Nutritionist Dr. David Katz joins WIRED to answer your nutrition questions from the internet. How do you change your metabolism? Is organic food worth the premium price? What’s the best diet for health and longevity? Dr. Katz answers these questions and many more.
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00:00 I'm Dr. David Katz.
00:01 Let's answer some questions from the internet.
00:03 This is Nutrition Support.
00:05 (upbeat music)
00:07 At Curtis M. Whittaker, in your opinion,
00:12 what is the best diet for health and longevity?
00:15 It's a theme.
00:16 It's not one specific diet.
00:18 Seven words, eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
00:21 And that comes to us courtesy of the Blue Zones.
00:24 Five populations around the world,
00:27 in Ikaria, Greece, Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, Japan,
00:30 Loma Linda, California,
00:31 and the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica,
00:33 where people most often live to be 100 years old,
00:37 don't get chronic disease or dementia.
00:40 They all adhere to that same basic theme,
00:43 real food, mostly plants.
00:45 Lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains,
00:47 beans, lentils, nuts and seeds,
00:49 mostly plain water when thirsty.
00:51 Aim to love the food that loves you back.
00:54 If that's the foundation of your diet,
00:56 you can't go too far wrong.
00:58 @jhartman24 asks, can you have too much protein?
01:02 Yes, you can eat too much protein.
01:04 Most Americans get about twice
01:06 the recommended amount of protein.
01:07 Excess protein is acidic.
01:09 Excess protein can't be used by the body,
01:11 doesn't turn into big, strong muscles.
01:14 The body can store carbohydrate and it can store fat.
01:17 It cannot store protein.
01:19 Our carbohydrate store is called glycogen,
01:22 generally about 1200 to 1800 calories worth.
01:25 Protein does not get stored.
01:27 So what the body does is convert it
01:29 into something it can store.
01:31 And since glycogen is already capped out,
01:33 all surplus protein the body doesn't need
01:36 and can't use now, it stores as fat.
01:38 @exobabydoll9 asks, where does keto science
01:42 and nutrition come from?
01:43 How does anyone believe that eating zero carbs
01:46 and almost all fat could be good for you?
01:47 It doesn't make sense to me.
01:49 So where does it come from?
01:50 Is there a science?
01:51 Yes, actually.
01:52 So the origins of the ketogenic diet
01:54 or was discovered that if you restricted fuel to the brain,
01:58 you could sometimes treat seizures
02:00 that nothing else would treat.
02:02 Intractable epilepsy.
02:03 Their seizures sometimes would stop
02:05 if you starved the brain of carbohydrate.
02:07 Sometimes, especially in children,
02:09 if the typical drugs to treat seizures are not working,
02:12 sometimes a ketogenic diet is used.
02:14 But that should give everybody else pause.
02:16 The calling card of this particular diet
02:19 is that it starves the brain of a key nutrient
02:21 and quiets brain activity.
02:22 Is that really what a healthy person wants their diet to do?
02:25 I would say no.
02:26 @outdoctrination asks, what are some of the biggest
02:29 nutrition, exercise, health myths you can think of?
02:33 So the prevailing view these days
02:34 seems to be that carbohydrate is bad.
02:36 Everything from lentils to lollipops are carbohydrate.
02:41 In fact, all plant foods,
02:43 along with most processed foods are carbohydrate.
02:45 So vegetables, fruits, whole grains,
02:48 legumes, all carbohydrate.
02:49 And all of the best diets for humans
02:51 tend to be rich in carbohydrate, but good carbohydrate.
02:54 Is there bad carbohydrate?
02:55 Refined grains, added sugar, ultra processed junk food.
02:59 Yeah, that's bad.
03:00 @idontknowmyself asks, how do you change your metabolism?
03:05 How?
03:05 Mine is my worst enemy, I hate it.
03:07 Good news, you actually can change yours.
03:09 Add muscle to your body.
03:11 Do resistance training three times a week.
03:13 When you add ounces or pounds of muscle to your body,
03:16 you're burning more calories 24/7.
03:19 So if you kept your current eating the same
03:21 and worked out doing resistance training three times a week,
03:24 you would start to lose weight
03:27 if your current calorie intake was maintaining your weight
03:30 because you would need more for those muscles to survive.
03:34 @alisonmckinney asks, are all calories really created equal?
03:38 I think what you're really asking is,
03:40 does it matter what the source of the calorie is?
03:43 And obviously foods are not all created equal.
03:46 One of the critical considerations
03:48 is that if you eat a wide variety of really wholesome foods,
03:51 foods direct from nature,
03:52 they fill you up on fewer calories
03:55 than if you eat ultra processed foods.
03:57 Here is something you may not know.
03:59 Non-food components added in with the food,
04:02 now you've got an ultra processed food.
04:04 Those foods are manipulated in all sorts of ways
04:07 to extend their shelf life
04:09 and to stimulate your appetite center and make you overeat.
04:12 So ultra processing is bad.
04:14 @stephanieb789 asks, what is a completely healthy weight?
04:18 Because BMI is BS and so is the weight number.
04:21 The body mass index does not tell you if you're healthy.
04:24 It does tell you if on average,
04:27 your weight is what it should be
04:28 for somebody who is your height.
04:30 Weight is not a measure of health.
04:31 One thing that's more reliable than BMI or weight
04:34 to get at specific health issues is waist circumference.
04:38 More than 35 inches puts a woman at increased risk.
04:43 For a man, it's a little higher, it's about 40 inches.
04:45 Fat that tends to accumulate in the lower extremities,
04:48 for example, the legs, the buttocks,
04:50 much less metabolically active.
04:52 Fat around the middle has a nasty habit
04:54 of getting into the liver.
04:56 It disrupts normal liver function,
04:58 it impairs our ability to manage lipids in our blood,
05:01 and it tends to make us insulin resistant.
05:03 You don't make enough insulin to manage your blood sugar
05:06 and you wind up with type two diabetes.
05:07 We cannot pretend that accumulating excess body fat
05:11 doesn't matter, but you're absolutely right.
05:14 BMI is not a measure of health.
05:16 @PaleoPlus asks, "How legit is the Paleo diet?"
05:21 A true Paleo diet is really difficult
05:23 to achieve in the modern world.
05:25 The Paleo diet or Paleolithic diet
05:27 is about how did humans eat during the Stone Age.
05:30 First of all, you can't eat any processed foods,
05:33 you can't eat any dairy.
05:34 If you eat any meat, it has to be game,
05:36 wild animals exclusively.
05:38 The kind of meat our ancestors had access to
05:41 was a lot like antelope.
05:42 About 7% of the calories in an antelope steak come from fat.
05:46 Almost none of that fat is saturated.
05:48 Quite a lot of it is omega-3.
05:50 Compare that to beef.
05:51 35% of the calories come from fat.
05:54 Most of that fat is saturated and none of it's omega-3.
05:57 Night and day.
05:58 Our Stone Age ancestors didn't eat that.
06:00 Our Stone Age ancestors got about 100 grams of fiber
06:03 every day.
06:04 Now the recommendation here in the US for adults
06:07 is about 25 grams a day,
06:09 but 100 grams a day probably means more time
06:13 in the bathroom than your schedule would allow.
06:16 @cgwa85 asks, "I've come to accept that girl dinner
06:20 "is the main thing holding me back in life.
06:22 "Like why can't I nutrition properly?"
06:25 I'm relatively new to girl dinner,
06:27 but I've done some searching and I understand
06:29 it's something like this.
06:31 It's basically a quick assembly of foods
06:33 that you can easily get your hands on.
06:35 The basic concept, I think, emphasizes convenience.
06:39 We've got some processed meat,
06:40 but we don't really need that.
06:42 We could have an alternative to that
06:43 if you wanted to take out some of the least healthful foods.
06:47 But why can't the dip, for example, be a bean dip
06:50 or hummus?
06:50 Crackers as opposed to chips that are made from whole grains
06:53 with a very short list of ingredients.
06:55 There is cheese.
06:56 If you're gonna keep the cheese,
06:57 grapes go well with cheese.
06:58 Some dried fruits go great with cheese.
07:00 But when you have milk chocolate
07:02 and add in a lot of saturated fat and a lot more calories,
07:05 typically more sugar comes along for the ride too.
07:08 But if you traded this up to pure dark chocolate,
07:10 60% cocoa or higher, it's delicious.
07:13 It's rich, it's rewarding.
07:14 And because it's bittersweet rather than purely sweet,
07:17 it actually fills you up on fewer calories.
07:19 And now you're having the indulgence,
07:21 but you're also improving overall nutrition.
07:23 So I don't think it would be that much work
07:26 to overhaul this, stick with the girl dinner,
07:29 trade up the nutrition,
07:30 and then girl dinner won't be holding you back.
07:32 @flegp asks, "Explain the major difference
07:35 "between macro and micronutrients."
07:38 Macro is something you can see with the naked eye.
07:40 So there are three macro nutrients
07:42 that make up the bulk of food.
07:44 They are abundant enough to be visible,
07:46 protein, carbohydrate, and fat.
07:48 Micro is something for which you need a microscope.
07:51 Micronutrients are vitamins, minerals,
07:54 antioxidants that are still very important.
07:56 Many of them are essential nutrients,
07:57 but they're too small to see.
07:59 @johnpetersonfw asked, "I'd really like to know
08:02 "from someone that actually knows
08:04 "if buying organic food for double the price
08:07 "is actually worth it/better for you."
08:10 A great question.
08:11 We really can't say for sure
08:12 that it's better for human health,
08:14 but we have reason to think so.
08:15 Herbicides should not be part of the human diet.
08:18 Pesticides should not be part of the human diet.
08:20 Antibiotics dosed to animals
08:22 should not be part of the human diet.
08:24 And if you eat organic,
08:25 you're avoiding all of those things.
08:27 Produce grown organically seems to be, on average,
08:31 as much as 20% more concentrated
08:34 in a wide array of micronutrients
08:36 than its non-organically grown counterparts.
08:39 So that would mean 20% more vitamins,
08:41 20% more minerals, and 20% more antioxidants, for example.
08:45 If I look at these foods here,
08:47 you think about when would it be more important
08:49 to buy organic.
08:50 I like it for the lettuces.
08:52 So we've got radicchio here.
08:53 I like it for the carrots.
08:55 I really like it for these berries.
08:57 So whenever you're not taking a surface off of food
09:00 and you're eating it whole,
09:01 buying organic tends to matter more.
09:03 @cardiaringel asks, "Intermittent fasting
09:06 "is BS.
09:07 "It's literally just skipping breakfast with a fancy name.
09:10 "It's a bit more than that, but you're not entirely wrong.
09:13 "There have been randomized control trials,"
09:16 putting them head to head.
09:17 "Intermittent fasting to limit your calories
09:19 "and no time restriction, but portion control.
09:23 "And you wind up with the same number of calories,
09:25 "the same foods, just distributed differently
09:27 "with intermittent fasting being the difference.
09:29 "Guess the results.
09:30 "No discernible difference."
09:32 But that doesn't mean intermittent fasting
09:34 isn't a valid tactic.
09:35 For some people, it just works better
09:37 than thinking about portion control all the time.
09:39 I mean, if you start your day at lunch and have dinner
09:41 and then you stop, you're right.
09:43 That pretty much involves just skipping breakfast.
09:45 And the idea is you're poking a hole
09:47 in your daily intake of calories.
09:49 So you wind up eating fewer calories
09:51 and that tends to help people with weight loss
09:53 and weight control.
09:55 @ajrendon96 asks, "Ketosis, how does that feel?
09:59 "The ketogenic diet is trying to avoid overt starvation,
10:03 "but mimic its effects.
10:05 "When people go into a state of starvation,
10:07 "they have this sense of euphoria.
10:09 "Some people report mental clarity,
10:11 "some people report feeling very energetic.
10:13 "And people who are trying to stay
10:15 "on a ketogenic diet experience
10:17 "some of what people in an extended experience
10:19 "of starvation feel, which is exhaustion,
10:21 "brain fog, constipation, and a whole host of other ills.
10:25 "So when we're starving, we actually start
10:27 "to break down our own tissues.
10:29 "We use up our glycogen, and once that's gone,
10:31 "we don't have carbohydrates, so we can't make sugar.
10:33 "So we start burning our body fat."
10:35 From my point of view, the ketogenic diet
10:38 is not a recommended approach for long-term.
10:41 It restricts many of the most nutritious foods,
10:44 the very foods we know are associated
10:46 with both longevity and vitality.
10:48 @asp1raluna asks, "What food drink
10:52 "should I cut out of my diet?"
10:54 I'm gonna go with soda.
10:55 Source of empty calories, source of a lot
10:58 of the excess sugar most Americans eat,
11:00 easily replaceable with much better stuff,
11:03 water would be ideal, but any kind of seltzer
11:05 would be a good intermediate step.
11:07 We're just gonna cut one thing out of a diet,
11:09 let's cut out soda.
11:10 @swissbusiness asks, "Is going gluten-free
11:13 "good for everyone?"
11:14 No, gluten is a component of some really nutritious foods
11:17 like whole wheat, whole barley, other grains.
11:20 Avoiding gluten is only important
11:22 if you're gluten-sensitive.
11:23 That means you either have celiac disease
11:26 where you actually make antibodies
11:27 and you absolutely have to avoid gluten,
11:29 and then it's very important, or you just don't feel well
11:31 when you eat foods that contain gluten.
11:33 In those instances, you should avoid it.
11:35 For everybody else, there's no advantage
11:37 in avoiding foods that contain gluten.
11:39 @iniceli asks, "Are you plant-based, vegan,
11:42 "and finding it difficult to get the proper nutrition,
11:44 "protein, minerals, micro-macronutrients?"
11:48 Now, first of all, I'm primarily vegan.
11:50 You get many more vitamins and minerals from plants
11:53 than from animal foods.
11:55 There are a couple of exceptions like B12,
11:57 and so supplements, not an unreasonable idea.
11:59 Protein is not deficient in plant foods.
12:02 All plant foods contain all essential amino acids.
12:05 And if you find it hard to believe
12:07 that you can build big, strong muscles
12:09 from eating just plants, take a look at a horse.
12:12 Take a look at a gorilla.
12:14 Take a look at an ox.
12:15 @poeticdweller asks, "Is the food pyramid still real?"
12:19 Like, are you guys actually eating
12:20 all these servings every day?
12:21 This just feels like a lot.
12:23 This is what we're talking about here.
12:24 It's not still in use.
12:26 It's actually been replaced.
12:27 It's been replaced by a plate.
12:30 So if your plate is taken up three quarters
12:32 by vegetables, fruits, whole grains,
12:34 on average, over the course of the day,
12:37 you're gonna be doing pretty well.
12:38 @bullspear says, "Honestly, I don't know
12:41 why I bother reading nutritional labels.
12:43 I don't know what the (beep) niacin is
12:46 or why one nutrient-grain bar has 10% DV of it."
12:49 Okay, our problem used to be micronutrient deficiencies.
12:53 Our problem today is much more about macronutrient excess,
12:57 just eating too much of all the wrong foods.
12:59 I would say look at an ingredient list
13:01 and look for things you recognize as food.
13:04 Well, if you're having a nutrient-grain bar,
13:06 you'd really like to make sure
13:08 that the first ingredient is a grain,
13:10 and ideally a whole grain,
13:12 and that would be a good thing.
13:13 If the first ingredient in a grain product
13:16 is anything other than a grain, like sugar, for example,
13:18 you could do better.
13:19 @mintpoid asks, "What do I eat pre-workout
13:23 versus post-workout macros-wise?"
13:25 In general, you wanna preload for a workout
13:28 with a carbohydrate that's gonna help you
13:29 fill your glycogen stores.
13:31 That's the fuel you're going to be running on
13:33 during an extended period of exercise,
13:35 a long bike ride, a long hike, a long run, a marathon.
13:38 Complex carbohydrates, that would be whole grains,
13:41 it would be fruit.
13:42 For recovery afterwards, you've used your muscle,
13:45 you've broken down muscle if you've worked out intensely,
13:48 high-quality protein.
13:50 And the other thing that would be really important
13:52 post-workout would be antioxidants.
13:54 Antioxidant compounds actually help protect the cells
13:58 as they go through that process of breakdown
14:00 during exercise recovery after.
14:02 So those are all the questions.
14:04 I really appreciate the honesty.
14:06 Thank you for joining us today on Nutrition Support.
14:09 (bell dings)
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