Interview with Ty Beal - The Highlights and Lowlights of the Dietary Guidelines

Today I'm talking to Tai Beal and um you know it's it's been really great to connect with him and I've really started to notice you know that uh you know some of his online presence has been increasing. He has a podcast but he's also has a very interesting perspective and one of the major things that um you know he's done over the last bit is really advised on the new dietary guidelines. So, Ty, one, great to meet you.

And two, maybe you can just go over a little bit about your background, you know, what you've been doing, and then we can go into sort of the um, you know, the process of the dietary guidelines and and the new ones and what to what to really look for. >> Yeah, sure. So, thanks for having me.

It's great to be here. So, I got interested in nutrition through a personal story. I think a lot of people kind of went through this where they suffered from some sort of illness or health condition and they treated it with uh diet and lifestyle and that was exactly what I did.

I had sort of a parasite from traveling and I think I had probably underlying uh potentially celiac disease or intestinal issues, dairy issues. And when I changed my diet, I got super healthy, a lot of my symptoms resolved. And so I thought this is super powerful.

I'm really uh interested in this. And that was now probably 15 16 years ago. And it led me to get a graduate degree in sort of this geography, global nutrition, food systems.

And I really wanted to look into what people eat and how it affects their health. And so that's been really inspiring for me because of my own sort of journey through uh nutrition. >> Well, that's amazing.

Um and of course one of the major things that um sort of impacts the nutrition landscape really is the dietary guidelines for Americans. And I think that what I really think is that as a medical so I came from the medical side right and basically we don't talk about it at all right except in very very specific conditions like celiac disease for example >> but even in something as basic as type 2 diabetes there's almost no talk about diet right which is to me where I sit now absolutely Absolutely stunning. Right?

So I remember going back and type 2 diabetes of course is in a big epidemic. We see the numbers going up and so on. And I remember going to lectures, many many lectures and we talk about insulin and metformin and ketoacidosis and you know microvascular complications, macrovascular complications, all kinds of stuff.

and no talk about diet like what is the best diet why is it important right and uh one particular talk I remember uh the people was said it was the uh sort of the chair of diabetes Canada and she's like you know the number one two and three treatments for type two diabetes or diet lifestyle diet lifestyle diet lifestyle right then spent the next 59 minutes of her 60-minute lecture talking about what drugs to And you know when you're sitting there listening that's the impression you get. You get lip service on diet yet it's actually one of the most important things that we do. So you know um and maybe you can just tell us a little bit about um you know the dietary guidelines because that obviously is the sort of blueprint and and how you got involved in that.

>> Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. It's a shame that diet has taken such like a backseat in the health world, especially in the medical space. >> Yeah.

>> And you'll notice with the new dietary guidelines, I have talked to strangers and friends and acquaintances. Every single person I've asked, uh, what do you think about the new food pyramid? They all have some exposure to it.

They've they've seen it. They've talked to people about it. And that's really different than previous guidelines.

Most people would never have heard of My Plate. If you said, "Hey, have you seen the new My Plate? " you probably would have got blank stairs of what's my plate and so I think that that's really a big change today right uh you know I got invited to write a review on the sort of vegan vegetarian and the lifestage issues with the with diets and how do you make sure that you meet all your nutrient needs and that was really I think a great opportunity for me because I've always in my research been focused on nutrient density nutrient deficiencies and often times I look at this globally people think oh there's only nutrient deficiencies in poor countries in Africa or maybe in South Asia.

And what's actually fascinating and most people don't realize is that there's a lot of nutrient deficiencies here in the US. You know, uh by some measures, one in three women are iron deficient. You know, women of reproductive age.

We see a lot of vitamin uh vitamin D deficiency. And when you look at inadequate intakes, you see things like choline. We see things like vitamin E, calcium, right?

So, magnesium, potassium. There's a lot of nutrients that people are lacking. And when you get to restrictive diets where you're cutting out a lot of these nutrient-dense animal source foods, that's where you run into trouble, iron deficiency, vitam B12 deficiency.

We see issues with vitamin D, calcium, right? So, I was really uh I think I was really thankful to be able to join this process. And and what you'll see from this new guidelines is that there's a focus on not just nutrient density, but these whole food sources of of nutrients, right?

There's a big emphasis there. And there's specifically calling out of these highly processed foods and these refined grains, which never before in the guidelines have they called out refined grains so strongly. If you remember previous guidelines, they allowed up to half of grains to be refined, right?

I I actually think that's one of the most powerful messages of the new guidelines. Um and you know this focus on real food and unrefined unprocessed foods is sort of even though people have known about it right you see people talking about that before the food the guidelines but the guidelines themselves >> were always buried their heads in the sand right it's like oh it doesn't matter as long as the calories are the same or something like that right something stupid >> and it'd be like but what about the process So you mentioned that there are all these nutrient deficiencies and and why do you think that is? Because you think that in a sort of place of plenty, right?

like you know the United States there's plenty of food there's plenty of money like it's the richest country in the world it's you know it's got a super dynamic economy and you know the technology is is sort of more advanced you know the phone in our pocket is more advanced than this thing that took people to the moon and so on so why in this sort of era >> would we have these deficiencies what what do you It's a great question because most of the time when we think of these highly processed diets or the standard American diet, we think of the chronic diseases, right? The diabetes, the heart disease, cancer, obesity, things like that, right? What people don't really connect is that the same foods that are causing those chronic diseases are very nutrient poor because they've been refined to such an extent that the natural nutrients contained in those foods are largely missing.

Right? And so these ultrarocessed foods contain mostly a lot of calories, additives, colorants, flavorings, emulsifiers. They're not nutritious, nutrient-dense foods.

And so if you take a whole food and you refine it and you refine it and you ex create extracts from it, you're not just creating this sort of metabolic disease that we see in in rampant in the US, you're also creating deficiencies. And that's I think a surprise to people, but actually people who have chronic diseases are often at greater risk of nutrient deficiencies too. They actually have higher prevalence in many cases than the general population.

So these these ultrarocessed foods are nutrient poor and we see these deficiencies. Most people in the US do not get enough potassium. They don't get enough magnesium.

Those are rich in the plant sources. And at the same time, again, we see those nutrients in animal source foods like iron being a real problem for a lot of people, especially women. >> Yeah, I I think you're you're absolutely right with magnesium for sure.

I see that a lot um in in my patients. uh they they tend to have a lot of you know cramping and muscle cramps and stuff. In fact, in diialysis patients, we actually give them giant doses of magnesium like introvenously through the dialysis machine because they're just so so depleted in magnesium.

So, it it's it's a real issue. Um, I think that the the the key uh is to understand that the processing is a factor that does all kinds of things and it it goes beyond what you see on that nutrient label, right? Percentage of carbs, percentage fat, percentage protein, total calories, right?

The stuff you see on that nutrition label, there's stuff that is is more important that is just not there. And I think that's the real key message. I think that's, you know, when I read the dietary guidelines, that was like the first thing >> that was written, right?

Eat real food. >> I'm like, yes, that is that is amazing. Who who where where did this this whole idea come from?

Because it's been a real change, right? I've I've read the dietary guidelines from, you know, every time they come out and they mostly just, you know, they take the old one and they tweak the edges a little bit, right? It's like, oh, we'll just change this and this and this.

This one was just a complete complete switch, right? Uh where did that where did that um sort of impetus come from? Because I I I love it, but I'm I'm I'm a little bit surprised in a happy way about how it came out to be honest.

>> I'm surprised. If you asked me two years ago if we would have seen this in the dietary guidelines, I would have said there's no chance. >> Yeah.

>> And I think it's very clear that uh RFK Jr. there has been sort of the impetus to saying look we need to address the chronic disease crisis and in children and so we kind of took the previous committee's report and we started over we took some of the things but like you said it was very transformative and I think there was there's a lot of controversy around that you're going to get we got criticized right but I think the the whole message of eat real food is undeniable the fact that we're calling out these highly processed foods the refi refined starches is the refined grains and stricter limits on added sugars. I think those are really transformative and emphasizing the whole foods and the protein richch foods.

The combination of sort of these satiating animal source foods which these with these non-starchy vegetables we have never seen that much emphasis placed on satiation right eat natural whole foods that really fill you up so you don't overeat. And when we look at today, we have 3/4ers of the population overweight or obese, right? By some measures, nine and 10 of us have some measure of a chronic disease or risk factor.

I think it's also important that we're sick as a nation, but that's in contrast to what a lot of the rest of the world is doing, right? Because other countries are not getting this problem, right? It it seems to be focused on us.

And sorry. So it's it's it's it's certainly it's not just a disease of modernity or whatever, right? Uh what they uh used to call disease of civilization, right?

It's not simply that because there are other civilized countries in the world, right? Italy, Japan, most of Europe and they're not seeing the same problems. So sorry, you're saying that and and and RFK Jr.

was >> Yeah, I think he led this effort, right? But you can see that point you raised is so important and in the there's a scientific foundations report that I was a co-author on that was sort of what the guidelines were based on, right? And in the very intro chapter that point you made is highlighted.

There's a little graph and it shows the life expectancy for the US compared to other countries uh in sort of highincome wealthy nations that are similar to us, right? And the US is is just about the lowest amongst our peers. And we've gotten worse over the last few decades, right?

It's just it's not something the Medicare costs, the health care costs, everything has been, I think, going in the same direction. And there was enough for me. There was enough political will to change that and stand up against big food.

We have never seen Congress and the Senate talking about ultrarocessed foods. That has never happened before. I've presented on ultrarocessed foods to state legislators.

I haven't heard of state legislators talking about that. Dozens of states have restricted sugar sweetened beverages in SNAP, the supplemental nutrition assistance program. Many states have already put policies in place to restrict ultrarocessed foods in schools, right?

And so these guidelines are really saying at the federal level, >> we're going to make a big change and we don't care if industry is opposed to that. We're going to stand up. That's great because I think it needs like what we're trying to do is stand up for the people, right?

And it's because um so I I believe California banned ultrarocessed foods or is in the process of branding ultrarocessed foods in schools and it's like well don't the rest of the American school children deserve this too, right? It's like come on, this is like a no-brainer, guys. Um or using uh food stamps for sugary beverages.

It's like, uh, isn't this like a no-brainer, guys? Like, seriously, like, uh, pretty common sense, right? Why would you not, why would you put tax dollars into stuff that's making people unhealthy?

>> It's like, sure, they can, you know, buy it if they want to, but then use your own money, right? It's the treat, right? >> The government is supporting Coca-Cola and other sugary beverage companies.

It's just insane, right? >> It's totally insane. and and and I I I did you know I did think that I I you know the real foods is such a key message uh here um that it's it's it's going to transform because the dietary guidelines you know on the one hand to the individual a lot of people say well it doesn't change the way I really eat because I was doing that already right so if you talk to sort of my friends are mostly you know higher education and higher income so they're like >> and And I remember I asked them and they're like, "Well, it doesn't really change anything for me.

That's how I ate anyway, right? We tried to limit the processed foods. We tried to limit the processed carbs.

We tried to limit the sugars anyway. So, it actually doesn't change anything for us. That's how we've been eating anyway, right?

But the point is that >> at this at the sort of uh official level with the school lunches and the SNAP program and so on, it is it is actually very very important and that's where I think it's going to change. Uh, who's whose idea was it to flip the pyramid upside down? I love that, too.

>> Now, it's I think that was a really good sort of attention grabber, right? I think that's part of the reason why this is getting so much attention. You know, the scientists, including myself, who were involved in the reviews did not have any input into the graphics.

So, I can't take credit for that. For better or for worse, I I generally like it. Um, you know, maybe some small things on the margins I would change.

But yeah, that was probably done by the uh, you know, HHS department and really looking at how do we get this message across. If you notice in there, they're all real foods, right? They're all whole foods.

And I think that's like the key message. People people take issue with like the size of the steak or the size of the broccoli or the position of the grains. I'm just I'm just like, okay, you can debate on those issues, right?

There's all sorts of views, but the key message is sort of undeniable. We're going to get a lot healthier if we can follow that. And you're absolutelyely right about this sort of public procurement lever, right?

What the government is spending tax dollars to fund, the school meals, the military food, the hospital foods, all of that can actually start to change the food system. Because when you start investing in the right foods and divesting in the wrong foods, you actually make healthier foods more affordable and you make health care less expensive, right? you have less health burden that you have to worry about.

So I think with if we can really get these of course a lot of people aren't going to follow them. That's just the case. We can't force people to eat like this.

But it's a huge step in the right direction. >> I think it's a massive step. I mean I think that it also influences of course what is taught to the dieticians and you know the hospital which you know I'm in the hospital every day and the food is horrendous right?

It totally follows the guidelines, right? So, it's, >> you know, a couple of slices of white bread with some jam or something like that for breakfast. And I'm like, "Oh, that's just terrible.

That's just the most terrible. " So, here you have a guy who comes in, has a heart attack, he's overweight, has diabetes, right? So, you're going to give him the very foods that, you know, right, white bread and jam, that are going to spike his glucose through the roof.

Okay? Now, that's not that's not like that's just fact. Everybody knows it.

You can check the glycemic index. It's very high. >> Hey, it follows the dietary guidelines and it's the cheapest food that the hospital can give you.

So therefore, that's what they got, right? And you know, hospitals are all about meeting the budgets and so on. So it's it's crazy.

It's an insane sort of way. You come into the hospital, you get worse food when food was at the root of everything you did, right? Because it's like if you think about the current diseases that we face, right?

It's all about nutrition, right? In the past, it was about infectious diseases, right? So, you go back 50, 70, 80 years.

You're talking about pneumonia, tuberculosis, uh dysentery. That's what's killing people. But what's killing people now is not that we hadn't we had antibiotics, we had all this stuff.

What's killing people now is heart disease and cancer. And if you think about the contribution of nutrition to both of those diseases, it's actually massive, right? And and and the link with cancer is one that's almost never talked about, but in fact, if you look at it, it's actually just right behind smoking as a contributor to cancer.

>> It's way up there like colon cancers, breast cancers. So, you know, I think that these sort of uh things about getting back to the real foods is such an important um aspect. I mean, I think turning it upside down was I, you know, in my opinion, genius because it really tells you that you started a new just like, you know, you said this is this is the symbolic way of showing that this is a totally new take because the old takes were just like they didn't want to admit they were wrong.

They were basically were saying we're right in everything except this little tiny bit, right? we're going to change this from 4% to 3% or something stupid, right? Yeah.

>> And but now it's like this is totally different. What What didn't you like about the new uh dietary guidelines? >> Yeah.

I mean, I think I would have liked to see a little bit more emphasis on I think the added fat sort of the refined fat could be minimized sort of not like a main feature like the size of the butter. I mean, that's sort of getting about being nitpicky. Um, I think I would like to see for the for the plant-based folks to see a little bit more of the plant proteins in the graphic at a little bit of a larger size because I know for people who are eating more plant-based foods, I think they were sort of looking at that graphic and saying, "Well, where are the foods that I eat?

" Right? Maybe like a like a tofu or something. Um, otherwise, I think there's a there's a really sort of strict recommendation on children 2 to 10 years of age to have no added sugar.

I think that's pretty challenging to do. I have kids. I have two kids in that age range.

I would have liked to see maybe a little bit more uh flexibility where you know maybe you can have treats every once in a while. So some sort of maybe a little bit giving a little bit more flexibility with the amount of added sugar. I love I mean I love 95% of it like the focus on sugar sweetened beverages.

Even juices are called out, right? The the non-coralic sweeteners are called out. The refined grains are called out.

Highly processed foods. I I mean >> I can't say enough about what I love about it. So yeah, it's hard.

There are things to nitpick, but I think the general message is really powerful. >> Yeah, I I I agree with you, especially the artificial sweeteners. Like I I really think that they're just not useful.

Um you there's tons of people who say, "Well, there's zero calories. " I'm like, "Yeah, but there's things that are wrong other than the calories, right? " Which is the whole point of this guidelines is like, "Let's take a more holistic >> look at all the foods.

" What about this the limit? because there's been some talk about the limit on saturated fat. I mean that that's had some discussion.

Um what do you think about it? >> Yeah, I mean I generally think that the focus on the nutrients is sort of the wrong approach because I think the whole food sources of saturated fat like your unprocessed meat, your whole dairy, eggs, seafood, those are generally healthpromoting. They're nutrient-dense.

They are satiating. they don't fill you up and they're generally linked to um neutral or positive health impact. So, I think if I if I sort of had it my way, I probably would have removed that recommendation overall because I also think people can't really follow what does 10% mean.

Um and then when you look at if you're trying to make a meal and you're having that full fat dairy for example, that can kind of push it over the limit. Um however I I have seen a new bill that was I think presented or at least proposed where school meals the dairy products whole dairy products will not count towards that saturated fat limit. So I think that's sort of showing I think they're probably trying to walk the line here.

There is some evidence for sure that some people when they have higher saturated fat they can increase their their risk for you know cardiovascular disease. I think that in general when you look at the whole sources of dairy like the yogurt cheese for example you see beneficial effects when you see the butter itself or like butter oil especially when you reduce the milk fat globial membrane that's where you start to see a little bit more of the detrimental effects so I think it's more about the level of processing so the overall messaging of the whole food sources I think is right I think that some people are going to take issue with the the cutoff for a few different reasons whether it's hard to meet with you know, the diet they want to consume, right? If you're having a lower carb diet and you're having a bit animal centric, animal protein centric, I think that's a bit challenging.

And then for the people who just say, look, this is a hard metric for people to follow. It's not very practical to look at the percentage of calories from saturated fat. >> Yeah, I would tend to agree with that.

I mean, for one, I think most of the data on a lot of the full fat dairy is it's not that bad for you, like truthfully. Um but again I think and and this was one of my criticisms of the previous guidelines was that it was something sort of called like nutritionism rather than nutrition because we don't eat saturated fat. We eat foods that contain both saturated and unsaturated fat, right?

Because beef fat and stuff. It's it's a it's a mix. Everything isn't it's a mix.

Yes, some of it has more than others, but if you look at coconut oil, for example, a lot of saturated fat was demonized for years, but you know, there's lots of lots of um you know, little Caribbean islands and stuff and and places in Asia where they eat a lot of coconut oil, like a lot of coconut, and they're very healthy. They have long lifespans. They live well, they don't have heart disease.

So it's like to me it's very hard to point out like to isolate a nutrient like that and say this is the problem is the saturation of the fat, right? It it it doesn't make sense to me. It's it's it's um it to me it's much more useful to look at the foods just like how fat used to be demonized and then it's like oh but what about nuts?

It's like hey that's not bad. What about olive oil? Hey that's that's not bad too but it's fat.

You know you know that right? So, so this whole nutritionism, this this idea that we should focus on the specific nutrients rather than the whole food, I think is a bit misguided. I mean, obviously the new guidelines have taken away sort of 90% of that, but the the saturated fat thing I thought was a little odd just because I thought, you know, maybe as a throwin for all the hard liners or something.

I don't know. I think it was probably a compromise if I'm being honest because if you look at the evidence review on saturated fat, >> it does not say there's good evidence for the 10% limit, right? It sort of says there's not a lot of come from, >> right?

And it was it was always it was there already. And I think that that's probably part of why it just remained there. I agree with you.

the sort of nutritionism perspective we are trying to get away from because we know that it's more about the whole diet and it's about the food matrix which we didn't really talk about in detail but it's not just what what are the food components in the food but it's how are they held together >> the food matrix is such actually I'm glad you brought that up because the food matrix is actually incredibly important but got completely lost in all the previous dietary guidelines because there was no talk about processing which disrupt ups >> the food matrix, right? How are the foods held together, right? It's actually crucially important because it affects >> and it's measurable, right?

If you take apples and you or you take applesauce, you bake it and puree it, you've disrupted the matrix in which the apple is, it actually has completely different effects, measurably different effects, right? Because you can measure glycemic index or insulin or whatever. You can measure gastric transit times.

You can measure anything but by disrupting that matrix you've actually changed the response of the body to that food which is going to change you know your hormones which is going to change your risk of other disease right it's like it gets no >> sort of you know mind share if you will right the mind is >> it doesn't get airtime and you're absolutely right even when you look at there was a study in Japan a randomized control trial that looked these like ultrarocessed diets versus unprocessed. Kind of like Kevin Hall's study at the NIH. >> And they found that the people on the ultrar processed diet, they only took half as many chews as the as the minimally processed diet.

And that's another pathway right there. They're these food the food matrix has been totally degraded and then it's been reputable concoctions. People eat it really fast.

You don't feel full, so you eat way more than you need, right? It causes metabolic dysfunction. you're not getting the the slow absorption of those nutrients and foods, right, that we were sort of meant to be.

And if you look in nature, >> we don't have a lot of those combinations of like the salt, the starch, the fat all together and all the obviously all the flavorings and chemical additives, but we don't see that. And so it's very clear that the processing is one of the key contributors, right, to the metabolic dysfunction that we're seeing today. >> Yeah.

And it's it's interesting too because if you were to ask like you know your great-g grandandmother or something, she probably would have told you the same thing, right? It's like eat real food, right? Don't eat like you know processed foods.

And that probably would have been her like number one advice, right? And it's probably true for different reasons like and and and we got sidetracked for so many years because we said, "Oh, it's because of the carbs or the fat or the whatever it is, right? a nutrient, right?

Rather than which which completely excludes the impact of the food matrix. I remember David Lewig had done a study of um and he compared sort of breakfast but he had instant oats versus steel cut oats >> and remember they're the same food but processed differently. One is ultrarocessed and one has big chunks that are hard to digest and therefore you know there's huge differences.

is the glucose spike is different, the insulin release is different, the gastric times transit times are different. And what it meant was that when you got to lunchtime, you ate far less when you ate the steel cut oats. So it all those things contribute to a change in eating behavior because you're more full, right?

Because the stuff is sitting in your stomach longer, right? So, a lot of these unprocessed foods, they sit in your stomach a long time because your remember your stomach's got to churn them around and mix them up and grind them up and then it puts a little bit out. Whereas the ultrarocessed foods, you know, and in Kevin Hall's study also, they ate way faster.

like the ultrarocessed one, way less chews. Everything went down really fast and you know that it's just exiting the stomach at an accelerated rate compared to whole foods which are just, you know, it's sitting in the stomach grinding up. I remember they compared apples slices to applesauce and it was like 50% longer in the stomach, right?

which means that you stay full a lot longer. And that's the impact of the food matrix, which is >> sort of what we're getting back to. But again, you know, what I love is about the guidelines is that, you know, we're not talking necessarily about the food matrix, but when you get into the science of why the real food is so much better, food matrix gets right up there, right?

along with, you know, other things like you mentioned the texturizers, the emulsifiers, you know, all all this sort of stuff, the speed of how fast you eat because, you know, that's one of the things that is pretty consistent when you look at the data. And what I think is, you know, really interesting is that this data is all relatively new, right? Because if you look at the ANOVA classification of ultrarocessed foods, when was it first published?

like 2014 or something like that. It's not like it was there for 50 years and ignored. It just hasn't been around >> and it's gone from that to oh let's put make sure that people pay attention to it.

Like you know people had already been paying attention to it but it really sort of focused us in on what I think is a super important aspect of what we eat. So you know kudos on that. I mean really really uh happy with that.

I think also the other thing we didn't mention is that the whole foods also contain a lot of compounds that are lost in the processing. So these metabolic metabolites like we think about uh you know polyphenols right carotenoids anthocyanins and then in animal source foods you have the creatine you have anerine torine and they're not essential nutrients necessarily but they have uh effects on the body and health and we have thousands of compounds in these foods so you're actually losing those compounds as well and I think that that plays a role as well and so that focusing on the whole foods there's so many reasons why it makes sense right >> oh Yeah, like the you know when they talk about the um polyphenols like you look at things like uh green tea and stuff it's like green tea is not just is not the same as like green colored water you know there's a lot of these active compounds like ECGC which is one of the you know um kakans which is a class of polyphenols right there's theoflavins and black tea so there's all this other stuff that when you're talking about whole natural foods like green teas or whatever, it's not the same. Like you replace that with cola and you really got just sugar and water, right?

And so >> some flavoring with with the olive oil, too. It's like people think, well, that's an oil, but it has a lot of antioxidants, right? And there's like there's a reason why it has some of these beneficial effects.

>> Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point because it's like um you know, the the olive oil is not just fat, right? It's like it was this sort of reductionist idea, right?

I think that's that's the one thing I really always thought was bad. It was this sort of uh the old guidelines were so reductionist. That is like butter is a saturated fat and that's all it is, right?

>> Olive oil is a fat, a polyunsaturated fat. No, sorry. It's a monounsaturated fat, but that's all that's all it is.

Who cares about what else is in there, right? It's like, no, there there's tons of other things going on just like so. So, they tried to reduce it to this or apples are this percent carbs and this percent proteins and this percent fats and that's all.

No, what about this whole, you know, how you prepare it? So yeah, I think it's it's it's such a huge huge step, but I think it's it's it's one that has been sort of really should have been done 10 years ago, but thank God we've got it now, you know. >> Yeah.

>> So, thank you uh for that. Um so we can wrap up and any any last thoughts about the dietary guidelines about, you know, how it should influence how we eat, you know, your any last thoughts on that? You know, I think the next question is what do we do now?

And that's where I think it really matters because a lot of people are not going to follow them, but we have a lot of levers to pull. So that's training doctors. I think we have some news that was announced by the secretary about we're going to start training doctors in medical school about nutrition.

That's a big step. I mentioned these procurement levers. I think we really need to act and take action at the federal and the state level to really make these incentives change.

uh produce food that is uh minimally processed, require that in schools, uh require that for military feeding for hospitals, change the SNAP, right? We can't allow sugar- sweetened beverages to be funded by SNAP. There can be other things that could be restricted like candy, for example.

So, I think that the the only sort of advice I would say to whoever is in charge of making decisions is let's try to make sure we have uh we have programs in place and we have efforts that we can help the transition process. It's very hard to go from where we are now to where we want to be and everyone usually agrees that we want to see our kids healthy, right? We want to see everyone reducing chronic disease, but we do need help.

So, whatever the mechanism is, if it's at the federal level, at the state level, >> we want to see support. So, in a school like a school that doesn't have a kitchen, if they don't have uh staff to support that, we need to figure out ways to be able to have that um a reality, right? Because I think all of the kids around the country deserve that and all of us deserve to be able to have access to these foods.

So, I see a lot of efforts to make foods more affordable, and I want to just see more action going forward. But I'm I'm more optimistic than I could have imagined I would have been at this point. I feel like I went through a time portal, you know?

It's amazing. I feel that way, too, because it's going to be so important, you know, for to have that official sort of backing so that you can say, "Okay, well, I I just I need to follow these guidelines. So, we need to have fresh food, unprocessed foods.

Like, we need to get this out of the school. " It's like no more of these chicken nuggets, right? No more of this, you know, highly processed foods.

Let's get it out of here because that does not follow the guidelines and therefore we must, you know, we must uh adhere to that. So that's important because honestly, if you look at other countries like the the the the data on ultrarocessed foods in America is staggeringly bad, right? Staggering 70%, right?

Is the usual number. It's like 20% in other countries, 25% in Japan and stuff, right? So, we're talking about two and a half minimum times the amount of ultrarocessed foods.

Like the majority of our food is ultrarocessed. That's insane, right? So, >> you know, the the the the the focus on cutting it, you know, putting it in there rather than saying, "Hey, you know, if you have an ultrarocessed food with the right carbs and fats and proteins and calories, that's not okay anymore.

>> It doesn't follow the guidelines. " And that's so huge. So, so really, you know, I love these I love these new guidelines.

Like I when I read them, I was like, "Wow, this is this is a huge step. " I don't agree with 100% of the stuff but you know a as with you like 95% and the most important things I think really like you know there's it's not everything's not the same priority but the number one priority for the ultrarocessed foods. I completely agree with that.

So thanks for that. What a great conversation. Thanks so much Tai.

>> Thanks for having me Jason. It was great to speak with you.