Pam Peeke, MD: Hi, I am Dr.
Pam Peak, and This is episode 546 of the Bold And the Brave Her.
Podcast Today, I'm joined by someone I have revered forever.
We share a common background academically and you'll hear about that.
But I have been doing the Happy Dance ever since.
she and her team said yes.
Why?
Of course, let's share about this extraordinary new book.
Alright.
We're so delighted to be joined by Dr.
Marian Nessel.
She is literally a nutrition science legend, and I say that
to embarrass the crap out of her.
but she, but she is, and most people know her name because of
her 95 books that she's written.
some of which most of us have, ordered.
Held onto over generations.
I mean, seriously.
my gosh, what she has done, to the nutrition industry is extraordinary
because I'm gonna tell you something.
She has attitude.
She has some serious attitude, And the attitude is extraordinary because when
she faces the food industry, they usually have their first nightmare, of the day.
And That is that, oh God, she's going to talk about.
The food industry.
so she wrote a book called What to Eat.
And that book, I think the grand majority of people still have a
copy of and I refer to all the time.
And then for reason, she's going to divulge, she is going to share why
she wrote the new book, what to Eat.
Now.
Dr.
Nessel is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Medicine, food Studies
and Public Health emerita at New York University, in the department.
She chaired from 1988 to 2003.
And from which she retired in September of 2017.
She's also visiting professor of Nutrition Sciences at Cornell.
She holds honorary degrees from just about everybody she is extremely highly
sided in the scientific literature.
Marian, welcome to the Herb Podcast.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Glad to be here.
Thank you for the embarrassing introduction.
Pam Peeke, MD: I know I'm here to embarrass.
Uh, no.
Look, folks out there with her podcast land.
Today I am a fan girl.
Okay, so I'm just gonna act like one because Marian has always been,
such an extraordinary, legend.
I have read her, studies, her books for years.
I've referred to them for years, and now I have the absolute pleasure of this.
Amazing interview to talk about this new book where she kicked some serious
nutrition science ass, and did what she always does, which is, you know, come at
it with attitude, which I absolutely love.
She does not hold back.
She talks about, this wild and crazy world of nutrition science.
Now get your fingers off that TikTok right now.
Come on now.
That's not where you learn nutrition.
I saw you out there in the Herb Podcast land.
Alright, Marian.
seriously, you have been at this, for decades and, we're all happy
about that and you are still.
Kicking it, which we love.
You're crushing it actually.
And so we all want your brain, we all want your energy.
after, you know, doing this for so long now, you wrote this book, what
To Eat Now You added that one word.
Why did you write this book?
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Well, it was a pandemic project.
I was holed up in Ithaca.
during the pandemic where upstate New York where my partner lives,
and it's pretty quiet up there and I thought, I need a project.
And so I looked at what to eat and thought, gee, this really reads well.
Timeless Classic except it's out of date.
And.
Pam Peeke, MD: Damnit.
I hate it when that
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: You know, it's a, it's really, it feels a little dated
and maybe a publisher, the publisher would be interested in updating it.
And eventually the publisher was, and I promised the publisher I could
knock off and update in six months.
And here we.
Pam Peeke, MD: Okay, now what's with the four years?
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I have never underestimated the amount of
work involved in doing anything.
I mean, I just had no idea.
they said you have to use at least 40% of the original text.
or you, have to supply at least 40% new text.
I think I supplied 90% new text, certainly 80%.
Basically, the book had to be completely rewritten.
There was not a single product that I used as an example in 2006 that still existed.
You can't buy a single one of those products at supermarkets.
Now they're gone.
They've disappeared.
and I still mourn, Haagen Ducks frozen yogurt.
I
like that stuff, which I used as the example to discuss
food labels doesn't exist.
So that was one sort of obvious change.
I hadn't really been paying very close attention, and I was
just shocked by the changes.
The most obvious was that the walls of Coke and Pepsi that would line the store
when you walked in weren't there anymore.
They'd been replaced by bottled waters, flavored, usually fruit flavored waters
of one kind or another house brand.
ones, I mean one of the big changes is the influx of house brands and every major
supermarket chain has its own house brand.
Kroger has it, Walmart has it, target has it Wegman's has it.
They all have it.
so that was a big change.
And then.
could hardly find organic foods 20 years ago.
Now they're everywhere.
Could hardly find international foods.
Now they're everywhere.
plant-based meats are new.
Ultraprocessed foods are new, new term since the book came out.
Big, very important concept, and I think one of the biggest changes is
people are buying groceries online.
The pandemic did that big time, but it took off and it's not going back to pre
pandemic levels, and almost a third.
Of grocery sales are online now, which has changed the organization of supermarkets
And also changed what people are buying.
so all of that's new.
And as I went through each aisle of the supermarket.
it wasn't just a matter of updating and changing the references and updating
what's the new rules And the new laws And the new regulations And the new concerns.
It was really doing much more than that.
I don't know.
I got to write that book twice.
I mean, and I should say it's a very big book.
Oh my
Pam Peeke, MD: Let's see.
Let's see how big it is.
Come on now.
Okay.
No, no, but do it on the side so I can see how fat it is.
Oh my God, this thing is huge.
Do you use that like as a door stop or you know.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I don't know.
I mean, it's just, it's uh, it's 700 pages.
It's amazing.
People are telling me that it's very easy to read, so that's nice.
Pam Peeke, MD: you've always known how to write well.
You know, you don't, over sciencey it.
you basically keep it fairly practical,
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Well, yeah, I, mean, I wrote this not to tell people
what to eat because I would never do that.
but I wrote, I want people to.
Pam Peeke, MD: Oh, come on.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Um, really, I don't tell people what to eat.
I don't, you know, I'll tell 'em what I eat, but as far as it'll go.
I want people to think about food issues and advocate for a better food system,
and that's really what this book is about, is how to think about food issues.
Here are the issues, here are the trade-offs.
Here are the things you need to think about if you wanna think about them.
And if you don't.
Just go to the store and buy what you want and don't give it a.
Pam Peeke, MD: So what are the, You know, I, I was looking at the book,
You know, you've got the basics, which I love, diet and health, duh.
You know, decoding the food labels.
I mean, the food labels have gone through a few little changes
in the last generation, right?
Yeah.
And the health claims endorsements And the, the whole
issue of, Diets and dieting.
Give us, just a, very brief little touch base on diets and dieting.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Well, all diets work if you stick to them.
They all work.
Pam Peeke, MD: Okay.
Let's move
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Every, every single one of them
will work if you follow it.
you know, the big ones now are high protein diets.
that's the current fad that'll change eventually.
Right now, everybody's pushing protein, which as a nutritionist I find hilarious
because, um, most people eat twice the protein they need already, and
you certainly don't need anymore.
Pam Peeke, MD: And you just pee it out anyway.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Um, no, you, You know, you use the amino acids for
building blocks and if you've got too
much,
you're, yeah, you're burning it off as energy and storing it as fat
and doing all those other things.
But protein is unlikely to be harmful and or seriously harmful in, in
large quantities, but it makes no sense to me to, You know, eat protein
supplements or proteins in everything.
It's in potato chips.
It's in soft drinks, it's in beer, it's in, I mean,
Pam Peeke, MD: Wait a minute, it's in my chair.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Yeah.
It's being, it's being added to everything these days.
Pam Peeke, MD: I know, I, I think part of it is, some of my fellow board
members with the American College of Sports Medicine, are some of the top
names, you know, Stu Phillips up at McMaster and, and his work with protein.
what we now have is, interesting enhancement of our knowledge
base based upon both gender.
And age specific, after you turned, you know, 60 or 70 sort of fell
off a cliff in, And so much of the research, it's like, I don't
know, just figure it out out there.
If you end up being a hundred year old, God bless you.
You know, it's like, well wait a minute.
And then we were thinking for a long time in medicine, You know, don't over
protein older people only to find out older people actually need, you know, a
hell of a lot more protein than they've been getting because they're nutrition.
They're not eating.
That's the whole point.
They're, they're eating so little And what they eat is like, you
know, really seriously, you just ate a couple corn flakes and you
know, like, You know, I, I got it.
No you don't.
No.
It's called protein.
You need it.
and of course when you're facing frailty, when you're facing the,
sarcopenia, you know, when you drop, age related muscle during your.
You sixties, you need to be able to be on top of all of that and be proactive.
And I think that that's a very good thing.
we're looking at protein and health in that regard.
And I'm also extremely happy to see that there's some gender
specific research coming out.
Oh my goodness.
Women and men.
You know, when I was at the NIH, Bernadine Healy showed up.
She was the first woman And the only woman to ever run the joint.
first thing out of her mouth was not a penny to anyone unless you
include women in your research if it's appropriate, right?
And I was like, you go girl.
And of
course she was.
I know.
And then, you know, they started calling her the B word, ends with
an H and I said, bring it on, man.
and she was fearless.
She just said no.
Mm-hmm.
Looking at every single grant, You know, where are women?
Come on now, and stop extrapolating.
So that was an exciting thing.
But that also happened in nutrition, right?
so that's a very good thing.
So now.
That's diets and dieting.
it's pretty crazy out there now.
Right off the bat, I saw a fantastic interview with you
where you had major attitude.
This was wonderful.
Here it comes.
All right.
That interview was when they were talking about breakfast, the three squares
a day, but You know, people having breakfast and you did the cave woman
thing, and I've been doing it forever.
I fell off my chair.
I said, Marian and I are aligned.
Can you please give us
the breakfast talk?
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: not a breakfast eater,
I think.
I
think you should eat when you're hungry.
I don't get hungry till about 11.
I don't know what meal of the day That is, but that's when I feel
like eating and I don't really wanna eat anything before then.
And I certainly don't wanna eat anything when I first wake up.
I know This is completely contrary to nutrition advice, that breakfast is
the most important meal of the day.
But that advice was designed by breakfast cereal companies.
They, they sp, they sponsored all the research uh, on the
importance of breakfast.
Pam Peeke, MD: no bias there.
Come on now.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: not.
Absolutely not.
and particularly the cereal companies wanted breakfast equated with cereal.
so they did a lot of research to show how healthy everybody was.
If they had cereal first thing in the morning, that's fine.
If you wanna eat breakfast, that's fine.
I just don't.
Pam Peeke, MD: Isn't that interesting?
You know, what we're taught basically, You know, just looking at, You know,
the new, concepts, around metabolism And the metabolome and all the rest.
But they usually say is they say, well, Insulin secretion is most efficient
early, like in the morning, that could be 11 o'clock, but in the morning.
And that by the time you hit around, after three o'clock, four
o'clock, it becomes less efficient.
Meaning that you're really not metabolizing optimally, meaning that, you
know, there's a greater chance that if you do take in your carbs and all the other
little goodies, later in the day, and certainly when you're having a Mount St.
Pasta for dinner.
Um.
and it's usually a late dinner that your insulin's like me, meh.
You know, what do we do with this stuff?
And, And so you're more likely to pile on the, the calories, And the fat.
So This is one of the reasons why, it works that way.
But I think a lot of, you know, when I saw you say that, you also brought
up, You know, the caveman thing.
So go through that.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Oh, you mean the paleo diet?
Pam Peeke, MD: Well, no, no, no.
Actually the fact that This is what I always say.
And you said the same thing.
What you said was, okay, let's go back to, You know, caveman cave woman.
they get up in the morning with the Tweety birds because You know, you don't
wanna hang around the cave for too long.
Gotta get out there and guess what you got to eat so it's
time to forage and hang out.
Right?
So you don't.
Yeah, hunt and gather.
Forage and gather.
Just do it.
And so what ended up happening was, you know, they were lucky
to score a meal every day, right?
I mean, like a real meal meal.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Well, they survived.
They must have had something.
They kept them going.
Pam Peeke, MD: Well, no, but you know what's really cool, Marian, is
that, the way I look at it is this goes to Satchin Panda's work at the
Salk Institute and Ter Longo at USC.
And This is where you're looking at circadian rhythm.
I'm a real circadian rhythm person.
Honor the clock is what I like to say.
So if you really look at the secretion of hormones.
Throughout the 24 hour cycle, everything from melatonin at nighttime, you know,
to insulin and, corticosteroids, you know, cortisol in the morning,
which actually find is that they all follow a circadian rhythm.
There's a reason why there was a very lovely Nobel Prize handed out
in 2021 on this whole thing when they kind of figured this out.
So, circadian rhythm is very important at the end of the day.
your entire metabolism was built around this.
when can you most efficiently, chew up those calories and utilize them for
fuel when you're rocking and rolling.
So, I loved what you said.
You said, well think a cat cake woman.
What does she do?
Like, you know, get up and go, Hey, let's start with breakfast.
I was like, what?
No, you gotta score some food.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: And get your step counts in at the same time.
you know what I think is really interesting is what the new GLP one
drugs are doing about our knowledge, about how all of this works.
We're learning so much from them.
They're so fascinating.
I, I mean, I'm completely riveted by them because they make people not as hungry.
but not as hungry selectively, you know, they're not as hungry for junk
food and Ooh, isn't that interesting?
so they want healthier foods and they're looking for healthier eating
and, well, it's gonna be interesting to see how all that works out.
Pam Peeke, MD: Well, you know, I'm watching.
The evolution of the glp.
a lot of my, colleagues are actually involved with the trials.
And what's interesting is that they started with one receptor, agonist, and
now they're just, they're, up to four
now.
Um.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: them all in.
Pam Peeke, MD: Yeah, just roll 'em in, you know, G-L-P-G-I-P,
everybody let's just do it.
And then they they had a little whoopsy moment when they went, uhoh,
we're losing a lot of lean mass.
What's going on here?
And it's like, yeah, you are, for a lot of reasons, You know, it's both direct.
effect on the muscle itself, as well as the fact that, you know, a funny thing
happens, people just don't eat that much.
so, next thing You know, they're not eating protein.
What's also, you said selective people find a number.
There's a sub-sector of people who do not find protein to be tasty anymore.
Who knew.
And so they're eating less protein and there go the muscles,
and that's a very bad thing.
Last time I looked
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Yeah, I'm not sure the protein
powders make up for it either.
Pam Peeke, MD: Yeah, well that's actually an incredibly good point.
I'm a firm believer in trying to get everything through whole food, and there
are plenty of tasty ways to get protein out there, whether it's vegetarian or,
you know, however you wanna play the game.
you can do it and make it really, really tasty, but that means you
have to, oh no, the four letter word.
Cook.
And so how many people are actually doing that?
Come on now.
Well, you and I were weaned on, okay.
So what you ha all of you in the Herb Podcast land have to know is that Dr.
Nestle and I, both are graduates of uc, Berkeley.
And that should explain everything, but I digress.
so, Dr.
Nessel, stayed for her PhD in nutrition science, and uh,
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: biology.
Pam Peeke, MD: oh, molecular biology.
That's right.
It was molecular biology.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: a bench scientist
Pam Peeke, MD: That's right.
You were bench all the way.
That's right.
So I did undergrad And then I did grad, I did a master's in public health public
policy before I went on to med school.
So you went the PhD route?
I went the MD route.
but we both shared wild and crazy times.
'cause I went to the Berkeley co-op all the time and I lived there and I cooked.
I made my own bread.
I did everything I mean the produce that the co-op was to die
for, and I mean, I don't know.
I'm trying to remember, but I think it was organic, right?
It was the
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: to know.
But they, they had a really great selection and there's still a couple
of places in Berkeley that still have the best produce I've ever seen.
People in California are so lucky, they have no idea.
Pam Peeke, MD: I know and it is just, oh my gosh.
I lived on North Side up near the Rose Garden a lot of my professors
lived up in that area too.
So we hung, and it was a good time.
Linus Pawing showed up, taught biochemistry.
Okay.
I was there for that.
he lived up on, on North side as well with his little paper bag.
and his lunch in those, You know, little brown bag thing.
It was kind of cool.
So you, you know, just talking to you brings me right down memory lane because
we had a different appreciation of food then for me, whole food was whole food.
I mean, you ate produce, and
you cooked.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: as much processed food then.
There really was.
There really wasn't, or what We're now calling Ultraprocessed.
Pam Peeke, MD: Okay.
Now you've mentioned that twice.
So tag you're it.
You're gonna have to explain this because you know that the hellscape out there.
I'm trying to explain Ultra Pro, what is this?
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: It's a term that's new since the
first edition of the book.
So, and I think it's a very important concept.
It was, invented by Carlos Montero, who's a professor of public health at
the University of San Paulo in Brazil.
Okay.
Brazil we're Americans.
We don't care what happens in Latin America.
but this was a very important concept and he divided foods into a
classification system called Nova, which what he named it, that divides
foods by their degree of process.
he did.
The first three categories are food and they're unprocessed foods, you
know, apples off the tree, corn off the cob, that kind of thing.
And then processed culinary ingredients, which are things like salt, sugar, fat,
that you add to unprocessed foods in order to make them processed, which includes.
foods that are frozen and foods that are canned but minimal processing.
And then the fourth category he called ultra processing, which are industrially
transformed foods that don't look anything like the foods they came from.
Require elaborate equipment to turn into these things.
usually have a lot of additives.
As well as Salter and Fat are designed to be irresistibly delicious, if not.
Addictive and are, you can't make them in your home kitchen because
you don't have the additives or you don't have the equipment.
once those categories were established, it became possible to do research.
And there have now been more than a thousand studies with the
word ultraprocessed in the title.
And of those, there are more than a hundred clinical trials.
And of those clinical trials, 90% show that ultraprocessed diets,
diets in which the majority of calories come from ultraprocessed
foods, increase the risk of.
Obesity, type two diabetes, heart disease, cancer, overall
mortality, the whole works.
Those are observational studies.
They can only show correlation.
They can't show causation.
But there are now three or four clinical trials extremely well-controlled that
demonstrate that Ultraprocessed foods induce people to eat more calories.
Than if they're eating relatively unprocessed diets,
but a lot more calories.
So in the first study, 500 more calories a day in the second to 800, And in
the third a thousand more calories.
So for me, that's reason enough to, to sort of cut back on these things.
Nobody in the United States needs extra calories these days.
Pam Peeke, MD: Yeah.
You know, when I wrote my book, my last book was The Hunger Fix.
It was the first consumer book on food and addiction.
And This is after, Ashley Gerhardt had done her work at Yale and she's
now at Michigan, and developed the, food addiction scale based upon
the addiction scale that people.
Typically use for everything from alcohol to drugs and back and forth.
And I knew this, I could listen to this on the part of my patient's.
they were absolutely hooked.
there was no question.
the other thing I ended up doing was I was asked by one of the largest, addiction
groups in the country, to come and to try to address the issue of addictive eating.
Because what would happen is they'd go to some fancy schmancy rehab, spend a
lot of time in California just saying, and they're at a fancy schmancy rehab.
And, and This is what they would do.
First I had to observe, you know, most of this was not
shocking, but it was kind of wild.
And so they'd be off there.
Now, no one's on just one thing anymore.
They're on like e all of the above at whatever time and whatever date.
So it's alcohol and pills and injections and, it's a wild west out there and it,
it just breaks my heart, when I see that, when I see a, a person coming in who's
just, you know, so we get 'em through the hell of that, then This is what they do.
They start, drinking can, after can of monster.
Red Bull.
so what they're doing is the action is taking place in the nucleus accumbens,
which is the reward center of the brain.
what they're trying to do is they're trying to get, as it were,
a legal high, they want to get.
As much pleasure and as much dopamine release as they can get.
That would even come within spitting distance of heroin, meth,
fentanyl, God knows what else, you know, alcohol and back and forth.
So they would, I mean.
Seriously, they would pour a cup of coffee and like half a
bag of, sugar would go into it.
And it was unbelievable.
It just, whoa, whoa, we gotta deal with this.
And, the same thing with food, per se.
And of course, cigarettes smoking is illegal high, so you'd see a lot
of smoking and a lot of this crazy, you know, eating thing going on.
So what we decided to do, I put together a culinary team.
of wild and crazy people, right?
chefs and rds and culinary nutritionists.
Okay, so people who really had a hell of a background and I grabbed them
all and I said, we are gonna fight it out with the, with the high level
sugar stuff And the, caffeine stuff.
And we created menus that were 50 times more delicious And the
stuff they were trying to get.
And then I converted them over to water.
With, beautiful fruit cut up in the water.
they'd never tasted this.
All they'd ever had was that other crap.
if you do this gradually over time, a little miracle took place.
And the other thing that really cuts down on addiction is physical activity.
Oh, it's
huge.
I mean.
Well, the research shows that you get 10 times seriously.
the rehab benefit from physical activity than if they're just sitting around
feeling bad about themselves, So get 'em out there, throw balls, do whatever, run.
I don't care what you do.
Just, you know, get your ass up and
moving.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: move.
Pam Peeke, MD: Yeah, man.
You know, they set up volleyball courts and they beat each other
up and it was great stuff.
So you gotta take it seriously.
So when people say, oh, I think I'm addicted to it, you are guaranteed.
I can guarantee you are because it's, it's like a bingeable thing, right?
So if you can't say, remember the old Lays, potato chip, ad,
if you can't have just one.
If you can't have just one.
Okay.
That sucker in front of you, whatever it is.
Liquid.
Liquid or solid.
That is a
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Well, that's the whole point.
You know, I mean, food companies are not social service agencies and
they're not public health agencies.
They want you to eat as much as you possibly can of what
they're making, because they've got stockholders to please.
Pam Peeke, MD: Well there's a lot of that going on and you know, you have this,
One, section called the center aisles.
I always love the center aisles when you write that 'cause
it's going to be held to pay.
And This is where you went into Ultraprocessed.
the serials are just amazing.
I have a serial story And the serial story I'm gonna tell you when we come back.
And we're back.
Okay.
It's serial time.
So I just interviewed a kind of an amazing person, on my, podcast.
this was, fairly recently.
her name is Natalie Grabow, and she became, quite the, uh, You know,
sensation, all over the internet.
Why?
Well, she's 80.
she was the first woman at the age of 80 to ever successfully
complete the Iron Man.
Triathlon World Championship in Kona.
Now I'm a triathlete.
I'm here to tell you that sucker is kick ass.
And there were 30 year olds who didn't finish and here she is, she's kind of
trooping through and she finished.
the best part of it And the reason why it was so popular is about, mm, I
would say 10 feet right before she hit.
You know, there's always an archway, which is the.
Finish line And we wear, chips, they're attached to our ankle or
someplace, And so we have to get across the archway for the chip to
go ding, And then to give you your.
Time, your actual time, you got to get out of that.
So just as she's 10 feet away, she face plants.
I mean, to tell you, it was
gorgeous.
So she's running along.
No, it was kind of cool.
You know, she's, she's swinging with the program here.
What happened is the computer carpet had some wrinkles in it and she,
stumbled over one of those wrinkles.
'cause let's just say a whole lot of people had been ahead of her.
know, this was 16 hours and 44 minutes or something, because
you had to make it in 17 hours.
So she made it, You know, she picked herself up.
She had that look about her, kind of reminded me of you.
She's just like, who is the moron?
Who, you know, put the wrinkle here.
I'm gonna slap 'em.
and she had that little look, you know, it was like, oh my God.
You know, I, I fell.
Oh no.
She was like, come on over here.
If you did this to me, I'm gonna show you which way is up.
So then she went right through the archway.
The whole place fell apart and you know, whatever.
So I said, I gotta talk to her.
So we did.
She and I have become kind of really cool friends now.
So the first thing I asked, You know, as we were getting to know
each other, I said, girlfriend, What do you have for breakfast?
Because you see, since she's an ex, You know, she's more of an extreme exerciser.
She's going to eat more.
they just do, so she's up at about five and she's caregiving her husband
there's some stuff going on there.
It's all good.
She has it all scheduled.
So I said, what do you eat?
And she goes, Cheerios.
And I'm like, let me just get this straight.
You're 80, you're, you're one of the, you just went into the Iron
Man Hall of Fame, the Guinness Book.
People just gave you your certificate and you eat Cheerios.
And she goes, I said, how long have you been doing that?
And she said, Hmm.
Most of my life.
says, but they're healthy because I put blueberries on them.
So I'm sitting there, I'm going, Natalie, I love you.
I just love you.
And I said, do you ever get tired of Cheerios?
You know, like, you got to back up somewhere.
She goes, oh yeah.
And I said, well, what do you, what do you eat?
She says, frosted mini.
Mini
wheats.
So I.
So now you know we have an N of we have an an N of one experiment, which
is her level of physical activity.
Just supervenes over all the other stuff she does.
And then I said, well, what's your treat?
She says, oh, well I do that dark chocolate.
And I said, yeah, bring it on girlfriend.
And then I said, what else?
She goes, marshmallows.
I just love marshmallows.
And I said, really?
She goes, yeah, handfuls great stuff.
And I just said, I love you more.
Alright.
And then of course she has her protein and she has her
vegetables and everything else.
I just thought it was.
Beautiful that she's not following some, you know, kind of obsessive, tech bro.
You know how the guys are going with, you know, you have to eat exactly this
and so the reason why I bring that up is because there's a lot of wiggle room here.
You know,
there's so much wiggle room.
So talk to me about wiggle
room.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: first of all, I, That is cereals.
Pam Peeke, MD: Ah, you got, you have to talk to Natalie.
I'll hook you
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I've collected cereal boxes for years,
especially ones with completely ridiculous health claims on them.
And I have a co-author And we wrote a book about, food and nutrition policy
using cereal boxes to illustrate, and it's gonna come out in September, 2026.
It's called.
Pam Peeke, MD: you're gonna be
back.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: is called sugar coated.
Um, and, and it's coming out and you know, I do almost the same thing,
but I eat mini wheats because they have a lot more fiber than Cheerios.
So I like, I like having a high fiber breakfast when I get around to eating
it, and, and I always have fruit with it.
Pam Peeke, MD: Okay.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: the day.
Pam Peeke, MD: Everyone out there in the Herb podcast land wants to know
what you eat, so we want to hear it.
So right around 11 o'clock, when you're getting a little hungry, what do you eat?
Come on
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: And then post mini wheats, no, no sugar,
no salt, and I add my own sugar.
And even adding my own sugar is gonna be a lot less than, unsweetened
cereals, and I have blueberries or some other kind of berries with
it that starts the day after that.
It's a free for all.
It just depends on what I'm doing and where I am and what's happening.
Pam Peeke, MD: So are you a flexitarian?
What are you?
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I'm an omnivore.
I eat every, I eat everything.
I eat everything.
Pam Peeke, MD: in front of you,
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I follow my own advice.
I don't find it very hard to follow, you know, easily summarized
by Michael Pollan as eat food.
Not too much.
Mostly plants.
As long as the food is not too ultraprocessed.
I have my favorite Ultraprocessed Foods.
If you ask me my favorite food,
Pam Peeke, MD: Okay, go for it.
I'm waiting.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: ice cream.
Pam Peeke, MD: I love ice
cream.
It's fantastic.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I
do too.
I do too.
Pam Peeke, MD: high quality ice
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Oh yeah, me
too.
Pam Peeke, MD: have it.
I don't want trash.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: I want really good ice cream and
I particularly like Ginger.
but you know, I think that the idea that one diet is a prescription
for everybody makes no sense.
You look at worldwide diets, they're completely different.
they vary in every possible way, but the basic principles of good nutrition
are always the same, and that's to eat a wide variety of relatively
unprocessed foods in reasonable amounts.
Pam Peeke, MD: I know.
And then obviously match it.
Match it with physical activity.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: yeah.
Pam Peeke, MD: never notice, I don't use the E word exercise.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: No, I live in New York.
I don't exercise.
I just live in New York and I don't have a car.
I don't have a car.
Pam Peeke, MD: What words of advice do you have for people out there as we do
the close now, as they feel hopeless, seeking out help from TikTok, Google.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: You know, food is one of life's.
Most important pleasures, and it's really important to enjoy your food, and I
just wish everybody wouldn't worry so much about it and just eat real food.
Don't eat a lot of junk food.
Make sure you eat your vegetables and don't worry about it.
Eat what you like.
Have fun with it.
Food is wonderful fun.
Pam Peeke, MD: And act like a cave woman.
That's what I have to say.
I love it.
Everyone out there, I've had the absolute pleasure of having, someone
I've revered for so long, Dr.
Marian Nessel, she is the author of God Knows How many books, but the most
important one right now is what To Eat now, what to Eat Now, And then in next
year you're gonna get sugarcoated too.
There's another one coming down the pike.
Miriam, I can't begin to thank you.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH: Oh, well thank you.
It was a pleasure to be here.
It is great to see you again.
Pam Peeke, MD: Awesome.
And I wanna thank my sponsors Solar Array Vitamins, minerals
and Herbs, rooted in nature and their new her Life Stages products.
Scope it all out@solararray.com
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This has been a production of Podcast Health and remember,
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Do with that time are not so come on out there.
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Seize the day.
Thanks for listening everyone.