. The first is from an evolutionary perspective, right? We are selected by evolution to, to eat and do and crave certain things, and what natural selection cares about is reproduction. Ultimately, from the perspective of evolution, all that matters is how many offspring you have who survive and reproduce. That's the only thing. So we evolved just to have babies, basically, right? And help those babies grow up so that they could have babies. So we didn't evolve to be healthy, really. We evolved to be healthy only to the extent, or primarily to the extent, that health promotes reproductive success. So we make all kinds of choices in our lives that, that maybe have... that there may be some adaptive basis for that in evolution that aren't really about health. So we crave all kinds of foods that we know aren't healthy. I mean, like the, like this morning when I went out to have breakfast in my hotel, there was all kinds of... I mean, there were these, you know, these cinnamon rolls with, you know, whatever, and they looked really good, and they smelled excellent, and I'm thinking, "Oh, God, I'm gonna be on Ran- Rangan's show, and I better not eat that," 'cause he, 'cause he asked me what I had for breakfast. I wanna... I don't wanna, you know, be a hypocrite, right?

    19. RC

      What, what, what did you have for breakfast?

    20. DL

      [laughs] I had fruit, and I had, um, muesli and, uh, coffee.

    21. RC

      Okay.

    22. DL

      So I had a healthy breakfast by, by most people's standards.

    23. RC

      I wasn't gonna ask, but since you, since you offered it, I thought I would.

    24. DL

      But I looked longingly at those cinnamon rolls in the hotel. Um, anyway, so that's one thing, so... But the other is that, um, for most people, they're just trying to survive. Um, and they're just... You know, for most of human history, people were struggling to get enough food, and so they're not like thinking, "Gee, is it..." And they, and they're, you know, they're not thinking about their 80s and their 90s.

    25. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    26. DL

      They're thinking about, "How am I gonna get through the next day?" We evolved. We're, we're also interesting as a species. We evolved to eat anything. We're the most omnivorous creature on the planet. I mean, you could... And it's, isn't it amazing-

    27. RC

      Yeah

    28. DL

      ... that you can have people who are vegans? We can have people who are carnivores. They don't let any plants cross their lips. We have people who eat snails and insects and all kinds of foods that w- you couldn't possibly eat unless you cooked them. I mean, think about soy. If you ate soy, raw soy, you'll, you'll get sick, right?

    29. RC

      Mm.

    30. DL

      If you ate raw, uh, beans, you'll get sick, and yet when we cook them, they're, they're, they're... You know, we can, we can eat all kinds of foods. So we're, we're, we're extraordinary, um, in terms of the diversity and, of foods that we eat as a human species, and that's partly because if it, if, if our ancestors saw it and they could eat it, they did. [laughs]

  4. 15:20 – 22:02

    Vegan and Vegetarian Diets

    1. RC

      But related to that, Daniel, is this thing about eating for health where cultures have kind of figured out things over time. Like you say, in India they'll have rice with lentils. Uh, you, you mentioned how in Mexico they'll have tortilla and beans to sort of... I, I think to improve health outcomes, right? So can you just speak to this topic? 'Cause I think it's quite interesting.

    2. DL

      Uh, let's first start with vegans and vegetarians. Um, look, there are all kinds of diets that people can eat today that are pretty healthy, right? I mean, a vegetarian diet can be extremely healthy, right? But it's a very modern phenomenon, right? Uh, uh, you know, if you're in the... If you're a hunter-gatherer in the Paleolithic, um, it's very hard to be a vegetarian. They probably wouldn't have imagined it, right? Um, because again, they're trying to get just food so that they can survive and reproduce. And meat is nutritious. Meat is an extremely nutritious food. In fact, it's probably arguably the most nutritious food that you can get-

    3. RC

      Mm

    4. DL

      ... per, per unit weight. I mean, it's got all the amino acids, you know, all the-

    5. RC

      Mm

    6. DL

      ... protein that you need. It's got, it's got, it's got vitamin B12 and all kinds of vitamins-

    7. RC

      Mm

    8. DL

      ... and minerals. Meat is super nutritious, right? So it wasn't until the origins of farming that people actually could be vegetarian, right? Um, and so vegetarian traditions really come later, and a lot of them have, have religious origins. Uh-

    9. RC

      Mm

    10. DL

      ... think about Seventh-day Adventists or in, or in India, uh, the Jains, et cetera, right? Um, and so, so vegetarian is kind of recent. It's a kind of a moral choice rather than a optimal diet choice. But, but, you know, vegetarians can eat a very healthy diet. They just have to put a little effort into it, right? Uh, because, for example, vitamin B12 comes from animal foods, right? So if you never eat animal foods, you're gonna be low in vitamin B12. So if you're a vegetarian, this is something you have to kind of supplement, right?

    11. RC

      And some people will argue, I think, that as we evolve as a species and, you know, our higher thinking and our ability to make choices, some people feel very strongly from a compassion standpoint that we should not be eating animals. You know, and it may be it's the modern human that has the luxury of making that choice-

    12. DL

      Yeah

    13. RC

      ... where they go, "Yeah, and I can actually now supplement my B12 and my zinc or whatever else I might wanna do with modern technology."

    14. DL

      Correct. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. DL

      That's fine. Um, but it, it does... There's an evolutionary signal there, right? 'Cause, 'cause our... Starting around 2 million years ago, maybe 3 million years ago, our ancestors started eating meat, and we became adapted to requiring animal foods as part of the, the nutrients that-

    17. RC

      Mm

    18. DL

      ... were required for, you know, for long-term health, right? So which is why if you're a vegetarian, you need to supplement B12. Perfect example. Or if you're a farmer, you have to combine rice and beans, for example, so you get the complete, uh, amount of protein. We'll get to that in a second. So, so look, I'm not questioning, uh, people's- ... desires to, you know, for, and, and motives for, for various kinds of diets. There are all kinds of wonderful reasons that people pick one diet or another diet. Uh, c- various cultures, if you're kosher or, or Muslim or whatever, there are all kinds of reasons-

    19. RC

      Mm

    20. DL

      ... that people don't eat certain foods, et cetera, et cetera. And, and that's fine. We have now scientific knowledge to help us figure out how to eat those diets in, in, in the best and the most healthy possible way. But it's also true, to go back to your other point, that different cultures over the, over the millennia, right, thousands and thousands of years since the origins of farming, different cultures figured out how, through, you know, trial and error, cul- you know, what, what worked, what didn't work, figured out how to m- how to, how to create diets that were generally nutritious and generally healthy. And then-

    21. RC

      Mm

    22. DL

      ... and they all have a certain formula, right? So pretty much every farming culture, you mix a grain or a cereal. So it could be rice, it could be corn, it could be, you know, corn, by corn I mean maize, 'cause I'm American, right? Or, um, or, um, or some kind of wheat product, right?

    23. RC

      Mm.

    24. DL

      And you mix that with a legume. Now remember, you're also generally eating these in whole grain form, so you're not eating white flour, you're eating, you're eating whole grain flour, right?

    25. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    26. DL

      And then you mix it with, you know, chickpeas or soy or beans or whatever. When you combine a grain and a legume, you've got a complete range of proteins. We call, this is called complementary proteins, right? So you have all the amino acids that a human being needs, um, and a, and a, plus a lot of calories. Then you supplement it every, with every farming culture, they supplement it with various vegetables, with various fruits, with nuts, seeds, and some kinds of fat. So in, in the Mediterranean, it would be olive oil, and other places it would be butter, and other places it would be, you know, something else. You combine all those things together, you've got a generally nutritious diet. And around the planet, people came up with these, with these diets, and they work very well. And until recently, when people were eating these diets, sure, they died of all kinds of things [laughs] They got... But they tr- didn't die of diet-related diseases.

    27. RC

      Mm.

    28. DL

      They died of infectious diseases, right? From poor sanitation and, you know, living with animals and all that sort of stuff. But they weren't getting diabetes. They weren't getting obesity. They weren't getting, uh, cardiometabolic diseases, at least not to the extent-

    29. RC

      Yeah

    30. DL

      ... that we're getting today. From a d- nutritional perspective, these diets were generally healthy. Now, what really changed was, was the Industrial Revolution, when we started making factory foods. And all of a sudden, like, in the, like the first factory food was sugar, right?

  5. 22:02 – 27:10

    How to Make Sense of Nutrition Science

    1. DL

      for, you know, departing from the, the traditional diets-

    2. RC

      Yeah

    3. DL

      ... that we, that various cultures, uh, uh, uh, created.

    4. RC

      Yeah. I've often thought, Daniel, over the last years that even this idea that we have nutrition experts on one level tells us how problematic the modern world has become, because we used to learn from our parents and our grandparents and our culture. Like, you just ate what your family ate.

    5. DL

      Correct. Yeah. And this brings up two issues. So one is that part of our identities come from what we eat.

    6. RC

      Mm.

    7. DL

      But it used to be that that identity was cultural, right? I'm, you know-

    8. RC

      Mm

    9. DL

      ... I'm Indian, I'm, I'm, I'm Kenyan, I'm this, I'm that. And, you know, that identity came with many things, including the kinds of foods that we eat. Now, you go around the world, and everybody's eating, like, the same stuff, right? You know, I mean, I can go into a supermarket anywhere on the planet. I was just in Nairobi, and I actually took a photo of, of the food aisle, the, the breakfast cereal aisle. And I, I showed a, this picture to a... I was giving a lecture a few days ago, and I showed it to, to the, in the United States, and I said, "Where, where is this picture taken?" None of them could figure...

    10. RC

      Yeah.

    11. DL

      They were all guessing it was, you know, Chicago or this, that, or the other, and none of them had a clue that it could be in, you know, on the other side of the planet in Africa. But it's the same stuff. We're all eating the s- so now I think people are trying to choose their identity partly through their diet. So you get a lot of these diets that are, you know, almost they're kinda tribal, right? People identify as paleo or as carnivore, as vegan or this, that, or the other. So that's one thing. And the other thing is that it takes a long time to figure out the health effects of your food, right? People didn't used to do that, right? 'Cause they just ate what was available to them.

    12. RC

      Mm.

    13. DL

      You know, if you grew up in, a peasant in Sicily, you'd eat Sicilian peasant food. That was it. You didn't, you weren't thinking about your health. You were thinking about what could you eat, right? Now, we have all these options, and we're trying to think about, like, "Okay, what should I eat?" And the problem is that it takes decades, sometimes multiple decades, for the effects of those foods to manifest in our health. And, and, you know, you can get online and, you know, watch some influencer on TikTok say, "You should eat this. You should eat that." You can read some books which te- tell you that this is the optimal diet or that's the optimal diet. But what we really need in this, when we have to make choices, is we need science, right? And, and that science is not so easy, all right? And there's a, and there's a lot of skepticism about science now. And so what I tried to do in Fed Up is to try to, you know, throughout the book, give people information about how to evaluate scientific literature.

    14. RC

      Mm.

    15. DL

      And for example, if you read a ... You pick up the newspaper and you read a study which says, "Spinach causes kidney problems." I'm just making it up. I've never read a paper, by the way, which says that. But, you know, it might be that some scientist did a study, and they looked at people who ate more spinach and people who ate less spinach-

    16. RC

      Mm

    17. DL

      ... and found that there was a higher incidence of, you know, of hypertension-

    18. RC

      Mm

    19. DL

      ... in the spinach eaters, right? That's a one-off study, and you, you need to look at that study and think, "Okay, do- were they looking at exercise? Were they looking at salt? Did they look at, you know, what are the covariates in the study?"

    20. RC

      Mm.

    21. DL

      "How long was the study? Were ... Who are the people in this study?" You know, there's ... So, so one way that you and I, when we look at the literature, we rely on meta-analyses a lot.

    22. RC

      Mm.

    23. DL

      These are studies where they, where they assemble all the information on the relationship between, say, eating spinach and health, and evaluate what the, how the studies were designed, whether they were randomized versus-

    24. RC

      Mm

    25. DL

      ... retrospective, you know, looked backwards in time, w- whether they were done on only 20-year-olds or looked at, you know, people of different ages. You know, they evaluate the quality of the studies and, and, and help us put together, not just from one study, but from many studies, from large samples of people across the world-

    26. RC

      Mm

    27. DL

      ... from different populations. And those are much higher quality evidence because, you know, they're ... it's evaluated, it's, it's larger samples, et cetera. So we need to, instead of cherry-picking one study here or there, we need to h- we need help, right? And so part of my job, right, is to, is to pour through the literature, be skeptical, read these meta-analyses, be skeptical about the meta-analyses as well, look at ... And also, we need to look at mechanism because, you know, epidemiological studies, you know, where you look at the association between one thing and health outcomes, only take, take you so far. They can rarely test cause and effect, right? They're, they're associations. They're correlations, and correlations aren't causation. And so what we also wanna do is look at mechanism. Like, for w- like, when you eat spinach, how does it affect the levels of calcium in your blood-

    28. RC

      Mm

    29. DL

      ... or, or, and so on, right? So you wanna also combine those studies with, with the, with the physiology, the biology. And wh- so when you have good large-scale epidemiological data plus good mechanistic data, then now you got something.

    30. RC

      Yeah.

  6. 27:10 – 34:27

    The Truth About Different Foods

    1. DL

      a, a, a product to sell or a diet to sell.

    2. RC

      Mm.

    3. DL

      They're trying to make money. So that's why I wrote Fed Up. We, we need-

    4. RC

      Yeah

    5. DL

      ... we need this kind of information, and we need this dif- different kind of perspective.

    6. RC

      Yeah. Have you tried to meditate before? Perhaps you've heard about some of the benefits, like reducing stress and increased focus, and you've given it a go and thought it's not the practice for you. Well, I believe that may well be because you have not tried the right approach. The Way is the only meditation app with a single long-term pathway. You're not forced to make loads of choices each day. Instead, you're guided on an enjoyable and progressive journey that deepens your practice step by step. Since I partnered with The Way, I have had so much positive feedback. One listener said, "Dr. Chatterjee, I came to The Way through your podcast. I have tried other meditation apps in the past with limited success, and like the idea of following a single guided path. I'm nearly two months in now and loving it. Henry's gentle and concise approach is very calming, and The Way is now a part of my morning routine." You see, that's the sentiment that so many people report when they start meditating with The Way. For listeners of my podcast, The Way is offering 30 free days to establish your own meditation practice. All you have to do is click on the QR code on screen or go to thewayapp.com/livemore to get started. The sort of thought I had as you were talking about the importance of, uh, rigorous scientific investigation to try and f- you know, answer these questions, is that broadly speaking, science is gonna tell us an average, right? On average, this kind of diet is gonna be helpful-

    7. DL

      Correct

    8. RC

      ... for most people, right? Now, as someone who's spent many, many years seeing patients, what I've seen is this idea that not one of these patients actually is average. It doesn't mean average, uh, principles won't work for them. It just means, for example ... And, and you do acknowledge this in the book. It depends on who is that human being? What are their genetics? What is their past history? Uh, what is the state of their microbiome? Did they have, like, 10 sets of antibiotics when they were five, six, seven for ear infections, which now means that their ability to process and digest food is different from a lot of these cultures that we might be studying? And so if someone has come in, for example, with, uh, Type 2 diabetes, well, for some of those people, a, a minimally processed low-carb diet can be transformative, and that there is actually data now to support that for certain conditions.

    9. DL

      I'm a, I'm a coauthor on one of those papers, yeah. [laughs]

    10. RC

      Yeah. So, so I guess is there something here where we're talking about general diets that are good for populations and therapeutic diets when people have become sick?

    11. DL

      I, I agree with you vigorously.

    12. RC

      Yeah.

    13. DL

      So I discuss this in the book. I have learned over the course of writing this book and over the, over the years that there's, there's one word that gets me irritated when I s- read about a diet. It's optimal. Like, what's optimal-

    14. RC

      Hmm

    15. DL

      ... for you is not necessarily-

    16. RC

      Exactly

    17. DL

      ... what's optimal for me. You might be more worried about, I don't know, your heart, and I might be worried about Alzheimer's. You might be less fit or more fit. You're 80, you're 20. You live in Beijing or Boston. I mean, we- we're all different. We have different genetics. We have different culture.

    18. RC

      Mm.

    19. DL

      We have different concerns. We have different fitness. We have different experiences. And so, yes, I completely agree. There is no perfect diet. W- And furthermore, there is no diet that's gonna guarantee you perfect health. It does not exist.

    20. RC

      Hmm.

    21. DL

      You can, you can affect your risks of various things, but everything has trade-offs.

    22. RC

      Yeah.

    23. DL

      Everything. There's no such thing as a nu- If you eat this, that means you're not gonna eat that. Um, um, every food ha- You know, if you eat a lot of fish, you might get more mercury in your food.

    24. RC

      Yeah.

    25. DL

      You know? I mean, there is no such thing as a, as a, as a food that doesn't involve a trade-off.

    26. RC

      That can be reassuring, right? 'Cause I think if we are searching for this perfect optimal diet that is gonna-

    27. DL

      It, it doesn't exist.

    28. RC

      Yeah. So, so th- this whole idea of perfectionism that has been growing in society since the 1980s, even before social media, I think that also plays into diet. We, we believe that there is this perfect diet out there.

    29. DL

      Well, that's how you sell it.

    30. RC

      And if I could only find it-

  7. 34:27 – 40:58

    Ultra-Processed Foods: What You Need to Know

    1. DL

      people do better in almost every-

    2. RC

      Across populations

    3. DL

      ... across po- individuals and populations.

    4. RC

      Yeah.

    5. DL

      That you're always better off pretty much. Almost everybody on the planet is almost always better off substituting a plant fat for an animal fat for the most part. Um, there are some plant fats like coconut, et cetera. That's just the evidence. Um, uh, it doesn't mean you should eliminate animal fat, um, fat, but, but that's, you know... We just all have to make our own choices.

    6. RC

      You, you know as you say that there will be people jumping into the comment section, uh, vigorously disagreeing with you there.

    7. DL

      Well, they should read the literature, and I can-

    8. RC

      Yeah

    9. DL

      ... have all the references there.

    10. RC

      No, you do. You do.

    11. DL

      Well, they sh- they should read the le- references. They can look it up themselves and decide. Because what happens is that people are getting very tribal, right? I don't care if you eat a lot of fat or animal foods, et cetera. You can eat whatever you want. Um, and, uh, but you may not figure out the effects of it from 30 or 40 years from now. And, and me, I'm a scientist. I'm gonna go with the best available evidence, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna pick the science that agrees with me.

    12. RC

      Yeah.

    13. DL

      I'm gonna try to evaluate all of it and try to be as open-minded as possible and, you know, at, with the e- with the understanding that, that, that everything is imperfect and nutrition is no, no exception.

    14. RC

      I'm not sure there's anyone who disagrees with, you know, the idea that we should eat as little ultra-processed food as possible. I, I, I think whichever tribe or diet religion you belong to, I'm not sure there's many people who disagree with that. That, that's a generally... I would say that's a win for most people, is like if you can-

    15. DL

      Totally

    16. RC

      ... reduce UPF consumption, you're probably gonna improve your health. I've been looking into the research on, you know, dementia recently and, uh, of course, you know, I've covered it a few times on the show before. People may know, but if you've got APOE4, APOE4, like the double allele, your risk of Alzheimer's is significantly increased. It doesn't mean you're gonna get it. There's loads of people who have that and don't get it. There's a lifestyle, uh, and environment factor. But, you know, it does look, from what I can tell, that if you're double E4, saturated fat might be particularly problematic. It... And it could be that if you're E3, E3 When you're looking at risk of Alzheimer's, maybe it's not quite as problematic

    17. DL

      Absolutely

    18. RC

      ... which is fascinating

    19. DL

      Absolutely. So in the book, the way I, the way I describe it is, do you know about, um, Pascal's Gamble? Blaise Pascal, famous French philosopher from the, I think, 17th century. Pascal was wondering, "Well, what if there is a, no God, right?" Um, and of course he was in a very Catholic, you know, uh, country. Um, he said, "Look, you know, should you be, should you be an atheist or should you believe in God?" And hi- and Pascal basically says, "Look, we'll never know until we die if there's a God in heaven," right? "But if it t- turns out that, you know, all these Christians are right and you better, you know, g- get baptized and blah, et cetera, and you don't do this, you're in trouble," right?

    20. RC

      [laughs]

    21. DL

      So, so you're ... So as a, as a bet hedge, you know, bet hedging strategy, you're better off being, uh, uh, believing in God and being a, being a Christian because if these people are right, uh, in the afterlife, you're gonna [laughs]

    22. RC

      Yeah

    23. DL

      ... you're gonna, you're gonna have a better time. Th- this is called Pascal's Gamble, right? Now, I'm ... I don't really wanna equate diet [laughs] with religion, but I would say the same thing holds for saturated fat. Th- the evidence I've seen is that if you're trying to dec- if you're worried about saturated fat, and, and, and I agree with you, what you, what you just said about ApoE4 and, and there are various, there's lots of other issues about saturated fat. But the evidence is generally the case that when you ... You know, people who eat

    24. RC

      Yeah

    25. DL

      ... who substitute saturated fat for various kinds of unsaturated fats, they do better. And so me, I'm a bet hedger.

    26. RC

      Yeah.

    27. DL

      Yeah? 'Cause I don't know if I'm gonna get Alzheimer's in 20 or 30 years, but you know what? I'm gonna do what I can to reduce my risk, and I'm not gonna take the risk at the moment. So I'm gonna generally, and I, like this m- you know, I, I... I mean, I had some milk this morning with my muesli, and the milk was full fat, you know? I'm not an eliminator, but I'm, you know, when I get a chance to have, cook with olive oil versus butter

    28. RC

      Yeah

    29. DL

      ... I go with the olive oil in general, but I don't go crazy. And so I think, you know, you're not gonna know 30, 40 years from now whether the diet choices you make today are the right ones.

    30. RC

      Yeah.

  8. 40:58 – 44:58

    Is It Time to Stop Talking About Diets?

    1. DL

      you know, tried low-fat diets and low-calorie diets and intermittent fasting and la-da-da-da-da-da. Okay. And, and many, many people stick with some of these and, but most of them switch from diet to diet to diet to diet 'cause they're, they're struggling. Because remember, there's a big difference between efficacy, how well a diet works in real terms, and effectiveness, which is how well a diet works in the real world. And most of us live in the real world, right?

    2. RC

      Yeah.

    3. DL

      And so you try to eat a low-carb diet. I tried a low-carb diet for the book. I tried the Atkins diet. Man, I missed carbs.

    4. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    5. DL

      You know? [laughs] I like carbs. I'm a runner. I'm ... I don't ... I, you know, I understand how carbs affect my insulin levels, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but I'm not trying to lose weight. And I just, you know, I couldn't run. It was awful, right? And, um, but I th- but I think here's the thing. We can, we don't have to choose for one of these diets 'cause make- the diets make us choose, right?

    6. RC

      Mm.

    7. DL

      I think another strategy, and I kinda argue this, is why not take the best of all of these diets? You can eat a diet that's not ... You don't have to go low fat but go low saturated fat maybe. And instead of low, like super low calorie, just a diet that's not high calorie. And low carb? Don't eat sugar and, you know, d- added sugar and, and refined carbs. Go for a diet that's not too glycemic.

    8. RC

      Mm.

    9. DL

      You can actually combine the best things of all these different diets. And you know what you do? [laughs] You know what kinda ... You know what that diet looks like? It looks kinda like a traditional, you know, a Mesoamerican, Mediterranean, Asian diet.

    10. RC

      Yeah. Uh, one thing I was gonna ask you is this word diet. You know, do we, do we almost need to move away from the word diet as well? Because I think to many people it implies something. It implies, you know, "I found a particular way that I want to eat."

    11. DL

      A regime.

    12. RC

      A regime. Whereas I think what we're talking about, particularly if I look at your conclusions and, and your final chapter, you know, lots of unprocessed and minimally processed fruits and vegetables that still include their fibre Unrefined grains, some nuts and seeds, some seafood, not too much salt. There's a, there's a whole list for people when they get the book, right? These are principles, aren't they? Do we, do we almost wanna move away from diet and go, "Look, there are some core healthy eating principles that we think are gonna work for most people, which you might wanna tweak depending on your health and your preferences and your taste." Do you know what I mean? Do you think the word-

    13. DL

      Oh

    14. RC

      ... diet has become loaded now?

    15. DL

      Yeah, that's why I prefer the word food to diet.

    16. RC

      Yeah.

    17. DL

      And so that's why the subtitle of the book is What Evolution Reveals About Food: Diet and Eating Well, because I think it's really als- ultimately about food, and it's about enjoyment, it's about health. And yeah, I agree with you, I don't like the word diet. Uh, unfortunately, it's part of our-

    18. RC

      Yeah

    19. DL

      ... it's part of our culture, it's part of our lexicon, and, and, um, that's how... And I want to make sure people understand that the book evaluates different diets 'cause, you know, as, as you know, for the book, I tried a lot of-

    20. RC

      Yeah

    21. DL

      ... these crazy diets, um, just kind of, not, not for scientific reasons, but to just experience what they were like, you know? And, um, you know, it was fun. It was interesting. Some of them were depressing. Some of them were, were f- were, were enjoyable.

    22. RC

      You, you weren't very keen, I think. I'm thinking about the, the raw food diet.

    23. DL

      [laughs] No.

    24. RC

      I don't think you, you, you enjoyed... Did you come off it after a few days? Or your wife did, I think.

    25. DL

      That was appalling. So yeah, we tried the raw food diet. We... 'Cause, you know, each chapter of the book I tried to kind of-

    26. RC

      Yeah

    27. DL

      ... fit a diet in.

    28. RC

      It's, it's a fun read, honestly.

    29. DL

      Um, and, um, and, uh, my wife foolishly [laughs] joined me. And for the raw food diet, you know, it's really... 'Cause, you know, humans are adapted to cooking food, and, and it's very hard to survive without cooking your food, and, 'cause you just can't get enough energy. 'Cause cooking gives our food a lot more ener- You get a lot more energy from your food when it's cooked.

    30. RC

      Mm-hmm.

  9. 44:58 – 1:00:01

    How Food Has Changed Throughout History

    1. DL

      it through three days, and I, I, I, I made it one more day, and then that was it. I had... I just had... couldn't stand the diet. It was just not-

    2. RC

      Yeah

    3. DL

      ... it was no fun.

    4. RC

      It makes you think about cooking, okay. And, uh, you know, we talk these days, don't we, a lot about, uh, technology and the potential negatives o- of a lot of modern technology. But could we argue that cooking is the most transformative technology humans have ever come across? I mean, I mean, you'll probably have a view on that, but I'm like, what, social media, smartphones, um, central heating. Surely none of these things come even close to fire and cooking.

    5. DL

      Had we not started cooking our food sometime in the last, say, million years, we wouldn't have the big brains that we have that enabled us to invent things like smartphones. So cooking played a really, really important role in human evolution.

    6. RC

      Mm.

    7. DL

      And without cooking, we just not would be the creatures that we are today. So was it the only thing? No. I mean, bipedalism was pretty important, and making stone tools was pretty important, and et ce- There's lots of things that happened-

    8. RC

      Sure

    9. DL

      ... in our evolutionary history that were, were cr- were very important, but cooking ranks up there as one of the most important, for sure.

    10. RC

      Yeah. I think that nicely segues into how humans have changed what we eat over the course of our evolution, right? So you do, you do talk us through it in the book, these kinda key phases. I wonder if you could give us a overview, because what I really wanna get to, and, and it was one of my favorite chapters, was when you started off talking about these meal replacements.

    11. DL

      [laughs]

    12. RC

      I'd never heard of Soylent before.

    13. DL

      Uh-huh.

    14. RC

      But I have heard of Huel.

    15. DL

      Yeah.

    16. RC

      Right?

    17. DL

      Soylent, Soylent started... Huel came after Soylent, but yeah.

    18. RC

      Yeah.

    19. DL

      Same family.

    20. RC

      And I've personally never been a fan of these things, and it was interesting to hear your experience. So maybe walk us through how humans have changed what we eat, and then let's really think about these, 'cause they're very popular now.

    21. DL

      So look, the, the evolution of, of diet has gone through many phases, right? First, we were hunter-gatherers for millions and millions and millions of years, right? Until, until about 12,000 years ago when farming was invented. And hunter-gatherers, there's no one hunter-gatherer diet. Paleo... There's no one paleo diet. There are many paleo diets, so it depends, 'cause hunter-gatherers lived in, in popu- in all over the world. They lived in deserts and forests and savannas and in Africa-

    22. RC

      Mm

    23. DL

      ... and Europe and the New World and Australia, et cetera. Everywhere you go, people ate different kinds of foods.

    24. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    25. DL

      And whatever was around them, that's what they ate, right? So if you're in the Arctic, you're gonna eat mostly meat. And if you're in, you know, you know, the savanna, you're gonna eat lots of tubers, and et cetera, et cetera. Right? So, so humans evolved to eat just about everything, and they used cooking and other forms of technology to, to, to eat things that we otherwise couldn't eat. Like, you know, like if you're having a legume in the Kalahari, they eat these things called morama beans.

    26. RC

      Mm.

    27. DL

      They roast them, and that, and that re- removes the, the, the anti-nutrients-

    28. RC

      Mm

    29. DL

      ... so they can eat them safely and get all the nutrients for them. Then we invented farming, right? And again, humans all over the planet farmed different things, and they generally farmed what they used to gather, and then they domesticated some of the animals they used to hunt. Not all animals can be domesticated. So, you know, in the Middle East, they were farming barley and lentils-

    30. RC

      Mm

  10. 1:00:01 – 1:09:11

    Exercise, Food & Metabolism

    1. DL

      it's generally recognized as safe. You can put it in anything you want, right? Now, there's the other extreme, which is that I'm not gonna put anything in my food unless I know it's, it's not healthy. So my, my null hypothesis is bad for me unless you can prove otherwise.

    2. RC

      Mm.

    3. DL

      And, and so the government has one group, and then some of us have the other, and many people are just doing [laughs] ... They just don't know.

    4. RC

      No thank you.

    5. DL

      Right? And they're, they're in the middle, right? And so, um, uh, I think as UPFs become more and more prevalent, we recognize more and more that they-

    6. RC

      Mm

    7. DL

      ... are causing problems. I think people are beginning to realize that the, the null hypothesis of unless you can prove to me that it's healthy, I'm gonna avoid it, might be a better strategy than unless you can prove to me it's unhealthy, I'm just gonna eat it.

    8. RC

      Yeah. But let's adopt this one and not that one.

    9. DL

      So that's again, it's by going back to Pascal's gamble, right? I'm gonna gamble on, on the information that I think is more likely to be good for my long-term health than gamble on the- Ah, you know-

    10. RC

      Yeah

    11. DL

      ... my friends are eating it, it's okay.

    12. RC

      I think you quote Michael Pollan, uh, in this book, uh, his, his infamous seven words, I think.

    13. DL

      Eat food, mostly plants, not too much. [laughs]

    14. RC

      Yeah. But I, but I also think in that book, if I recall correctly, you know, and many, many people have said this as well, I don't know who said it first, but think about the food your great-grandparents were eating.

    15. DL

      Yeah, he said that, too. Yeah.

    16. RC

      Yeah, right? Which again, it's not a scientific statement, but I found it very, very useful-

    17. DL

      Yeah

    18. RC

      ... as a framework to think about your foods and go, "Has this been around for a period of time?" Which, of course, these meal replacement drinks have not in that sense. So, uh, yeah, I think it can be useful. As many of you know, when glucose is relatively stable, you feel better day to day with steadier energy, mood, and focus. But over time, unstable and elevated glucose can also impair your metabolic health and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Now, globally, more than 760 million adults are thought to have pre-diabetes, many without symptoms or a diagnosis. And the problem is that our healthcare system often waits until you get sick before taking action, when we should take a proactive approach to prevent problems before they start. Now, many of us don't have access to our own glucose data, and therefore don't have clear feedback on how our everyday choices impact our glucose. That's where Lingo by Abbott comes in. Lingo is a biosensor and app that helps you see how food, movement, and lifestyle choices affect your glucose in real time, so you can notice patterns and build healthier habits in the moment. With Lingo, you can get to know your glucose to build healthy habits for today and tomorrow. For listeners in the US and the UK, Lingo by Abbott is offering an exclusive 10% off a four-week plan. Just scan the QR code on screen or visit hellolingo.com/livemore for more information. Terms and conditions do apply. A few things I wanted to, to make sure we cover. I mean, we're not even, you know, touching the surface of this book. It's so thorough, and it goes into so many different areas. But I want to talk about exercise, genetics, and GLP-1s if we can. So exercise, of course, that was the topic of your, your last book preceding this one. And I sometimes wonder, Daniel, if one of the reasons people benefit from being on restrictive diets a lot of time is because we're so sedentary, so we then have to almost compensate for that by being very careful over our, our energy intake, how much we're consuming. What's your take on that? 'Cause we're comparing-

    19. DL

      Yeah. Yeah

    20. RC

      ... to these-

    21. DL

      Yeah

    22. RC

      ... these traditional populations-

    23. DL

      So-

    24. RC

      ... who are moving a lot.

    25. DL

      Yeah. Yeah. So, so the point you're basically making is that diet doesn't work on its own.

    26. RC

      Exactly. [laughs]

    27. DL

      That food interacts with other things going on in your life. And of course, one of the most important ones is physical activity, right?

    28. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    29. DL

      And so there's a bunch of issues. So one is the calories in versus calories out, right? It turns out that the... for example, it's very hard to lose weight, um, exercising because, you know, if I go for a run in the morning and I run, say, three miles, I'm gonna burn 300 calories. If I have, you know, a muffin, I've more than [laughs] exceeded tho- those calories, right?

    30. RC

      Mm.

  11. 1:09:11 – 1:17:08

    Weight Loss Injections (GLP-1s)

    1. DL

      cell phones trying to read the text going-

    2. RC

      Uh

    3. DL

      ... or holding their hands hard as lo- farther than the arm can go, right? So...

    4. RC

      On, on the subject of exercise, I probably like you like, like experimenting on myself, and I will say the last few years, I figured out how to eat well for me using a lot of these principles that you write about, frankly, but in the context of my lifestyle and how much I move and the types of exercise I like to do. And I have used every few months, I will put on a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor-

    5. DL

      Mm-hmm

    6. RC

      ... because I find it just... I don't, I don't want one on all the time, but now and again, I find it very interesting to see, you know, what are certain foods doing to my blood sugar response.

    7. DL

      Mm-hmm.

    8. RC

      And I found it very... I've found it incredibly-

    9. DL

      It's fascinating.

    10. RC

      It's super fascinating. And this summer, something significant changed. So during August, I was off for most of August, and I played a lot of paddle with my son. There was a couple of weeks where we were playing four 90-minute matches in a week, right? So as well as my, you know, I, I usually will walk for at least an hour a day-

    11. DL

      Mm

    12. RC

      ... if possible. Uh, in the summer, I certainly was doing that, sometimes 90 minutes. So as well as that, I was adding in four 90-minute paddle games, and some of them were quite intense, right? It's a, it's a racket sport for people who don't know what it is. And I had a CGM on for those two weeks. And I tell you, I could not get my blood sugar to go... Well, I was eating so much food.

    13. DL

      That's what I was talking about.

    14. RC

      Exactly.

    15. DL

      Yeah.

    16. RC

      And I couldn't get... My sugar, I couldn't get it above 5.1. It wasn't going, even if I was having a whole ton of white rice.

    17. DL

      That's because you're producing less insulin and you're producing more glucagon.

    18. RC

      Yeah. And presumably, my muscle stores had been depleted of glycogen, and so they're just hungry to suck up.

    19. DL

      Yeah.

    20. RC

      Whereas if I was more sedentary, that same food would cause a big-

    21. DL

      That's correct

    22. RC

      ... blood sugar spike.

    23. DL

      That's correct. So when people make arguments about exercise and diet, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and they say, "Well, you know, exercise is not so important," here's one of the things that we know. If you're trying to lose weight, exercise is challenging. But if you're trying to prevent weight gain, exercise is your friend. And I think nobody should be on a diet unless they're also exercising, 'cause the two work together synergistically to help in all kinds of ways and, and also just your just general metabolism.

    24. RC

      Well, and how you feel about yourself. This is one thing that I think sometimes we don't talk about enough. When people are moving their bodies regularly, they, they, it changes the way they feel about themselves, their confidence, their self-esteem, their, their ability to then to stick to certain changes. I-

    25. DL

      Sure, 'cause physical activity turns on, you produce dopamine and-

    26. RC

      Exactly

    27. DL

      ... serotonin. You're producing... I mean, we know the mechanisms by which that works too, plus you just feel better.

    28. RC

      So whether it technically alters calories or not, like, there are other benefits, right? There are-

    29. DL

      Especially if you're outside.

    30. RC

      Yeah, exactly. Uh, you mentioned there about obesity, right? Let, let's talk about GLP-1s 'cause I think one of the... Or GLP-1 agonists, I should say, or what is colloquially called, uh, weight loss jabs, uh, in many countries around the world.

  12. 1:17:08 – 1:21:04

    Childhood Obesity: What's Changed?

    1. DL

      saying that they shouldn't take the drug, but the, but a, a, a solution to that is to do strength training along with taking the drug. Make sure that you're doing, you know, several workouts a week to try to maintain your muscle mass or re- or build it back so that you avoid, um, the-

    2. RC

      Yeah

    3. DL

      ... the, the muscle loss. We, we just don't yet know how, how to, how to live with GLP-1s, right? This is-- We're doing this experiment in real time without decades of careful studies. Um, and, and we're all just, everybody's just trying to figure out what to do.

    4. RC

      I mean, they're obviously so, so common now, both being prescribed through, uh, doctors, uh, getting them on the internet. Um, I mean, over the summer, reflecting a lot on, on, on GLP-1s and thinking, did we get it wrong by calling them fat loss drugs? Because I think one of the things they do is they make you more insulin sensitive. And yes, one of the side effects of that can be [chuckles] weight loss. But I've met a couple of physicians who've been using versions of these things for quite a long time now in very, very small doses for insulin sensitivity.

    5. DL

      Mm-hmm.

    6. RC

      I'm like, "God, this is quite interesting," because many of us become a little bit insulin resistant as we get older. It makes me think, might there be a case in the future, and we have to look at the side effect profiles and all this kind of stuff that has to be studied, that could potentially tiny doses help people maintain their insulin sensitivity, which in turn might stop them pr- you know, gaining weight in the first place. And as you say, you know, gaining weight is the problem 'cause once you've gained the weight, your body's set point changes, and it's, it, it's just very hard, basically.

    7. DL

      It's absolutely, yeah. I mean, I think dosage is, is, I mean, I think, uh, w- there's, um, uh, the dosage studies are seriously needed, right?

    8. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    9. DL

      Um, other people also just get nauseous, right-

    10. RC

      Yeah

    11. DL

      ... from these drugs or have, and because some people lose their sense of Pleasure. They become anhedonic is the word, right?

    12. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    13. DL

      So maybe-

    14. RC

      Everything has its cost.

    15. DL

      May- yeah, but also maybe there are dosage issues there, right? 'Cause c- the dose for you might not be the dose for me, et cetera. So, uh, we have a lot to learn about these, these drugs. And there's no question that they're doing a lot of people some real help, help. You know, they can be enormously helpful for people, and I think the goal is to figure out how to, how to make them even better, right? And-

    16. RC

      And safer

    17. DL

      ... and safer. And so I'm not anti GLP-1 by any stretch of the imagination.

    18. RC

      But whether we are or not, actually, it's li- it's like f- trying to face the reality of the world, right? Whether we like the food environment the way it is or not-

    19. DL

      It's there

    20. RC

      ... it's kind of there and it ain't changing anytime soon, right?

    21. DL

      That's right.

    22. RC

      Whether you-

    23. DL

      And when you have 75% of, of the population in my country overweight and obese, you know, we need to help those people. We can't just say, "Oh, you just have to prevent it," right? We need to help people.

    24. RC

      Yeah.

    25. DL

      So... And this is a way to help people, right? Let's just help them as best we can in the most safe way possible.

    26. RC

      Let's go to genetics. Um, you, you just mentioned about how worrying childhood rates of obesity are. Okay. And you t- I really enjoyed the section on genetics, heritability, because there is an idea that some people will say that, you know, your-

    27. DL

      It's my genes

    28. RC

      ... it's my, it's my genes, and it says something really beautiful about it, it, it's not that the gene... It, it's about the genetics might make you more vulnerable in particular environments.

    29. DL

      That's correct. Yeah.

    30. RC

      Right? So can you speak a little bit to that?

  13. 1:21:04 – 1:30:33

    Why Is Eating Well So Difficult?

    1. DL

      nobody's, you know, very few, I mean, there are a few genes of big effect, but, you know, um, but most people, their genes don't, aren't, aren't gonna, they, they don't go the whole way.

    2. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    3. DL

      Right? That's one thing. The other thing is that these genes act in environments. So people s- there are studies on the heritability of, of... Heritability is ex- percentage of the variation that you see that can be explained by genetics, and studies are all over the map here, twin studies, and adopt- people who are adopted, et cetera. And they come up with estimates that are as low as 30%, as high as 70%. So some people think, oh, that means that 30 to 70% of obesity is explained by genes. That's not what that means. 'Cause these studies are measurements of a population, not the, not a, not a trait.

    4. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    5. DL

      Because think about it this way. As I said earlier, in my lifetime, the percentage of Americans with obesity has quadrupled four times.

    6. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    7. DL

      There's been no genetic change, right? What's changed is our environment, the foods that people are eating and maybe-

    8. RC

      Mm

    9. DL

      ... physical activity. So there's an expression in the, uh, that geneticists often use, it's like genes load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger.

    10. RC

      Yeah.

    11. DL

      So some people have genes that may make them more vulnerable to obesity. And look, there's nothing you can do about it. We all got the genes, you know, when we're born [laughs] we're stuck with that deck of cards, right? But you can change your environment. And furthermore, the genes are not deterministic. It's, it's a combination of genes and environment. So I think we have to be, um, uh, you know, honest, right?

    12. RC

      Yeah.

    13. DL

      Yes, genes have an effect. I'm not anti-genetic. I don't believe that... No, of course, I believe genes are important, but it's genes and the environment, not genes or the environment.

    14. RC

      But-

    15. DL

      And so, and I think that's empowering.

    16. RC

      Yeah.

    17. DL

      Because let's just say I happen to have a set of genes that are making me more likely to have obesity, right? And, and, um, I mean, it's possible I do, right? I don't know. Um, but knowing that means that I have some agency. I can, I can... It's not, it's not, it's not like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm destined to become obese. I can, I can exercise, and I can eat a certain diet, and I can decrease my, my risk substantially.

    18. RC

      In, in all these tribes that you've lived with and studied with, okay, in, in various parts of the globe, how many times did you see someone being obese?

    19. DL

      Zero.

    20. RC

      Zero.

    21. DL

      I have not met a single obese peop- like, I mean, I, I work in a population in Rwanda right now. We're doing experiments and, and this is a population that lives in the north of Rwanda. This community, they're farmers, they're incredibly physically active. They eat one of the highest carb diets you can imagine. I mean, they're eating, you know, [laughs] they're, they're, they're 60 to 75% of their diet are carbs, right? I, uh, they're... Nobody in this population is even overweight. They're, they look great. [laughs]

    22. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    23. DL

      They have other problems. I mean, they have, you know, there's, there's a, a lot of infectious disease, uh-

    24. RC

      Mm

    25. DL

      ... issues in this population, but obesity doesn't exist. Um, I've never met a... Uh, there are studies of hunter-gatherers. I mean, it's just basically non-existent.

    26. RC

      Yeah.

    27. DL

      There, there are some overweight, um, but this is extremely rare. But then we're, in Rwanda, for example, we're, we're, we're, we're looking at people from the same population who have moved to the city.

    28. RC

      Mm.

    29. DL

      Right? And there, you, I mean, you, you don't need a professor to tell you this, rates of obesity are skyrocketing, rates of heart disease are skyrocketing. Type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases in the world. Cardiometabolic diseases are just, are growing. Um, and, and, and that's because of this change in environment. Same genes, different environment.

    30. RC

      Yeah. And, and it's, it's highly unlikely in all these populations you've, you've studied with and, uh, and lived alongside, it, it's, it's highly unlikely that certain people there did not have the genetics that would increase their chances of being obese, but it's just the environment doesn't really allow that to fully express, right?

  14. 1:30:33 – 1:36:55

    Daniel's Practical Tips for Eating Well

    1. DL

      Mm-hmm.

    2. RC

      You're someone who's had the luxury of traveling all over the world, going to different countries, living with different communities of all different races, belief systems, cultures, religions. What would you say that these travels and experiences have taught you about what it means to be human?

    3. DL

      What I've really learned, uh, and what I really come to believe is that we're all basically the same. Scratch the surface-

    4. RC

      Yeah

    5. DL

      ... and we're all basically the same. You know? We, we, we... At, at birth, we're given a different c- ... deck of cards, right? Some of us are born in one country or in another country. Some of us are born to rich parents, poor parents. Some of us are farmers

    6. RC

      Mm-hmm

    7. DL

      ... some of us are professors or doctors or whatever. But, you know, that's surface. You scratch beneath the surface, our physiology, our anatomy, our desires, the things we care about for our children, most people are pretty kind and compassionate and helpful to each other.

    8. RC

      Yeah.

    9. DL

      And there's a few exceptions, but, um, you scratch the surface, and we're all basically the same.

    10. RC

      Yeah.

    11. DL

      I think what I've learned is, you know, that, that we, we are much more similar to each other than different, and that, and that a lot of the differences be- among cultures are just really superficial. And, and, um, and people pretty much want the same thing. They wanna have a, a valuable life. They want their children to grow up and have the same things they have or be, or be better off.

    12. RC

      Yeah.

    13. DL

      They wanna, they wanna stay healthy. They wanna, they wanna be left alone so that they can figure out the things that they wanna do. And, and, and, and... But they look around, and they see the inequities and the problems and the, and the, and, and, and, and, and it's frustrating. But what do they do? They just soldier on, right? I see that everywhere. In my country, and, and in Kenya and Rwanda and all the other places I've been fortunate enough to work in, p- people, people are the same, and they soldier on. And, and ultimately, you know, it's our job to, to help people find, you know, live the best quality of life-

    14. RC

      Yeah

    15. DL

      ... that they can live. Uh, it's our job to, that, that, just so they can be healthy and, and, and, and, and, and enjoy their families and, and not suffer from discrimination and racism and obesity and diabetes and-

    16. RC

      Mm-hmm

    17. DL

      ... cancers, et cetera. We could do a lot better, and we w- you know, and, and that requires information. It starts with information but also requires action.

    18. RC

      Yeah.

    19. DL

      And so that's why, frankly, that's why I wrote the book.

    20. RC

      Yeah.

    21. DL

      Because, you know, I mean, I, there's only so much I can do. I can't run around the world and, you know, solve every problem, but at least I can at least try my perspective and try to, try to give people... Look, we don't teach each other what we need to know, and I think part of the solution involves evolution because we weren't designed, we weren't engineered, we evolved. And an evolutionary perspective helps us put it all together and figure out why things are the way they are so that we can then ultimately find the solutions.

    22. RC

      Yeah.

    23. DL

      And so that, I feel, is my, my calling in life.

    24. RC

      I, I, I really appreciate, um, what you just said. It [laughs] I guess it almost feels trivial to go to take-homes, um, after that, but I, I think it's important to make sure we have at least covered this. We, we, we sort of dotted them throughout our conversation so far. What is someone to take from all the research you did, both scientific research and personal research, uh, and evolutionary research that you undertook to write Fed Up? What is, or what are the practical take-homes for someone if they wanna eat better in the modern world?

    25. DL

      Oi. [laughs] Well, first of all, there is no optimal diet.

    26. RC

      Okay.

    27. DL

      Everything involves trade-offs. You're... There's nothing wrong with you. If you're confused and struggling and, and, and whatever, you're normal because we're, you're, we're, we're asking you, uh, our world is asking you to do things which, which we're not evolved to do. And if you wanna... But there's some wisdom in the way our ancestors lived, uh, and that, and that if you want to, you know, b- uh, a- and use science, right? 'Cause we have, we have a lot of good scientific information. It's not perfect, and the science will change. But based on what we know today, if you wanted to increase your risk, you know, de- decrease your risk of, of obesity, of cardiometabolic diseases, et cetera, in general, and there's variation, but in general, eat mostly plants. If you have a chance to eat unsaturated or mono or poly versus, you know, uh, versus an animal saturated fat, go for the unsaturated fat. Go for the plant fat. But, you know, it doesn't mean you have to eliminate, uh, a- all animal foods. Don't eat too much salt. Make sure you have fiber in your diet. Eat lots of, you know, vegetables and whatever. Try to avoid ultra-processed foods. And enjoy yourself. Remember, you know, so many diets are based on elimination. Elimination rarely works. Moderation, you know, moderation is usually much better than elimination. And there is no perfect diet. And relax. Um, um, um, and stop paying attention to, uh, all these people out there trying to make a buck off you, um, or a pound off you, or maybe you would say, you're in England. You know, be skeptical. Um, um, but, you know, um, it's all, it's up to you. It's not up to me. It's not up to anybody else. It's up to you. And-

    28. RC

      Yeah

    29. DL

      ... and, and if you wanna, you know, eat an all, all-meat diet, go ahead. If you wanna eat, uh, be a vegan, go ahead. Just inform yourself.

    30. RC

      Yeah. Well, I really appreciate that, Daniel. I always enjoy reading your books. Diets are and will [laughs] continue to be a divisive topic bes- because, of course, all of us eat, and we all have a personal experience, and then that personal experience is often what we then try and project onto the world around us. I think this book is just a, a fascinating, wonderful read, and I think one of the things I appreciate about it the most is not only the storytelling, it's the fact that y- you, you actually saying, "Listen, you can eat what you want, but let me just try and inform you as to the, the, the trade-offs you're making with each of those choices." The book's called Fed Up: What Evolution Reveals About Food, Diet, and Eating Well. I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation, Daniel, and I look forward to the next one.

Episode duration: 1:37:05

In the uListen app, the transcript lights up word by word as you listen. Get uListen

Transcript of episode zMehEEVvpwU

Get more out of YouTube videos.

Read along on your phone, search it beside the video, or ask your favorite AI app what was said.

iOSAndroidClaudeChatGPTChrome