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The Rich Roll Podcast
Decoding the New U.S. Dietary Guidelines with Simon Hill: What They Got Right, Wrong & Why It Matters
01:00:41
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- [00:02]
Simon Hill
The Trump administration making over America's food
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Rich Roll
pyramid for decades of federal policy promoted and subsidized highly processed foods. These new guidelines will make America healthy.
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Maha
Many in the health community worry about
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Simon Hill
the increase in protein.
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Maha
They have caused quite a bit of discourse. What's good about them? What's maybe not so good about them?
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Simon Hill
The problem is that most people will double down on red meat based on what those new guidelines look like. Makes it very hard to actually consume. Consume less than 10% of calories from saturated fat.
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Maha
It does feel like mixed messaging. And this is what's making us sick.
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Simon Hill
I would have liked to have seen more commentary around the fact that 95% of Americans get nowhere near the fiber recommendations. This is when that idea of animal protein being better quality, you have to really question it. I've gone through this evidence with you in previous episodes, so we don't have to go through all of it. But what I'll say is that foreign.
- [01:03]
Maha
Hey everybody. Welcome to the podcast. We have our resident nutrition science expert Simon Hill, host of the Proof podcast. And my intention for this episode of the podcast is to have a very focused discussion. The first and what I hope will turn into a kind of regular feature of this show in which we take an aspect of nutrition and kind of dive into it deeply. But just to get right into it, what's different about these new guidelines that sets it apart from the previous guidelines? Obviously we have an inverted pyramid versus a plate which preceded it. So where do we begin to understand these differences?
- [01:47]
Simon Hill
Yeah, I think there's more in common with the previous guidelines then maybe a lot of people have been led to believe. That's the first thing that I would state. And so there, this, this current set of guidelines has I guess, really emphasized eating real food. But I'll say that the old plate also emphasized eating real food. It just didn't really call it out as explicitly as that. And I think that that that emphasis in the new guidelines is actually a real positive. They've come out and said let's eat whole, minimally processed foods. And they were a little stronger in calling out what they described as hyper processed foods. And so the intent behind that was to discourage the consumption of the hyper palatable. What many people may have previously or heard others describe as ultra processed foods like Kevin Hall. Those are the foods that are high in in fat and sodium and sugar that are often found in the center of the grocery store, are extremely palatable and delicious and are associated with excessive calorie consumption and a whole host of downstream metabolic consequences and chronic disease. So that is a big tick for the new guidelines. The there's also the continued recommendation to keep saturated fat below 10% of total calories. That's not something that's changed. So you may have seen RFK Jr. Or others in the media saying they're going to come out and take a different approach with saturated fat or fat in these guidelines. And in actual fact, in these guidelines, they still recommend consuming a diet that has less than 10% of calories from saturated fat. And that's consistent with the best research we have looking at fat quality of fat and cardiovascular disease in particular. So I was happy to see that in there. The problem is that the recommendations, particularly around prioritizing protein rich foods and then emphasizing animal sources of protein and recommending the consumption of full fat dairy and then for cooking oils, adding in there that butter and tallow are also good options makes it very hard when you follow the guidelines to actually consume less than 10% of calories from saturated fat.
- [04:11]
Maha
It does feel like mixed messaging because as you correctly pointed out, they very explicitly state that we should be maintaining our intake of saturated fat below 10%. But when you look at this inverted pyramid, you see all of these animal foods at the top. And there is explicit and inferred reference and prioritization of red meat, animal proteins. This emphasis on full fat dairy and as you said, butter and beef tallow, that's curious and interesting and different, obviously. And so there seems to be a sort of inherent conflict between this messaging of maintaining your intake of saturated fat under 10% with these, you know, Im with the imagery of these other foods that are at the very top of this new graphic which seems to communicate this idea that these are the healthiest foods and these are the ones that you should be prioritizing.
- [05:12]
Simon Hill
Right? Yeah. So if you, if you were to just create a plate of food consistently around the pyramid and those guidelines, most people will naturally consume more than 10% of their calories from saturated fat. And I actually had a conversation with Dr. Christopher Gardner, who was part of one of the committees that spent two years researching to provide an advisory report for the Dietary Guidelines. And also Ty Beal, who was part of a different group who were engaged by RFK Jr to provide their own report. And both of them agreed that just like Health Canada in their dietary Guidelines, which specifically says to, where possible, choose healthy protein from plants in their guidelines, that recommendation really needed to be, to be in there and made clear so that yes, there can be a guideline around the importance of protein but protein source is really important. And when you look at the totality of evidence beyond just muscle, but you look at protein sources and how it affects cardiovascular disease risk, risk of type 2 diabetes, just premature death, you know, in long term observational studies, it becomes clear that plant protein leads to better long term health outcomes. And it's not to say that someone only needs to eat plant protein, but the average American today is getting about 75% of their daily protein from animal protein, which of course leaves just 25% from plant protein. And they would be doing much better if even if that shifted to a 50, 50. So absent that direct advice to consume more plant protein and to really prioritize plant protein in the pyramid itself. Because if you look at the size of the legumes in that pyramid, compared to the ribeye, they're tiny. So most people are going to overlook that. And I think as a consequence of these guidelines, double down on the consumption of beef and poultry and full fat dairy.
- [07:22]
Maha
Right. Which plays into this inherent contradiction between the statements around saturated fat and what is actually being communicated through this graphic. But what you just shared also brings up a whole bunch of other issues. You mentioned the advisory committee, the 2025 advisory committee that Christopher Gardner was participating in. This conjures up questions of process and procedure. Like what is the process by which these guidelines are established? And historically there are committees of people, there is this advisory committee, and it's implied that like the administration takes the recommendations from this committee and that's what ends up in these recommendations. In the case of the new guidelines. That really wasn't the case. So we have this advisory committee that creates this report. And it was to some degree plant forward, not entirely plant based, but it emphasized vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, it talks about fish and seafood and unsaturated fats. But it didn't have mention of prioritizing animal proteins, let alone red meat or beef tallow. Right. Like that seems to fly in the face of the recommendations. So what do you make of that disconnect between the committee report and the decisions that were made regarding those aspects of the inverted pyramid that are kind of anathema to the recommendations?
- [09:04]
Simon Hill
Yeah, well, the current administration essentially set those, the committee's recommendations to the side and then created their own additional panel of scientists which, which then did their own scientific foundation report, which is what Ty Beal and Don Layman were a part of. And so they, they were tasked with reviewing the, the advisory piece from Christopher Gardner's committee. And they would, they went through 50 plus recommendations. And you just spoke to some of those recommendations were about eating more plant protein and they were recommending like Mediterranean dash pescatarian style dietary patterns with a lot of fiber and unsaturated fats and low and ultra processed foods. And around 30 of the 50 something recommendations were completely rejected. And they put forward their own kind of set of recommendations to the administration. Now the interesting thing is I thought Don Layman, Ty Beal and that group wrote the guidelines, but they didn't even write the guidelines. They just hand over their advisory piece and then administration does what they want to do with it. So at the end of the day, and this might surprise people, I'm led to believe through these conversations I've had that really it's politicians that end up writing the guidelines. And to get to the heart of your question, I mean, based on what the guidelines look like, based on where the scientific committee's recommendations were, in my understanding of the broader literature, I have to think that there are reasons beyond public health that have influenced that set of recommendations.
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Maha
And what would those be, Simon?
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Simon Hill
I mean we would be speculating, but I'm sure that there's all sorts of corporate and financial interests that are affecting the way that things are worded. So let's maintain there's also the personal
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Maha
preferences of people like RFK Jr. Who are at the helm of this, are there not?
- [11:08]
Simon Hill
Totally. And he, he may, you know, a lot of us can be, we have biases that we're unaware of and he may be blinded by his own anecdotal experience of feeling better on the way that he eats, but that's not representative of science.
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Maha
And there's no scientific evidence based rationale for promoting beef tallow.
- [11:30]
Simon Hill
No. And if you, I mean if you go back and read the wording of, of the, the healthy fat section in that paper a year one nutrition scientist would be able to pick up the errors that were in there. It says to, you know, it specifically says eat more oils rich in essential fats like olive oil. Now olive oil contains some essential fats, but it's very small amount if, if you were wanting to eat an oil that's rich in essential fats. Essential fats are omega 6 and omega 3 fats. You'd be recommending seed oil. So they actually inadvertently, unknowingly recommended the consumption of vegetable and seed oils. The very thing that he demonizes in the media. And that was also one of the, I'd say one of the surprising things for me was that nowhere in the guidelines, not only did they maintain the saturated fat less than 10% calorie recommendation? And I think they really had to, just because the evidence is so strong. They did not, in any sentence at all call out seed oils and tell people recommend against their consumption. Because I think that in those cases, the evidence was just too strong. So what they did is they just decided to avoid it. They didn't say it was neither good nor bad. It's absent. If you control F through the entire document, seed oils or vegetable oils, you won't see any commentary on them, despite how much of a big deal RFK Jr made about them in the media.
- [12:55]
Maha
I know that the aha, Stanford, Harvard, various nutrition organizations have kind of come out on this saturated fat mixed messaging aspect of the new guidelines with a kind of WTF like, this doesn't really make sense. And I also know that JAMA has explicitly said that the process and procedure that went into crafting these guidelines was a major departure from the usual evidence review process.
- [13:28]
Simon Hill
I think the blessing here, and it's a blessing and a curse, is that 95% of Americans do not follow the guidelines.
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Maha
Yeah, I mean, this is the crazy thing about this. There's so much ink spilled about these guidelines every time they drop. And whether or not public health outcomes improve or decline, fingers are always pointed at these guidelines, whether without enough discourse around the fact that people just don't follow them. Fundamentally.
- [13:58]
Simon Hill
Yeah. So, I mean, we can debate them all we want, but fundamentally we're. We're not debating the things that really matter, which is what really shapes someone's diet. And, you know, yes, it's interesting and can be helpful for the person out there who has the resources and time and education to kind of listen to these debates and improve some of their diet choices. But the average American's diet is shaped by their environment, disparity in income, these social determinants of, of health. And so, you know, I always laugh when people point to the 1980 Dietary Guidelines and say, you know, the recommendation there was to eat less saturated fat. And look at what's happened to health. The recommendation at the time to eat less saturated fat. There was nothing wrong with that recommendation. It could have been clearer. And I think it should have said, hey, if you want to eat less saturated fat, which is in these foods, what you eat instead's important. We want you to eat, you know, these whole foods and nuts and seeds and fatty fish and legumes and whatnot. It didn't necessarily say that, but the increase in obesity and the increase in type 2 diabetes is not because they said to eat less saturated fat. It's because the food industry quickly jumped and said, okay, there's a lot, there's a eat less fat message. Let's print that on the front of all of our foods and create these hyper palatable, very energy dense, delicious foods that are low fat and are convenient and are cheap and highly processed, good shelf life. And that's what people, people ate less foods that contain saturated fat, but swapped it unfortunately with these very ultra processed, high refined carbohydrate foods. And the consequence of that is that you don't see an improvement in health. And if anything, you see health move in the direct, in the direction that was not intended.
- [16:02]
Maha
So it might be fair to say that the majority of people don't really pay much attention to these guidelines, let alone follow them. They are still significant and important. It's not something that we should dismiss A, because they do inform individual decisions, but also they're critical in terms of setting policy. When you think about school lunch programs and institutional food systems and you know, there's a whole domino effect that occurs from the establishment of these guidelines into, you know, food procurement systems, etc. And you know, the food that ends up on your kid's plate at lunch every day.
- [16:44]
Simon Hill
That's right. And I also think we should emphasize that. I do think if the average American today consuming the average American diet was to instead consume the diet recommended in the guidelines.
- [16:57]
Maha
Yeah. Or the last guidelines or the guidelines
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Simon Hill
before that, I think they're all like gonna be, I think their health is going to improve. So I just want to throw that out there. And I think they could be better. And I think that what I would love to see, I think Health Canada is probably the best guidelines that are out there or Japan's or Finland. But I'm just waiting for the guidelines to come out and specifically talk about food replacements. We want you to eat less of this and instead of eating that, explicitly state what to eat more of. Because the benefit that you get from eating less of something is often, yes, you're reducing your exposure of whatever was in that food, but it's a summation of that plus what you're bringing into the diet. Because usually when we take calories out, we bring something else in, what's coming in and what nutritional properties are in that affects that total net outcome.
- [17:53]
Maha
On the plus side, I would say that these new guidelines do take a step in that direction in that they say eat real food. It's so obvious. But to be explicit about that and to avoid highly processed foods. I think there's some issues around the vagueness of that and how that's getting interpreted, but to call that that out was something that previous guidelines didn't do. And I think that this set of guidelines also was very conscious of being public facing, like directly communicating with the individual as opposed to this thing that the government comes up with to set policy. And I think that that is a
- [18:38]
Simon Hill
positive
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Maha
distinction between this set of guidelines and past.
- [18:44]
Simon Hill
Yeah, I agree with that. I think, I mean, you can't fault that their PR campaign, the way that they marketed these new guidelines is superior to previous parties. They, they really were able to get out there on social media. They did a great job with their website. And I agree the emphasis I think on, on real food is a big win.
- [19:07]
Rich Roll
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Maha
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Rich Roll
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Maha
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Rich Roll
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- [21:54]
Maha
One of the other differences is this emphasis on increasing protein intake. What do you make of this and what exactly do the guidelines say about this?
- [22:07]
Simon Hill
Okay, I think you know that I think protein's important, but we need to contextualize this. So usually when people are talking about protein, the conversation is centered around building muscle or trying to reduce our risk of sarcopenia, losing muscles as we age. And particularly, I'm sure you've seen in the last two or three years, that's really taken the podcast world by storm. Right? It's all about muscle. Is this metabolic organ. It's very important for functional independence as we age, for metabolic health. And I agree with that. Where I would push back a little bit is that the research looking at building good quality muscle and maintaining muscle as it, as it pertains to protein, it's pretty clear that when you're in the range of 1.2 grams per kilogram to 1.6 grams per kilogram, that's an optimal protein intake to support skeletal muscle adaptations, basically to help that muscle maintain a healthy size and function. The average American today, where do you think their protein intakes at?
- [23:14]
Maha
I'm sure it far exceeds that.
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Simon Hill
It's at about 1.2 grams per kilogram. So.
- [23:19]
Maha
So it's right in that range.
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Simon Hill
It's right in that range. So. So the question that I would throw out to all of us is what explains sarcopenia today? The fact that 30% of, of aging adults in America have sarcopenia, which is the loss of muscle size and function,
- [23:37]
Maha
sedentary lifestyle, it's the fact that most
- [23:39]
Simon Hill
people are not moving against resistance. The protein intake's already there, but we, we're spending 95 of the oxygen is given to this, this to protein, when that variable is pretty much Already taken care of. What's missing is that most people are not doing resistance training. The stimulus is not there. And there are great analysis analyses looking at this. If you just take sedentary people and dial up protein, even if you dial it up to like 2 grams per kilogram, nothing happens to this strength or muscle. And whereas when you add resistance training and, and you know, even the first hour a week of resistance training is where most of the benefit is achieved. When you add that first hour of resistance training, now you start to see, as you increase protein up to about 1.5 grams per kilogr gram, you see significant increases in strength. But most of that strength is actually achieved by 1.2 grams per kilogram. Going from 1.2 to 1.5, we're squeezing the last drips of water out of the towel. Right. So I think back to your question about the emphasis on protein in the guidelines. I think it's good for people to be protein aware, particularly as people are getting older, where often there is less appetite. That's the population where protein intake can start to fall below 1 gram per kilogram. I think that's a bit of a separate discussion. I think that the, that the guidelines should have had some emphasis on protein, more so on the source. Getting people to choose plant protein, getting people to choose fatty fish over red meat and poultry, the two main sources of, of animal protein in the, in the American diet. And in doing so people will would have still continued to, to consume enough protein, but at the same time reducing saturated fat, increasing healthy unsaturated fats, increasing fiber consumption. So we're improving diet quality and arguably a message should have gone out saying that in order to get this protein to work, you need to move your body.
- [25:54]
Maha
Yeah. I think on the plus side we can say that perhaps protein plays somewhat of a role. You tell me if it's significant or not in terms of satiety. Like if we are emphasizing more protein in our diet, that to your point of like, what are we not eating and what are we replacing it with? That's crowding out our cravings for less healthy options. But at the same time, protein deficiency really isn't a problem. We, we're under this impression in this culture that we're protein deficient and we're just really not. And that's a very intractable, seemingly intractable kind of idea that everybody needs to be eating more protein. And the concerning aspect of these new guidelines is that it all aims towards these animal proteins with an emphasis on red meat, which if you Talk to people like Christopher Gardner or these research scientists who've been looking at this intently for decades. There seems to be scientific consensus that, you know, elevating your red meat intake or alternatively your processed meat consumption, that's a separate issue, I suppose, is going to worsen long term outcomes, especially in terms of, you know, things like cancer and cardiovascular disease and the dose matters.
- [27:27]
Simon Hill
So I think sometimes that gets a little bit lost in these conversations.
- [27:30]
Maha
But if you just glance at these guidelines and you're like, oh, increase your protein. Oh, animal based proteins. I need to be eating more meat. Looks like red meat's not a problem. I'm going to eat more of that. And that's at the very top of this graphic. Is that not like a common interpretation that the average consumer who isn't like steeped in the science, like someone like yourself, is going conclude from that?
- [27:53]
Simon Hill
I think most people will double down on red meat based on what those new guidelines look like if it's a food that they already enjoy. And to your point about deficiencies, I would have liked to have seen more commentary around the fact that 95% of Americans get nowhere near the fiber recommendations. That really should have been the nutrient of focus, not, not protein. And that's why I like the recommendation of consuming more plant protein where possible because it fixes the fiber thing at the same time and reduces saturated fat. So you kind of get that overall diet quality. Diet quality improvement. I, I do think that the, the definition of quality protein, maybe we can chat about that because I, I feel like so much of the conversation has been over the last two or three years with regards to sarcopenia, has really centered on animal protein being superior quality. So I think people may be confused because they've been led to believe that somehow the animal source of protein is better for protecting their muscle as they age. Would you agree with that?
- [29:02]
Maha
I would agree that that is the common assumption.
- [29:06]
Simon Hill
Yeah, that's the common assumption. And it's often explained that the amino acids, which are what make up protein, are superior ratios in animal protein or more complete, that it's more digestible. These are the things that I think people will.
- [29:23]
Maha
Bioavailable, digestible, et cetera. Across the board there is this presumption or assumption that if you're getting your protein from an animal source, it is going to be better than the best plant version of that. Full stop. And the inquiry kind of like stops there.
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Simon Hill
Yeah. And then not only is the amino acid kind of makeup superior, more complete, but then plant protein contains fiber and other Anti nutrients, which blocks absorption.
- [29:55]
Maha
Anti nutrient argument. Yeah.
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Simon Hill
And so I understand how the average person is kind of left thinking, well, if I'm thinking about quality protein, then the animal protein sounds better because it sounds like my body's gonna be able to absorb more of it and use it to build muscle. And I'm going to the gym, I don't want to waste my time.
- [30:12]
Maha
And I look at these guidelines and there's all kinds of like animal proteins in there. So that's what, that's what I'm gonna do.
- [30:18]
Simon Hill
And so I actually empathize. And I think that that is a logical kind of place to land when you hear all of that information. But what I'd say is that that's, that's an incomplete story because we have to, we have to test that hypothesis. When you feed people animal protein in a controlled study, and you feed people plant protein and you expose them to the same type of exercise, and you measure muscle protein synthesis so you can actually get into the cell and take a biopsy and look at the synthesis. Or, or you do a study that goes longer and you measure changes in muscle size, hypertrophy, or even better changes in strength, because that's really what we care about. This is when that idea of animal protein being better quality, you, you start, you have to really question it. And I've gone through this evidence with you in previous episodes, so we don't have to go through all of it. But what I'll, what I'll say is that, you know, researchers like Stuart Phillips, who is, you know, one of the main protein researchers in the world, Luke Van Loon. I've had both on my show several times. The old kind of way of thinking about protein was that animal protein is more anabolic.
- [31:30]
Maha
Okay.
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Simon Hill
Before they had run enough studies to test this. And then over time there's been these clinical trials first looking at healthy adults, you know, people aged in their 30s and 40s, and putting one group on a completely plant based diet where 100% of the proteins coming from plants and the other group on an omnivorous diet, representative of American style diet in terms of where protein is coming from, and putting them in resistance training, following them for 10 weeks or 12 weeks and tracking those things that I mentioned. And we don't see any significant differences in terms of those outcomes, muscle size and muscle strength. So this idea of bioavailability and amino acid makeup, it's not affecting those outcomes that we care about. There has been this kind of secondary question to that of, okay, well those are healthy Adults, they're in their 30s and 40s. But what about an older population of people who have some age related muscle changes and maybe you've heard of anabolic resistance. So that is this idea that as we get older our muscle is less responsive to resistance training and to protein, less sensitive and that maybe you need more protein or high quality protein or more resistance training to attenuate the loss as you age. And so that was a question that was outstanding. And then Luke Van Loon, his group, he's based in Netherlands. Great guy. You should have him on the show. I will, yeah, I had him on last year.
- [33:03]
Maha
Anybody you recommend?
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Simon Hill
He's, he is, I would say is considered probably the, the top protein researcher out there. You know, top, top five. And they were, he was interested in looking at muscle protein synthesis, looking at animal protein versus plant protein. They did it in a single meal. They looked at a meal that was rich in beef and then a plant based meal. They were doing elderly subjects, these were 70 year olds. In the single meal, the animal protein led to more muscle protein synthesis in the first couple of hours. Their hypothesis was we want to measure this over a 10 day period and look at daily muscle protein synthesis. And now we want to look at the omnivorous diet and a completely vegan diet. And so they ran that study and it was a crossover study. So every participant got to do both study both diets in separate orders, which means you act as your own control. So this is considered a very high quality trial. And they found no significant differences in muscle protein synthesis.
- [34:13]
Maha
So what happened to the person who got the sort of additional stimulus through the animal protein initially in the hours subsequent to me did that like even out over time?
- [34:26]
Simon Hill
Yeah. So one of, and this kind of brings into question all historical studies that have looked at like a two hour window of muscle protein synthesis because it might be that fiber and other components in plant protein delays the, the absorption of, of amino acids, but that doesn't result in less muscle protein synthesis over time if you, if you follow that signal for longer. So the area under the curve is, seems to be just as big, but it's a different curve. Instead of it just going up and down quickly, it's more of a delayed curve that stays up.
- [35:02]
Maha
Delayed anabolic response.
- [35:04]
Simon Hill
Right. And so they, that's why they were interested in looking at the daily, the total 24 hour window muscle protein synthesis. And that's where they didn't see any significant difference. And then naturally they were interested in okay, well that's 10 days and that's Looking at a biomarker of muscle protein synthesis. Why don't we be the first lab in the world to take this study further with these seven year olds and let's look at changes in muscle size and in strength. And this is the study we were waiting for. And so they, that first study, important to note that they, they fed people all the meals. It was like a metabolic ward, almost
- [35:52]
Maha
provided all the food, just controlled all the variables.
- [35:55]
Simon Hill
And so the omnivorous diet and the vegan diet, 1.1 grams of protein per kilogram. That's the intake they looked at. And why did they look at that? Because they wanted to look at a real world intake. Back to our, what we were saying earlier, that's pretty much where people are at. And in the real living study where they wanted to carry it out over I believe 10 or 12 weeks. And this study I was on, I was emailing Luke Van Loon this morning has been accepted for, for being published. It's, it's actually not out as we record this right now. So I've had, I've had the, the ability to kind of look through this study beforehand. So this will be new for some people that are listening. But they, what they found was that when, when it was a real living experiment and they had people on the vegan diet, these 7 year olds, what do you think happened to their protein intake? I don't know, it dropped.
- [36:54]
Maha
What do you mean it dropped?
- [36:55]
Simon Hill
The, the vegan diet was more filling. People reported being fuller after meals. They ate less calories and less total protein, which is a really good thing in a country where people are consuming too many calories. It's actually a positive thing for like
- [37:14]
Maha
cardiometabolic because all of the fiber and you know, everything else that comes packed
- [37:18]
Simon Hill
around the protein source, but it seemed to reduce muscle protein synthesis. Now they've gone, gone back and looked at this and this will be in the paper, that when they added resistance training to it, even though that the, the vegan group were consuming less protein, muscle size and strength was no different.
- [37:44]
Maha
Meaning the conclusion that you draw from that is that it's much more about the resistance training than it is about a specific amount of protein intake.
- [37:55]
Simon Hill
Yeah.
- [37:56]
Maha
Let alone the source of that protein.
- [37:59]
Simon Hill
Yeah. And, and what I would say is if you're talking about an elderly population that's not training, then if they're go, if they're not training and they just start eating a vegan diet and they're not thinking about their protein intake might not be a good thing. And that study is not even measuring bone density. And we know that. I would say, I would say one of the limitations of a, of a vegan diet, I think all diets have limitations. If you look in the literature, big benefits for like cardiometabolic health. But often there are these studies that show increase risk of fracture. So that's not even measured in this study. But I would say that if you were 70 plus, you wouldn't want to just kind of blindly follow a vegan diet without being aware of protein and not doing resistance training. I think make sure resistance training is in play if you can in whatever way that looks like. And then having some intentionality on protein intake I think is important, particularly as we age, if, if we're noticing that we're eating less overall food volume.
- [39:04]
Maha
But setting aside the cohort of the elder person, 70 and above, and just looking at the average, maybe middle aged American or even younger Americans or people across the world, I mean we're talking, we're talking to everybody here. The TLDR here is this over emphasis on animal based proteins is misplaced because the evidence pretty strongly suggests that there isn't a difference in terms of the anabolic effects of protein based upon whether it's derived from an animal source or a plant source.
- [39:49]
Simon Hill
Right. But with the, the plant source. And this comes back to what is our definition of quality? I think our definition of quality has to be muscle related outcomes, but also chronic disease health span outcomes. Right.
- [40:02]
Maha
One is, is lifestyle disease promoting because it has a lot of saturated fat and not for nothing perhaps hormones and all these other things that come from animal agriculture. Whereas the plant version is not only lacking those negatives but has all these other beneficial health benefiting aspects to it. The fiber, the, you know, the kind of micronutrients, polyphenols, et cetera.
- [40:31]
Simon Hill
Right. So you can optimize for your skeletal muscle and your bone by making sure you're eating enough total protein. But then by choosing more plant protein, you are also optimizing cardiometabolic risk factors like apob, blood pressure, blood glucose control, all of these things that predict someone's risk of having a heart attack or having a stroke or developing diabetes, developing fatty liver disease. So I think just having a bit more of a holistic definition of what a quality protein is, is, would be really helpful right now.
- [41:14]
Rich Roll
This episode is sponsored by Rivian. For me, historically, a car has always just been a way to get around. But I have to say I am just in love with the R1s Rivian loaned me because it's this incredible all
- [41:28]
Maha
electric vehicle with insane tech that can
- [41:31]
Rich Roll
take you just about anywhere. But mostly because. Because it's so much more than a vehicle. It's like this passport for adventure. Which got me thinking about my favorite road trips. I've done many over the years. And the best ones are never about the destination.
- [41:48]
Maha
They're about adventure.
- [41:50]
Rich Roll
They're about possibility, which is basically the Rivian mission. There's storage everywhere. Front trunk gear, tunnels for wet or sandy stuff, room for boards, bikes, packs, whatever your version of adventure looks like. You can literally plug things in and power your world. Coffee, camp gear, even a full travel kitchen. You can even get a rooftop tent for your R1s. And yet on the road, it's refined and quiet. But when the pavement ends, you switch into off road and just keep going. The R1S SUV has, has three rows, seat seven, folds down into a perfect sleep setup. The R1T is a truck that can tow, it can haul, and still feel beautifully designed. Most vehicles make you choose between rugged and refined. Rivian gives you both, so you can adventure without compromise.
- [42:49]
Maha
The other big distinction between previous guidelines and this one is the emphasis on full fat. The old guidelines, many got. Many previous guidelines were emphasizing low fat or fat free, but we have this full fat diet aspect to these guidelines. So what do you make of that? What motivated that? What is the, you know, kind of charitable interpretation of that? And where should we not be confused?
- [43:25]
Simon Hill
Charitable interpretation is that if, if you're in a school and a kid's getting full fat milk or low fat, low fat milk is usually pretty watery. So what do they do? They flavor it and add all sorts of sugars and it's the flavored milk. So the charitable interpretation is that they are making an improvement upon flavored milk products by recommending the consumption of full fat dairy. When you look at the evidence, and we've been through this before, you always have to ask, compared to what? Because you can make any food food group look good or bad, depending on what you compare it to. And I would say full fat dairy is, is one of those confusing food groups. Uh, it depends which what type of dairy we're talking about. Are we talking about butter or cheese or yogurt or milk? Uh, but if you compare cheese to butter, well, I can sit here and make the argument that cheese lowers cholesterol, it improves cholesterol. There's studies showing that. And. But what I'd be leaving out is that if I compared cheese to nuts and seeds and sources of unsaturated fats, Cheese significantly increases cholesterol. So I, I think the, the overall recommendation for full fat dairy, I think that what I wish was in there was an acknowledgment that a lot of people are lactose intolerant. It wasn't in there. And a stronger emphasis on when you're choosing plant based alternatives, what to look for.
- [45:06]
Maha
Mm.
- [45:08]
Simon Hill
Because I do think that from a plant based alternative they're also there. There's such a wide range of choices and not all of them are a good substitute for, for dairy. Some of them are very low in protein. They don't contain B12 or vitamin D or iodine. And in fact there's a big push right now to say, hey, why don't we regulate plant based alternatives a bit more and have some requirements in place with regards to nutrients like vitamin D and protein and iodine so that the person who's shifting off of, of dairy for health reasons, environmental or ethical, whatever they're bringing into their diet is actually a satisfactory replacement Overall. I, I wasn't too phased by the overall dairy recommendations because I think you can have some dairy within a healthy diet if you're lactose tolerant and we see that in Mediterranean diets and dash diets and Nordic style diets. I didn't like the recommendation for butter. I think that was very contradictory to the best evidence that we have out there along with, with tallow. So that was confusing and I mean, that's really all I have to say about that.
- [46:29]
Maha
Yeah. I can't help but think that at least on some base level, this emphasis on full fat dairy stems from a reaction to the ineffectiveness of previous decades of campaigns pushing low fat and fat free foods. So we talked earlier about this narrative of like, oh, like look what happened when we told everyone to eat low fat and everybody got fatter than ever. Let's stop vilifying fat. You know, fat has its proper place in a healthy diet and we should be eating, you know, we should be eating full fat and not be afraid of fat. Like that's kind of like a, a general narrative that's out there. And so does that not translate into, you know, this mention in the guidelines of like full fat dairy? Like it, it kind of like emanates from that place likely.
- [47:28]
Simon Hill
And I think the public deserve to know that again, that the low fat messaging didn't work. Not because they're. The science was wrong on saturated fat. It didn't work because the messaging resulted in people consuming more low fat, ultra processed foods. They weren't consuming more nuts and seeds and olive oil. So I think you're right in that a lot of people have been led to believe that fat's not the problem. You know, we, we, we, we blamed the wrong thing. But it's, there's, there's a little bit of nuance or a lot of, a lot of nuance and context missing from that.
- [48:08]
Maha
I guess my overall perspective on this is, on the one hand, I think it's great that these guidelines say, you know, look, you got to eat real food, whole foods, emphasis on whole foods. You got to get rid of the highly processed foods. We can all agree these are positive things. And I like the fact that these guidelines are consumer facing and are thinking about the individual and not just a governmental, you know, kind of like policy issuance. So there's a lot of good to be said about that. In addition to the fact that, you know, it takes a pretty hard line on added sugar and sugary beverages and basically saying, like, no amount of added sugar is okay. Like, yeah, that's a pretty good kind of public health message. It's limiting sodium to beneath 2,300 milligrams a day. The language around alcohol maybe could be a little bit more strident, basically saying, drink less. But fundamentally, when we glance out and kind of look at modern developed society, we just see chronic lifestyle diseases running rampant, like the increase in cardiovascular disease, in stroke, in chronic high blood pressure, the rise in type 2 diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer's. All of these things derive from, at least in some part, decisions around nutrition and lifestyle. And when I see guidelines that are emphasizing things that are kind of disease promoting on some level, like too much red meat, you know, like basically people are eating too much saturated fat, they're eating too many animal products, they're not suffering from a protein deficiency, they're not getting enough fiber. And I would have preferred if the messaging was, you know, along those lines and consistent with that, like, we need to be eating more plant foods. I'm not saying everybody should go plant based, but like, people are not eating enough fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and legumes. They're eating way too much meat. They're eating way too much processed food, way too much saturated fat. They're walking around worried if they're getting enough protein while they're eating literally hamburgers every single day. It's insane, right? And we're all sick. And then we want to say, oh, it's because of the low fat messaging, or it's because we're not getting enough protein when it's so obviously the result of eating too much in general, like overeating essentially and those foods being overly processed and over indexing on the bad fats. And this is what's making us sick. Especially when you combine it with a lack of exercise and movement. Yeah, you're preaching to the choir.
- [51:00]
Simon Hill
I wrote a book on this, but I would. The, the. There's another side of me that, that feels like, you know, 60 to 70% of the average American's diet is coming from ultra processed foods. And should we let perfection be the enemy of good here? And it comes back to. I just think it's more interesting totally to, to ask, you know, why can't the average American follow these, these, these guidelines? What are, what's the structural problems? Like what has to change?
- [51:29]
Maha
Human beings are messy.
- [51:30]
Simon Hill
Human beings are messy, but we're emotional.
- [51:33]
Maha
We eat. We eat based on emotion and our. And basically environment.
- [51:38]
Simon Hill
That's true. We. And the environment piece is kind of where I'm getting at. I think some might think that the answer here is more education, educational technology, like where the CGMS and these types of things. But the more I've been, the longer I've been in this space, I realize that it's a lot more complex than that to, to truly shape the average American's diet and to truly like reduce the, the metabolic diseases is, is going to take massive structural changes and that requires policy changes.
- [52:15]
Maha
Yeah, I think that's an important emphasis. The word structural and environmental, when we put it all on the individual and basically say, well, it's up to you and your willpower to make these decisions. Like human beings are just, we just, we're not very good at that. And this goes back to something Dan Buettner has shared on the podcast a couple times. Like, it's all about your environment. Like your environment has to be conducive to making the healthy choice. And when your environment is kind of pushing you towards making those unhealthy choices, you're swimming upstream and it's very difficult for the individual to make the contrary healthier choice. We need, you know, bike lanes, we need policy shifts that remove the vending machines from the schools and the offices and the institutions. We have to make the healthy foods available at arm's length and affordable. And this is all dictated by policy, public health policy. And this gets at the core of like what Jessica Nurick talks about. When you have someone like RFK Jr. Who's running HHS, he can say everything he wants to say about what he's going to do to make America healthy again. But essentially every single one of his talking points speaks to some personal choice around a diet. You know, like, whether it's like swapping seed oils for butter, it doesn't even matter. It's all about the individual. But he's in charge of an institution that is responsible for public health initiatives, regulatory policy for public health writ large, like those systems and those structures that drive us either towards poor health outcomes or improved health outcomes. And that's what's important here, right? Like, are these things that HHS is doing driving improved public health outcomes or not? And to the extent that everything he's saying is about, like, personal choice, that's not really what his job is.
- [54:21]
Simon Hill
One of the strongest predictors of healthspan is zip code. Where do you live? What, what environment do you personally live in? And I think that was something I did, didn't appreciate a decade ago or not nearly enough. And so people might be listening and thinking, well, hang on, Rich, you know, I heard information and I was able to dramatically change my life. And to that I would say, I believe that you need a top down and bottom up approach. So top down policy changes. Bottom up, like what we're doing and educating people. I think that's great and it's helpful. It's a public service or I wouldn't do it. And I'm sure you wouldn't either. But at an individual level, I think it's worth understanding and, and having greater empathy to, to know that our circumstances and capacity to change are not always equal to everyone else's depending on the environment. And, and it comes back to all of those different social determinants of health. And so I agree with you. I think Jessica Newrick's doing, you know, a great job at like, really putting a number of these things front and center and saying, hey, you know what, Maha, you're doing a great job at identifying the problem. Ultra processed foods, food environment. But you know, where you could do better? Let's make changes to that structure rather than talking about things that the individual can do in an environment that's set up for them to fail.
- [55:49]
Maha
Sure there is. In our case, in a grocery store with incredibly healthy options in between this studio and my home that I drive by every day. And I benefit from a health perspective because of that fact, because that is in my environment and I'm privileged enough to be able to afford those foods. Not everybody is in that situation. And they're living in environments where they're surrounded by people who are making unhealthy choices and the healthy choices are not at arm's reach or they are unaffordable. And to put it on that person to go against the grain in that environment is not going to solve the problem. So these are, yeah, these are, that's a top down perspective on the problem. We all can make better choices every single day. Like I said, I do think we're all making these choices emotionally and developing a degree of self awareness and exercising some discipline. We can all do better with regard to that. But that alone from the bottom up is not going to solve the problem either. We do need both approaches.
- [56:58]
Simon Hill
I think we could have probably a roundtable with Jessica Nurik and, and others. This is an area that I, I understand, I would say loosely at a high level and, and want to know and learn a lot more about what, where, because a lot of this has been looked at from an evidence perspective. You know what shifts the needle when you do an intervention to change food marketing to kids? Does it change things when you fund certain programs or you have certain taxes on certain foods? What are the outcomes and what have other countries seen? And so I, I think there are blueprints out there and Dan Buettner talks about those. But that might be an interesting discussion to kind of dig deeper into in the future.
- [57:41]
Maha
We should, let's, let's get Jessica in here and we'll do it together. I would love that. Be great. Speaking of which, I do, I just, I'm talking to the audience now. Like I do want to do some roundtable kind of stuff. So we're working on some plans with that as well, which I think would be fun when we can speak to something that's very topical and on people's minds to be part of the conversation around these kind of health and nutrition related or fitness related concerns. So I look forward to hosting you for a couple of those as well.
- [58:14]
Simon Hill
I think you're the perfect host to do that and I think that the community desperately needs those conversations more to come.
- [58:23]
Maha
Any final words on the guidelines?
- [58:27]
Simon Hill
I created a, a free to access webpage called real food.theproof.com and because I was inundated from, from people messaging me saying, hey, I've been listening to your show for eight years and Christopher Gardner and Kevin hall and all these guys
- [58:45]
Maha
and you go for eight hours and then it's like, yeah, but okay, what do I eat and what do I not eat?
- [58:49]
Simon Hill
And also they're like in the new dietary guidelines that come out and they seem a little different to what you guys are talking about. So I went through the. The scientific recommendations from Christopher Gardner's committee, which was 20 of the top nutrition scientists in. In the States who worked on it for two years. And I took those recommendations and developed a very clean, simple set of guidelines that also addresses some of the myths that we've spoken about. And so there's a very simple, almost landing page, real food.the proof.com and so if you're wanting to kind of double click on the new dietary guidelines and make sense of things from a very practical point of view, I would. I would visit that. And then lastly, I would say, if you're looking for a official set of country guidelines to really hang your hat on, look at Canada's.
- [59:39]
Maha
Canada is the best.
- [59:40]
Simon Hill
Yeah,
- [59:42]
Maha
your page that you mentioned is incredible. Like, you shared it with me before. I think actually you even published it. And I was like, how did you do this? It's incredible work and super helpful and very graphic laden in a way that makes it intuitive and easy to kind of remember. That is an act of service, my friend.
- [60:04]
Simon Hill
Thank you.
- [60:04]
Maha
So the URL for that again, one
- [60:06]
Simon Hill
last time, realfood the proof.com and make
- [60:11]
Maha
sure to check out the Proof podcast here at Voicing Change.
- [60:16]
Simon Hill
Yeah, I just did that conversation with Christopher Gardner and Ty Beal as well, so that could be another resource people might want to check out.
- [60:23]
Maha
All right, thanks, my friend.
- [60:24]
Simon Hill
Thank you, Rich.
- [60:25]
Maha
Let's do it again soon. All right, peace.
- [60:28]
Simon Hill
Thanks, Sa.