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Transcript

Kevin: Hey, Michelle, how's it going?

Michelle: I'm not too bad, Kev. I guess I'm coming down with a little bit of a respiratory thing, I think. You know what I think it is?

Kevin: Winter.

Michelle: I think my immune system is a bit depressed because I read the new U.S. Dietary Guidelines 2025-2030.

Kevin: No, that'll do it. That'll depress your immune system, I'm sure, a whole lot.

Michelle: I was like, what is happening right now?

Kevin: It's in the news everywhere. I mean, I don't follow this particularly, but it's all in my social feeds and all over the news. And, you know, there's there's good news about it and bad news about it and all the different spins on it. So it'd be nice to have a bit of clarity.

Michelle: Yeah, it's, you know, the funniest thing about it, when I saw the picture was an inverted pyramid. Yes. Back when I used to do project management training to health care professionals, that used to be my job at one point. We used to talk about triple constraint and sometimes we would use an inverted pyramid to demonstrate to the audience how when you when you when you manage your triple constraints like that, it's always out of balance and it'll topple over. So I feel like these are guidelines that are just going to topple over.

Kevin: They're already starting to topple over, I think.

Michelle: Yeah. Anyway. So, yeah, we're going to get into that. And we have a fantastic guest today that is going to help us go through this. I'm going to introduce Dr. Matt Negra in just a second, but I just want to kind of introduce how the process goes. There is a scientific advisory committee that is comprised of world renowned nutrition and public health experts. There's like it's like a 20 person panel of like actual scientific committee that review all the evidence based information and they produce the recommendations. And we knew this was coming. And those recommendations were for anticipating these twenty, twenty five, twenty thirty dietary guidelines revision, which happens every five years. And that report from that committee is used to inform the dietary guidelines. They don't necessarily preclude the dietary guidance. They're just used to inform it.

Kevin: As a basis. Right.

Michelle: So while this 20 person scientific committee provided an initial foundation, then what happens is that the the prevailing administration, which in this case is the Trump administration and in this case, which was represented here by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins. They oversaw the creation of the final guidelines and appointed a nine person review panel to revisit the findings of that original 20 member advisory committee in that smaller group of nine authors is responsible for the final report. And that's the group that informed this inverted food pyramid. Phew. I just kind of wanted to level set there as we begin, because if if our noobs are like me, they can find this original report and go. This looks good. You see names like Christopher Gardner, et cetera. And I'm sure Matt will go into this and you go, OK, this is a this is a good balanced panel providing sound scientific advice. But then you you look at that report and then you look at the picture and you go. One of these things is not like the other. How did this happen? How did this happen? So with that, I really only know enough about this to be dangerous, Kevin. So this is why we brought on Dr. Matt Negra as the bring in the big guns.

Kevin: Excellent.

Michelle: And, you know, they always say that if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Yeah.

Kevin: So I'm never in the wrong room. It's great. I love it. I belong everywhere I go.

Michelle: So Dr. Matt Negra, Matthew Negra, I have to say, proud Canadian here. He's a Canadian naturopathic doctor devoted to bringing the most up to date evidence based nutrition information to his patients in his Vancouver based practice and to the public via his social media, which is incredible, I have to say, and his presentations also incredible and scientific publications. He aims to correct myths and disinformation in a way that is easily digestible, helping people to make fully informed dietary choices. He's also contributed to multiple nutrition textbooks, including the Springer Nature Handbook of Public Health Nutrition, and is a nutrition science advisor for the highly anticipated documentary, The Game Changers 2, which I'm highly anticipating. Now, Matt, welcome to the podcast, first of all.

Kevin: Welcome to the Nubesphere, Matt.

Michelle: Thanks for having me on. I've seen you on several different podcasts, and I know that we're part of the Canadian lifestyle medicine community. So yeah, welcome. It's just such an honour to have you here. And I know that you're super busy. I don't know where you have time to see patients. Just to kick this off. So I wondered if you have any insight to offer, first of all, as we jump into this. How did this happen? Do you have any insight into the disconnect between the panel that actually made the picture and how they got there from that document that the Scientific Advisory Committee originally submitted?

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah, I think there's a few things that went into that. And I've also listened to Chris Gardner actually speak about what happened between transition from when they wrote the report to now. And it's important to understand that when you have the advisory committee, which Chris Gardner, Debra Tobias, who's also amazing, and a bunch of other people were on. For one, there's a very strict vetting process. You know all their conflicts. They have to report all of those. You also want diversity there. You're never really going to get researchers who haven't had funding from some type of industry before, just because that's what's required for research. But if you have a diverse group of individuals who maybe they've received funding from different areas, maybe some have done meat and dairy funded stuff. And like Chris Gardner did the swap meat study, which was funded by Beyond Meat. And then you have people maybe in another industry and you have them all agreeing on what the foundations of this scientific report should be. So that is one way that it helps to mitigate biases, right? Because you just have opposite ends of the spectrum. And so you have this 20 or so member panel that went through the research, spent two years. They met, I believe Chris said once a week, twice a week, something like that for like two years. So very consistently, they wrote up this report, which was excellent. And then in that report, after they've set out, these are the questions you want to answer, they have the answers and recommendations to those questions. They recommended things like emphasizing plant protein, because in scientific literature, one of the most consistent findings across the literature now is that replacing animal protein, especially from red and processed meats with plant protein is beneficial. Like there's really no debate there.

Michelle: Exactly.

Dr Matt Nagra: They also made other recommendations, like including more nutrient dense plant-based options and stuff like that. And as far as like recommended meals and that sort of thing. And then they put this forth to whoever's in charge at the time, based on the current administration. And then they go through that and they either say, yes, we agree with that. We partially agree with that, or we don't agree with that to each of the bunch of different recommendations that were made. Now, after that, what normally happens is you have a lot of collaboration. At least this is my understanding, based on, again, what Christopher Gardner and others have talked about, is that you'll have a lot of collaboration between the USDA, HHS and the advisory committee. And you'll have conversations about what their different recommendations were and why certain things were recommended or what can be tweaked and those sorts of things. Because you're not just looking at what is quote unquote healthiest, but also how do we consider implementing this in the public, as far as there's like school lunches, there's all sorts of things that you would want to consider. Right. And in this case, there was none of that collaboration. Chris Gardner said that they didn't even really get spoken to once the new admin came in.

Kevin: Wow.

Dr Matt Nagra: And then they had this other panel of nine people that RFK Jr brought on. And five out of nine of them had financial ties to industry, meat, dairy, a couple with actually whole grains as well. And then one with Novo Nordisk as well, so pharmaceutical. And I want to clarify that I don't think that just having conflicts of interest is necessarily a problem if that is set to the side and you're able to objectively evaluate the research or you have a very diverse group like I had spoken about where you're going to have conflicts on either side. But it's just interesting because in their report that these nine individuals wrote out and what RFK Jr has actually said publicly now is that the American public deserves guidelines that are free from ideological biases, conflicts of interest, etc. Which is just a little bit ironic when literally on the next page, you have all of these individuals with conflicts of interest. So that's just sort of, it's funny, it's very much storytelling. It's like this narrative. But anyways, what they did was they went through, they rejected a lot of recommendations. Maybe we can get into some of the recommendations that they rejected just because there's a few that really are standouts, I think. And then they wrote up this report and their guidelines, but then they also created that upside down pyramid. And I would say the pyramid doesn't really reflect what was written in the report. There's also within their own publications, the dietary guidelines on the pyramid, they don't really line up. And so there's just so many inconsistencies. It's almost like these nine individuals each separated and wrote like certain sections themselves and just didn't collaborate or something. Like there's just a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense.

Michelle: And just as we get into that, Matt, the other thing that I was so puzzled by is that when I was watching members of the administration boasting about the new guidelines, they kept referring to everything they were fixing about the old pyramid, the old pyramid. They haven't had a pyramid for years. It was the US MyPlate most recently. It was like they just ignored that that phase of recommendations ever existed. Yeah.

Dr Matt Nagra: So the funny thing is, so the most recent pyramid was done away with and replaced by MyPlate in 2011. But that's not even the pyramid they're talking about. The old pyramid they're talking about replacing is the one that was replaced in 2005. So it was in place from 1992 to 2005. And that's actually specifically the quote unquote old pyramid that they put on their web page to be like, hey, look, we flipped the pyramid, new pyramid. It's like, well, we didn't have that for 20 years. So I don't know why you're going all the way back to that.

Michelle: I know. I just have to add to like, I really encourage listeners to go and look at Matt's social feed because you have a very funny homage to South Park about the inverted pyramid. I absolutely, absolutely killed myself reading that. Anyway. Yeah. So let's let's dive into it. Well, do you want to start with what's good?

Dr Matt Nagra: Like there are a few things. So I think there's there's certain things that are good. I'd say more so in the written guidelines than the actual visual, the pyramid itself, just because I think it's a mess. Maybe we'll talk about that. But as far as written guidelines, look, they're recommending three servings of veggies, two servings of fruits. That hasn't really changed. They're recommending two to four servings of whole grains. That hasn't really changed. There's slight differences in some of the framing. There used to be a recommendation for I can't remember the number of servings. It might have been slightly more servings of grains. But then they focus on whole grains, whereas now it's just explicitly whole grains. If anything, I'd say that's a good swap. I'll give them that. Actually, another good thing is they recommend increasing protein intake a bit to 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. I am in favor of that. But when you look at the best health outcomes, so especially in aging populations, bone health parameters and things like that, we actually see that about 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight is better. And when we look at cardiovascular disease risk, that's about what's associated with the lower risk. But the key is when it's mostly from plants. That is the key. And that's where they're messing up a bit. So I like the fact that that protein recommendation was bumped up. I also like the fact that in the written recommendations, they do also at least highlight plant-based sources. They do say focus on a variety of protein sources. Of course, they list their animal proteins, but then they list a bunch of plant proteins as well. Right. I would emphasize the plants over the animals. But hey, at least they're including them in there because for the longest time, not most recently, but for a while, the beans and all that was lumped in with vegetables, not even with protein. So it was its own separate thing. Yeah. So I'll give them that. And I would say, oh, and they kept, and this is the one that's really just conflicting with every bit of messaging they're putting out, is they kept the recommendation to limit saturated fat to 10% of calories or less. Right.

Kevin: Baby steps.

Dr Matt Nagra: But then they keep talking about how they're ending the war on saturated fat and they have this like paragraphs of stuff just debating whether saturated fat's even a problem. So sort of confusing messaging there, but hey, at least they kept the limit in the sort of written guidelines. So I'll give them that. And then of course, they still recommend limiting refined grains, limiting sugars, just like the old ones have. So there are a number of things if you were to just read through the guidelines that I think are quite reasonable. But the messaging has been terrible and the pyramid paints a very different picture as well.

Kevin: How different, since they're hearkening back, as you say, to this 1992 to 2005 pyramid, how different is this inverted pyramid from what immediately preceded it? Like from the my plate that was in effect just until now, like, is it a big change or is it more subtle?

Dr Matt Nagra: The visual is a big change because if you look at the pyramid, you see a huge emphasis on animal proteins, including fatty, like there's clearly a fatty cut of red meat there. There's a stick of butter, which is ridiculous. You know, there's like a, there's a bunch of, they recommend full fat milk and dairy in particular. So there's a number of things that are problematic in the visual. And then they have whole grains and it doesn't make sense because they have whole grains right at the bottom, this tiny, tiny portion that I think if you ask people, Hey, how many whole grains should people be eating? And they say like, Oh, one serving or something like that. When the recommendation is more than that, the recommendation is actually the same as essentially fruits or vegetables. Right. Yet visually, it doesn't appear that way. Right. I think visually it's a mess. Whereas my plate was very intuitive. It's roughly a quarter of the plate as your proteins, a quarter of your plate as whole grains, a quarter of fruits and quarter veggies, roughly speaking. One of the recommendations from the advisory committee was to change the name of the dairy category because it does include alternatives like soy milk. And so the old my plate had a glass that just said dairy on it, but it obviously included alternatives. But of course they torched that. They did not want to recommend alternatives in this new iteration. Okay.

Michelle: So, and I might add the my plate, which I understand was influenced by PCRM's plate. They actually advocated heavily to the previous dietary recommendations process to move to a plate because it's more the way that the average person thinks about their meal planning.

Kevin: It's intuitive.

Michelle: So it's very easy to understand like where Canada's food guide landed. Oh, this much of my plate's this, this much of my plate's that. You could still see some stamp of industry on it with the glass of milk and whatnot, but it was really, for the most part, it was very decent. But this pyramid, I don't know how the average person, if they look at it at all, if you were to look there, if it is informing schools and policy and what the military meals are going to be like and things like that, how are you supposed to make sense of it? Just the grains, for example, the grains, my understanding was the grains used to be on the bottom because that was kind of like having a healthy servings of grains was the foundation and now it's just this little tip on the end of an inverted pyramid that's going to topple over.

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah. I mean, the good news, as far as I know, again, from people I know in the U.S. who are working at various universities and that they might have to implement some of this, they have said that they actually only have to follow the numerical values. So they actually don't have to follow, quote, unquote, the pyramid. They have to follow what is written in the recommendation. So two to four servings of whole grains, three servings of veggies, two servings of fruits, saturated fat under 10 percent, like all of those are the things that will actually matter, which is a positive. That's good. Yeah, right.

Michelle: But serving again, they've gone back to the word serving, which the average person doesn't understand what a serving is.

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah. But that won't like when it comes to like institutions having to implement the guidelines, it won't be the average person determining that it would be the institutions themselves would have to be delegating the different serving amounts and that sort of thing.

Michelle: Fair enough. Fair enough.

Kevin: So, Matt, to go back to something that you'd mentioned earlier. So there seems to be a lot of controversy around the actual image of the inverted pyramid. And you mentioned that the recommendations themselves, which institutions are following and such, don't necessarily match up with the visuals. So do you have any idea why they chose this image and sort of how that came to be? And if it's so, you know, different or misleading from what the actual written recommendations are?

Dr Matt Nagra: So I have, I can only guess. Of course, of course. I have speculation about this. I think there's a few possibilities. One is I think they have been obsessed with the food pyramid for ages, and some of them probably still think we were using the food pyramid for a while.

Kevin: Clearly.

Dr Matt Nagra: And so they wanted to flip it, you know, so that's one thing. And so they just like the idea of that. And it's like sticking it to the man, flipping it upside down, whatever.

Kevin: They haven't looked at any nutritional guidelines since 2005.

Dr Matt Nagra: So I think that's a part of it. I think another part is there's a lot of really unscientific recommendations that they wanted to make. I think they wanted to double down on butter and tallow. I think they wanted to recommend high fat dairy. I think they wanted to recommend a lot of red meats and stuff like that. But I also think that there is enough wherewithal to know that a lot of those recommendations wouldn't really be supported by the best available evidence. So in the actual written guidelines, you write, hey, here are our recommendations. And so you can always fall back on that. But then visually, you can be like, hey, look at our cool upside down pyramid. That makes no sense.

Michelle: It's marketing. Yeah, it's pure marketing.

Dr Matt Nagra: That's sort of how I view it after spending a week, whatever it's been, with these and just kind of looking at it and looking at a lot of the commentary. And I've made several videos on this. But that's only a guess. Like, I can't tell you whether that's accurate or not.

Michelle: That's just like your homage to South Park. It's the secrets in the pyramid. And then at the end of that bit, there's the line, get the president on the phone and tell him to have some steak with his butter.

Kevin: But I guess it makes sense because they can always fall back. If the scientific community objects or something, they can always fall back on the written word. But what people will see visually and the average person will absorb information, they're not going to sit down and read it. They're going to look at the image. And they see this little teeny tiny triangle of grain at the bottom that's like struggling under the weight of all the full fat dairy and such. And that's what they're going to take away from it. Interesting.

Michelle: At least broccoli is near the top.

Kevin: Yeah, that's true. King broccoli.

Dr Matt Nagra: What's really funny is I found a lot of people trying to support or back up these guidelines, try to design a day of eating, of how you include these foods and meet 10% of calories from saturated fat. I don't know that it can be done if you follow the guidelines, literally. Because for dairy, they say include full fat dairy. They don't say you can include. You may include. They say consume three servings of dairy and include full fat dairy. That to me means that at least one of those servings needs to be full fat dairy. So that's one thing. Now, I've seen a lot of people create these days of eating and they just exclusively use zero fat, 0% fat dairy. And then I've seen them use extra lean meats when the photos clearly fatty meat and they have paragraphs trying to exonerate saturated fat in the guidelines. They're doing very sneaky things to try to make it seem like you can meet these guidelines by just following them literally. And you really can't. There's always going to be some contradiction or almost always going to be some contradiction there. So it's been kind of funny seeing them do cartwheels over trying to make this work. Yeah, I would love to see a study. I've spoken with some research about this. Maybe we'll try to get one going of how the pyramid is actually interpreted by the general public. If you were just to give it to them, be like, hey, what do you think this tells you to eat? I think it would be pretty funny. Right.

Michelle: I'm almost wondering, there's there's so much social media buzz about this particular guideline, I think far more than I've ever seen in the past. Well, of course, social media just is used so much more and there's so many more platforms. Do you do you worry a bit that the public, the American public is going to pay more attention to these guidelines than they ever did in the past?

Dr Matt Nagra: I mean, there'll be more attention on it just because of social media and the way that like RFK Jr. and company use it as well. But I don't know, like I don't I don't see the guidelines meaningfully changing a lot of people's dietary intake. But I think some people who are already eating, say, more of a standard American type diet or maybe a lot of meat and that sort of thing will look at it and have it reinforce what they're doing. Like, oh, yeah, see, that's good. It's fine. It's good.

Michelle: You know, good news about their bad habits.

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah, like something like that. I could see. Now, the other thing that they do in the guidelines, though, is they do recommend limiting highly processed foods. I take some issue with that, though, because not all processed foods are the same and they just sort of blanket recommend against processed foods, whereas like whole grain breads and cereals can actually be really healthy. But then sugary beverages and sausages aren't, you know, like so there is a lot of nuance there that's sort of left out.

Michelle: Yeah. And just to be clear on that, when the previous guidelines also called out processed foods and minimizing processed foods and diet. So that's not new.

Dr Matt Nagra: Well, they called out refined grains and like a lot of added fats, recommending limiting and like stuff like that. So they called out the components of processed foods. I don't think they ever explicitly said like ultra processed foods or highly processed food. Use the words. Yeah. And that's what like this this group keeps saying is like, we're the first ones to call out highly processed foods. It's like not really because the other ones had all called out the makeup of those foods. They just didn't necessarily use the terminology because there's some issues with that. There's some issues with just blanket saying processed foods bad because of, you know, some of them are actually quite healthy. Actually, another one would be fortified soy milk. So one of the things in their dairy category now on their it's weird in the guidelines, they never mentioned fortified milk alternatives or soy milk or anything like that in the pyramid. It's certainly not there. And then they have this serving size guide that they put out as well, where in like the fine print at the bottom, it says all the different types of dairy. And then you can have fortified soy as well. That's like the one place that is mentioned that you have to go digging for. So it's like, but I think a part of it is that they're on the one hand against processed foods. But on the other hand, what are you going to recommend for people with like lactose intolerance or whatever? At the end of the day, there's some processed foods that's got to be in there that actually serves a really good purpose. And, you know, it's just very, very confusing.

Michelle: Yeah. And an example of that that you and others have actually pointed out is breakfast cereals. I mean, like fortified breakfast cereals, they're technically ultra processed, but some of them are not too bad and well fortified. And frankly, particularly I think about food deserts and things like that, that's probably going to be the most accessible breakfast food for some people. Is it good or is it bad?

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah, I mean, well, I'd say they're great. But what's funny is in the guidelines, again, they have this whole section on processed foods, avoid highly processed foods, but then they have a section on how to choose whole grain cereals. And like you understand that they're still technically considered highly processed foods, right, based on your own definition. So it's like, what, what do people decide if they're stuck with a it's processed, but you're saying to choose them. So I'm confused.

Michelle: That's, that's, that's where it just doesn't match up. You know, I want to I want to go back to the recommendations around saturated fat and the inconsistency, because I think that's really an important point in these guidelines. Can you talk about that, Matt?

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah, I mean, they stuck with the they actually spent a ton of time just saying that the research on saturated fat is inadequate. They criticized a couple of the randomized controlled trials we have, but they actually excluded the best one. The best trial we have is called the LA Veterans Administration Hospital study. And I won't bore you with all the details, but it's hands down the best trial that we have on this topic showing that reducing saturated fat, replacing them with vegetable oils leads to better cardiovascular outcomes. Of course, they hate vegetable oils, so they don't want to talk about those. So they actually didn't mention that study. It just it's like it doesn't exist. And so they criticized a couple other studies with notable limitations, but they left that out. And then they criticized observational studies. So studies where you follow large groups of people over time, you you these would be questionnaire based where you ask them what they consume. And you might do that repeatedly over several years. And they just basically said, there's too many confounders, we can't account for all of them. People who consume vegetable oils or, you know, do other things that are healthy, which is actually not always true. We have research where vegetable oil consumers are less healthy to begin with, yet vegetable oil still lower risk. So it's kind of funny. But but anyways, they criticize it on the basis of observational studies are inadequate. But then when it came to ultra processed foods, they cited a lot of observational studies supporting their view that ultra processed foods are bad. So why the contradiction? Why the double standard? That's another spot where they have that. So that's the type of like with saturated fat, it was just very much like, hey, if there's data, we like we'll cite it. If there's data we don't like, we won't cite it. And they just sort of came up with with, you know, some type of reasoning to support their choices there. But but at the end of the day, how they ended up sticking with a 10% recommendation is beyond me because all of their narrative there was about how saturated fat actually has been unfairly demonized.

Michelle: If you look at the picture, there's no way you could stay below 10% and follow that picture.

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah, I don't actually think it can be done. I think if you follow the guidelines, literally, I don't I don't know that it can be done.

Michelle: Yeah, so we're going to end up with more chronic disease, more obesity, if people follow that picture.

Kevin: So what I don't understand is how it can go from this, you know, this group of 20 or so scientists nutritionists who created the framework and created the high level guidelines. And then these nine people whittled it down to something that that sometimes agrees with the 20 but oftentimes seems not to like. And I know you might be speculating, but was there like, how did we get there? Like, was there industries involved, like particularly around things like dairy, where dairy is, you know, we don't, as you just mentioned, you know, any alternative is in like fine print on a serving size, and that's it. Like, how did we get from 20 people who provided, you know, sound nutritional scientific based advice, down to something that doesn't seem to necessarily always follow that and even negotiated by lobbyists?

Dr Matt Nagra: Because the science doesn't matter. That's the then that's the reason they're like, like, basically, now, RFK, Jr. and others. And I think this, I don't know if this was written in the guidelines, or if I heard it in an interview. Again, it's been a long weekend. But but one of the comments, either from RFK, Jr., himself, or written in the in the text, was that they basically said, we're going to conduct studies to find that refined grains are really bad for you. And like all of this stuff, basically, they're like, they're like, oh, we're going to conduct these studies to show this. And now I'm paraphrasing a bit, because I don't remember the exact terminology. But that's not how science is done. You don't have a predetermined outcome be like, hey, this is the result. Let's find out.

Kevin: They're trying to reverse engineer the solution. Yeah.

Michelle: You start with a question, and then you see where the evidence leads you. Exactly.

Dr Matt Nagra: You wonder, how does this food compare to this food for these markers? Let's test it. Maybe you have a hypothesis of what the result would be, but you want to test it. In fact, you want to design a study in such a way that it could potentially disprove your hypothesis.

Kevin: Right.

Dr Matt Nagra: And it's just very unscientific how they're going about it. And I think that's what happened. I think RFK Jr. has preconceived views on stuff like, we know Rob Milk and all that. Funny enough, that didn't make it into the guidelines. They didn't go that crazy.

Kevin: Thank goodness.

Dr Matt Nagra: But I think he has his preconceived notions, his viewpoints. And he basically selected individuals that he knows align with his viewpoints to write up this report and to try to give it some foundation. And then obviously, I bet he had the pyramid idea for a long time and just wanted to make it a reality. Nice.

Michelle: Why is beef tallow everywhere all of a sudden? I mean, I've been in nutrition spheres for a couple of decades now, and I'd never even heard of beef tallow until recently. It's basically the beef equivalent of lard, isn't it? Rendered fat. Is this a new revenue stream for the Cattleman's Beef Association or something?

Dr Matt Nagra: It seems just very ideological. It seems like this whole, hey, ancestors ate a lot of animal fat. Beef tallow is a type of animal fat. I don't know. It just seems like some sort of weird lines that are drawn in some way. I don't know. That'd be an interesting thing to investigate. Where did this really start to pick up? Because I've really only noticed it since the carnivore boom.

Michelle: Exactly.

Dr Matt Nagra: So I wonder. I'm not sure exactly where it came from.

Michelle: Paul Saladino probably started it.

Dr Matt Nagra: I wouldn't be surprised.

Michelle: Oh my goodness. So I wondered, just back to the dairy. I remember when they were preparing for the 2020 U.S. Dietary Guidelines update, and there were a lot of experts, particularly in the plant-based nutrition world, who were saying their piece to the Dietary Guidelines Committee and industries there and everything. I remember, though, around that time, I went to a Real Truth About Health conference, and I met Milton Mills. And he had just presented to that committee. And I remember my sort of jaw drop that he got up in front of the committee and gave statistics about the number of racialized populations that can't properly digest dairy and basically accused the committee of being racist, which is true. I was noticing in Chris Gardner's recent criticism of these new Dietary Guidelines, though, that he says that it's like 75% approximately of the global population is lactose intolerant. I had thought it was about a little over 50%. So what do you make of that, Matt? Because this full-fat dairy in the Guidelines now...

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah, I mean, I thought it was around two-thirds, but it could be three-quarters, whatever. It's in that ballpark. But yeah, the way that it's written and the lack of recommendations, even in the regular Guidelines write-up for dairy alternatives or even lactose-free milk, is very problematic. It doesn't consider the huge proportion of individuals with lactose intolerance. It doesn't consider a lot of individuals of various ethnic backgrounds who are more prone to lactose intolerance. There are so many problems with it. I mean, I don't know how they justify that. It's a bizarre, bizarre omission, I think, on their part.

Michelle: And then, can you speak to some of the factual errors that you found that were just blatantly wrong?

Dr Matt Nagra: Oh, I mean, I'm trying to think of just blatantly wrong things. I can think of more things that they omitted.

Michelle: Chris Gardner mentioned something about xylitol.

Dr Matt Nagra: Oh, I don't even know what he...

Michelle: He says it's listed as a non-nutritive sweetener, despite being a sugar alcohol.

Dr Matt Nagra: Because it is nutritive. Yeah, it's not non-nutritive. It is nutritive. It's just lower calorie. Yeah, so that's funny. Have you guys read the section on vegan diets, like in the nutrient deficiency?

Michelle: Yes, yes.

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah, a big, big problem there.

Michelle: Big problem. And I just want to give a shout out to you that you wrote or co-authored a paper in the International Journal of Disease Reversal, kind of about vegan diets and the misinformation around that. So yeah, please go on.

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah, so this is hilarious. So the researcher who was tasked, of the nine individuals who was tasked with reviewing the data on plant-based diets, is Tai Beal. For the record, he blocked me ages ago on Twitter, because we got in some debates over nutrition, doesn't put that out there. He was responsible with reviewing that section. And in that section, they mentioned that vegan diets are at risk of deficiencies of, I can't remember them all, but vitamins A, D, E, K, choline, omega-3s, minerals like calcium, iron, zinc, iodine. It's a very, very long list, and I'm probably missing a few there. And it was pointed out to him by another researcher, Kevin Klatt, who is amazing, by the way. Everybody should read his stuff. He has a sub stack where he actually goes into detail on this. But it was pointed out to him by somebody else, that how they came to the conclusion that vegan diets were possibly at risk of deficiency or inadequate intake of these nutrients, is they took a modeled vegetarian diet, that historically they'd included vegetarian diets or samples of vegetarian diets in the dietary guidelines. They took that, and then they removed eggs, dairy, and they actually didn't include the fortified soy alternatives. And then they looked at how nutrient intake changed. Now, what they didn't do is replace those foods with anything. So literally- Just air. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Kevin: Water.

Dr Matt Nagra: That's what I said in my video actually on it too, is it was literally just air. So not only did they remove those foods, they removed all the calories. So people are consuming very little calories at that point from those foods, and then all the nutrients there, but they didn't replace with beans or nuts or tofu or fortified soy milk or et cetera, et cetera. Then yeah, you're going to end up with a lower intake of a number of nutrients. Now, when you simply just replace it with even soy milk, forget about all the other things, just some soy milk, there's maybe a few nutrients of focus or of concern there. And those can be easily covered in other ways. So he- Now, Tai Beal, the person, again, tasked with reviewing this data and who was parading around the results from that modeling study, did not know how it was done. He had no idea. He then deleted the tweets, pretended it never happened. And the only time that he's commented on it is in that one comment thread with Kevin Kline, as far as I've seen. So it's just like, this is the sort of competency level of at least one of the individuals behind these new guidelines. And so that was actually the most egregious error I've come across, I would say.

Michelle: That's just concerning when you consider that this is put out by the highest office in the country, you know, that that's their lack of standard. One thing I worry about, like I used to have a tea company and I used to be a tea buyer, so I used to be involved in the CFIA guidelines were heavily influenced by the US's guidelines, et cetera. And we've sort of seen this mirrored to some extent. I'm a little bit worried. Are you worried? Do we have anything to worry about in terms of this turn of events south of the border, influencing the next Canadian dietary guidelines? Or do you think that we're our process is solid? I'm so happy with the changes that happened in 2019.

Dr Matt Nagra: Yeah, no, I don't think so. Our our changes in 2019 were not influenced by anything in America. Like we weren't influenced by what they were doing. In fact, a lot of dietary guidelines around the world, I think were largely influenced by the Canadians change in 20. I think a lot of them have mirrored mirrored are since then. I don't see any reason to be concerned about that. And we also see a lot of nutrition organizations, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and some other groups now pushing back against some of the recommendations, especially around saturated fat. And I mean, again, yes, they kept the recommendation, but the framing of the argument in the new guidelines. So I just don't see it really having a ripple effect.

Kevin: Well, the very fact that so many people are talking about it, because I can't think of a single time when dietary recommendations have made have had so much buzz and have been on everyone's lips. Normally, it's just, ah, whatever, there's a new image or whatever.

Michelle: People don't even notice when it happens.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly. Whereas this it's I mean, as with so much that happens now with the administration, but it like, there seems to be broad spread acknowledgement that there are some inconsistencies and some issues with this.

Michelle: Yeah, yeah, I think we have such a prudent scientific community that is like, I think we have the algorithms pushing out this information almost like in a propaganda type of way. But we have such an engaged scientific community that is not afraid to speak out, you know, about the evidence.

Dr Matt Nagra: And social media is bigger now than it ever has been. And maybe next go around when this stuff, the pyramid gets flipped again, you know, the right way. It'll, it'll be different, you know, so I mean, who knows? But we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, obviously, just keep.

Michelle: I just want to touch on the on the on the red meat focus and carcinogens. I like that just goes against the evidence. So what do you make of that?

Dr Matt Nagra: I mean, yeah, I don't know. Like, I don't even think they really talked to maybe I have to go through it again. I don't think they really talked about potential cancer risk or anything like that. I thought maybe they would have written something kind of saying, hey, this research isn't good or something, you know, but but I don't even know if it was mentioned, to be honest. They did. It's just a picture. It's just they've just got these pictures of red meat. Well, I mean, in the written, I mean, in the in the actual report, but no, no, I don't think they really mentioned it, honestly. And yeah, like it is a concern when it comes to cholera for sure.

Michelle: Yeah, for sure. Right. So where do you think we go from here? What do we do with this?

Dr Matt Nagra: Just keep educating. Yeah, you just keep educating. That's basically it. I again, the good news is when it comes to the general public, most people don't follow the guidelines anyway. So I can't see it having a huge effect there. Unfortunately, it could potentially have some effect on, you know, certain programs where they do have to follow the guidelines. But I think otherwise it's just educating the public as best we can about what they say, why there's some issues with it and maybe what are some better approaches and then throw the Canadian food guide at them.

Michelle: Yes, here, here. Right on. Viva la Canada.

Kevin: Well, thank you very much, Matt. This has been absolutely incredible and very eye opening. I knew there were issues with it, but I didn't know there were quite so many when you get into the weeds. And it's very interesting how this came about.

Michelle: It's quite insidious, really. Because a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Dr Matt Nagra: And that's what most people are going to see.

Kevin: Yeah, that's the yeah, the mismatch between the two of them. That's that's rough.

Michelle: And this is what's going to be shown in schools, you know, when when when kids are learning their their dietary guidelines. So hopefully, hopefully they're looking at balanced information on their feeds and and maybe hopefully they have some good educators in their camp. You know, Matt, I'm interested because I just think that you're you're such a great, you know, Canadian resource for this information. So what what a just take a moment to throw some some sunshine on you. What what are you up to next and and where can our listeners find you and follow you and anything you want to share?

Dr Matt Nagra: I have a number of papers either in review or just submitted or, you know, very state various stages currently that should be coming out another one in the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention. I think that one was on collagen, if I recall correctly, I can't remember. There's I can't remember which one specifically went to that journal. I think it was that one. So I have a number of papers coming out and I'll definitely share about them when they are on my social media, email list, all of that. You can follow me on Instagram at Dr. Matthew Nagra, Dr. Matthew Nagra or other social media platforms, TikTok, YouTube, et cetera. Same name. And yes, I have my email list that's also linked on all my socials and on my website, Dr. Matthew Nagra dot com. And that's really it for now. Otherwise, I guess some some conferences and whatnot, but those are more specific to professionals.

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. I'm just so grateful that you came here today and that you were able to make this work in short notice while this is, you know, while the news cycle hasn't passed.

Dr Matt Nagra: I was just talking with a friend this morning about if there's guideline fatigue yet, just because it's all that's being talked about on the nutrition channel.

Michelle: I'm certainly getting tired of seeing it.

Kevin: Yeah, there'll be something else in the news cycle soon enough. Yeah, no worries. OK, well, Matt, before you go, it's a tradition that we always have a dad joke. OK, so are you ready?

Michelle: I don't know if I warned you about that.

Dr Matt Nagra: No, it's better.

Kevin: It's better not to warn the guests. Yeah, don't worry. OK, and this is a little bit topical because as we mentioned earlier, there is a broccoli front and center at the very top. Or is it the bottom of the pyramid that's at the top?

Michelle: Anyway, the broccoli is at the top, the broccoli. But I mean, the top of the line one.

Kevin: Yeah. But can you call an upside down pyramid that is that still the top of the pyramid when it's upside down?

Michelle: I don't know. Anyways, I don't know, man.

Kevin: So where did the broccoli go to have a few drinks?

Michelle: I don't know, Kevin, where did the broccoli go?

Kevin: The salad bar.

Michelle: Oh, OK. OK, I looked one up for this occasion. OK, I think I think this was actually written by A.I. OK, why don't plants ever get lost while following the new food pyramid?

Dr Matt Nagra: I don't know. Why?

Michelle: Because they always stick to their roots.

Kevin: That feels a bit A.I. written.

Michelle: You know, just just for fun, I thought I wonder what you're going to say, because I asked it if it could if it could tell me a joke based on the new food pyramid.

Kevin: It was fun, also dangerous, but fun. Yes. Yes. OK, well, thank you again, Matt. I definitely appreciate you coming on and we'll have links to all of your socials in the show notes. Sounds good.

Dr Matt Nagra: Thanks for having me on.

Michelle: Yeah. And we welcome you back anytime, anytime.

Kevin: And until then, eat your greens and be real, everyone. This has been Nutrition for Noobs. We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it. If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at n4noobs at gmail.com. That's the letter N, the number four, N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favorite platform might be. Also, please consider leaving a review or telling your friends. That's the best way to spread the word. We'll see you next time with another interesting topic. The views and opinions expressed on Nutrition for Noobs are those of the hosts. It is not intended to be a substitute for medical, nutritional, or health advice. Listeners should seek a personal consultation with a qualified practitioner if they have any concerns or before commencing any actions mentioned in the podcast.