Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Growing good food is really hard.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Like, it's just. It's not. It's not easy. It's not cheap.
But neither is all of the hospital bills and all of the medications and all. Like, imagine if you could spend the money that you're currently spending on all of the medications on food.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Modern food in 2024 seems to have led to modern illnesses. We believe that there are five myths that we have been told over the years that have led to the modern illnesses.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Welcome to the Duster Mudd podcast, where we like to talk about food freedom and farming.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: My name is Rich, and I'm Shelley.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: About 25 years I spent in the United States Air Force. And after retiring, we moved here to Missouri, southern Missouri, and started a regenerative farm. And part of that farm is this podcast where we like to discuss things like food.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: In 2019, we stopped eating sugar and we stopped eating carbohydrates and grains and really dove into learning about different aspects of nutrition that we were blown away by. Our minds were like, wait, what?
[00:01:27] Speaker A: In 2013, I was diagnosed with Crohn's and had struggled with it for a while. Ended up having a surgery and having a portion of my small intestines removed. By 2019, after struggling with the illness or disease, whatever you want to call it, a friend of mine kept posting on Facebook. He is a fighter pilot as well, and he is a doctor. And he kept posting about the ketogenic diet and how it helped with things like Crohn's. And finally, after looking at that for a couple of years and going through the struggles that I was having with Crohn's, I just went to Shelley and said, I want. I don't even know what it is, but I trust this friend of mine, and I'd really like to start looking into the ketogenic diet to see, you know, if maybe that might help with my gut issues.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: So that's what we did. And it took us on a food journey over the course of several months. We dove in head first into learning about our current food system really at large, and we were blown.
We really were. Honestly, we walked away really mad.
Really, really mad. And many of you have heard this story because we've told it, but I think it's important to repeat, especially with the topic of today, is we believed that we were healthy and that we ate relatively healthy prior to learning some of the things that we learned.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And we just believed these myths that we're about to go over with you. And the first one is low fat Is healthy myth.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So it originated with Ancel Keys back in the 1950s. He did, quote, research and he published his research, but what he did was he altered his statistics and he didn't give all of the information.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah, he cherry picked which countries he researched in a bunch of countries and took data from all of these countries and he picked which countries he wanted to use in his published research based on which countries supported his hypothesis instead of just publishing all of the data. And what that led to was basically some junk science that told us low fat is healthy.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: Yeah. He posited that fat was causing cardiovascular disease and cholesterol was a problem. So it was the cholesterol high hypothesis. And there was another gentleman over in England, junkin, and he said it was caused by sugar, that sugar was the enemy with when it came to heart disease. And. But he wasn't. He wasn't loud enough. And Ansel won that, I guess.
What do you even call it?
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Well, yeah, he had the ear of the United States. Shortly after the President had a heart attack, Ansel really started talking loudly and stating that his hypothesis was true. And the country sort of fell in line behind it and it led to what we have today. Really. Like the thing that made us mad was we grew up with the food pyramid. And that idea, that concept of, you know, the foundation of your diet should be, you know, all carbohydrates, the grains, the breads, and all of that, that should make up the majority of your diet. That's all based on Ansel's hypothesis so that you can get the calories without having the fat. Because he was saying that fat is bad for you. Which on the food pyramid, the fats, and some of them put sweets on the very top, but the fats were up at the top saying that you needed to eat the least amount of that.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: So by the 1980s, that's what we had. We had the government promoting the food pyramid. Yep. And, you know, I think with some of these things, you just don't see effects until years down the road. And that's what we're. That's kind of what we're. We're looking at right now. Because the rise in obesity, type 2 diabetes, every other inflammatory, you know, disease.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: All of these metabolic disorders. Metabolic disorders we have because of the foods that we're eating. And a lot of times, you know, how many of you have struggled with diets?
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Well, a lot of times, I'll raise my hand.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Yeah, A lot of times people are doing what they're told to do, but it's not working. It's that, I don't know. I eat low fat and I exercise and I continue to gain weight, I continue to be sick, I continue to struggle until metabolic disorder kicks in, type 2 diabetes kicks in. And it's all happening while following the dietary guidelines.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So they made fat, they demonized fat, and in order to get kick the fat out of the food, they replaced it. What? They replace it with sugar. Sugar. So now we're really eating that food pyramid, when in reality, it needed to be upside down. Uh, what myth number two was. Artificial sweeteners were safe, a safe alternative. And we had things like saccharin and aspartame.
So you've got equal and you've got sweet and low. And if you don't eat sugar, eat these things because it's a substitute for sugar. And that way you're not eating all those empty calories. Unfortunately, our bodies don't necessarily respond that way.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Yeah, same. And we did a podcast regarding Splenda, which uses sucralose. And sucralose isn't necessarily the issue. It's the maltodextrin that makes up 94% of Splenda that is the issue. And what happens with a lot of these is they cause a glycemic response in your body. Your body treats them as if they're sugar. So it does all of the same things that it would normally do if you ate sugar, except there's no sugar there. So you eat these artificial sweeteners, and your body says, okay, sugar, and it gives you insulin, and there's no sugar there for the insulin to deal with. So now you've just got insulin floating around in your body.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Which increases your cravings and it increases your appetite and it increases your waistline, because that's what insulin does. It is a hormone that says store fat.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So you've got all this insulin floating around with no sugar to deal with.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: And it just starts telling your body, store fat, store fat, and you end up becoming insulin resistant. And then off it goes right back into the metabolic disorders.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Right. And, you know, at the time, microbiome wasn't really a thing that we talked about in the 80s and 90s, and nothing, I mean, really anything for the past five or 10 years, been longer than that. But, you know, recent history says that we've got a whole entire other self within our guts, and our microbiome is part of our whole metabolism and the synergy and this ecology that works on the inside of us. And those chemicals Were not doing that any favors. So you've got a lot of disruption going on within the natural good stuff that's supposed to be happening within our digestive system for our absorption, for nutrition. And so those, those chemicals were not doing, Are not doing those little guys any favors at all.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So what's, what, what can you do? What's good that you. There are natural zero calorie sweeteners out there and things like monk fruit stevia allulose. These natural sweeteners don't do the same things that the artificial zero calorie sweeteners do to your body. Right.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: So myth number three. A calorie is just a calorie.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: This one, like, I hate the low fat one, but I think this one may be even worse than any of them.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Because first of all, well, talk about calories. What is a calorie?
[00:11:04] Speaker A: A calorie is simply a unit. It's a measurement. It's a measurement of heat. And you can have calories in anything that's generating heat. You can have calories in your hot tub.
It is simply a measurement. And so the idea that calories are somehow equal is just silly. I mean, you're generating heat by sitting in the hot tub or sitting in the sauna. Like, it just doesn't even make any sense.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: And then the phrase that went along with that is calories in, calories out. So whatever I took in, I can just go burn off that.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Is that like, if you think back to when you first started hearing that, calories in, calories out. I think it had a lot to do with the introduction of ultra processed foods.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: And the food companies, the big food companies that started making this ultra processed food, the way that they made that appear healthy was to say it's just a calorie. A calorie is a calorie. Whether that calorie is drinking Coca Cola or that calorie is eating broccoli, it doesn't matter. A calorie is a calorie. So you drink some coke, you eat some broccoli. It's the same thing. A calorie is a calorie, calories in, calories out. If you take the calories in, then you just have to exercise, exercise, live.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: A healthy lifestyle, walk it off, get your steps in, whatever you want to say, and then it's okay to, to have eaten whatever that was. You can have your cake and then just go for a walk.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And like, I, I would think that just a, a common sense perspective, if you actually step back and Think about it. A calorie is a calorie or calories in, calories out. Like that doesn't. That's not logical. It is not logical that some sugar and some broccoli are going to be the same for your body.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: Right? It isn't logical and it isn't true. Because sugar spikes.
If you eat too much sugar, your blood sugar spikes. If your blood sugar spikes, insulin is required. Insulin comes in constantly as you're. Well, it's just a calorie. I'm just drinking my Coke here. Just a calorie, just drinking my Starbucks with my sugar, you know, all in it. Just a calorie. But your body said, no, it's not. Because fat has nine calories, quote. Right. Per gram, per gram versus less calories and a gram of sugar. But if I eat fat and I'm eating nine calories per gram of fat, I get zero insulin response. So the metabolic mechanism that is happening within our systems tells us that that is a lie.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: Right?
[00:14:09] Speaker B: A calorie is a calorie. Not true. Because your body doesn't respond like that.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Your body does completely different things with it. And that this one, again, back to our starting the ketogenic diet is one of the things that really started making us mad was. Hang on a minute. My body acts differently based on what calories I put in. And the idea that there was a completely alternative fuel source called ketones that we'd never even heard of. And your body doesn't have to be fueled by glucose, it can be fueled by ketones. And that, you know, the little emoji of your. Your skull blowing open, that was me when I found out.
Whoa, hold on a minute. There's a whole different fuel source.
Like, I've never even.
You're in ketosis. I'm like, what, what is that?
[00:15:06] Speaker B: What does that even mean?
[00:15:07] Speaker A: What does that even mean?
Right.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: And so that really was the revelation for us that. Hang on a minute. A calorie is not just a calorie. Your body can act like completely differently. Like it kicks in a whole new system if you stop eating carbohydrates.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Mm.
So speaking of carbohydrates, Ultra processed foods, ultra processed foods, they impact our metabolism in a way that I don't think anybody really understood when we started creating these things. They're hyper palatable. You can eat them to literally no end and you can keep eating them and eating them. And the things, though, that they're doing, whenever you absorb that many non nutritive calories in one sitting and what signals it's doing to our, to our brain and at the hormonal level is something that I don't think anybody really understood when they started. Oh, wait. Or did they understand myth number four? Hang on a second, let me rethink that. Myth number four. Processed food is convenient and harmless.
So here's an interesting fact.
Let's talk about R.J. reynolds.
R.J. reynolds. Cigarette company campaigns came out. Cigarettes are bad for you. We need you. Smoking kills you. You're going to get lung cancer, so you need to stop. So people kind of did. And the cigarette companies got kind of nervous and they started losing profits. And they got into the food business.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Yeah. In the mid-80s, they started buying up food companies. And that continued all the way through the early 2000s. So what you ended up with was tobacco companies that now own food companies. And with those purchases came the executives and the scientists that understand human biology and addiction and how to generate things that make people addicted. And in comes ultra processed foods where there's no nutrition. Like Shelley mentioned, that means that your body's satiety hormones don't kick in. The hormones that say you've probably had enough.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Like when you eat a steak, your body goes, oh, that's enough, that's enough. I'm good.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: But like they even tout this. No one can eat just one. Right. Yeah. So, but like this was done on purpose to bypass the body's natural responses to tell you to stop eating. So it is hyper palatable. We activate as much of your sensors inside your mouth as we can to make it taste delicious. And we bypass the hormones that would tell your body to stop eating. So it tastes amazing. And your body never says stop eating it.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And these people were experts, experts in creating addiction.
They knew what they were doing and they knew exactly how to create a very long lasting and returning customer.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: And we're all still walking around and we can see the effects of it.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: Well, one of those things is high fructose corn syrup.
So fructose is an amazing little thing. And it tells your body more.
It does, actually worse than just not satisfying. It tells your body, eat more. This is a biologic response. It happens. Like fructose is contained in fruits and berries and stuff. Look at a bear in the fall, as it's preparing for winter, it starts eating things that have fructose in it and it kicks into eat more, more, more, more, more. And that's how they are able to store up calories for their hibernation in the winter. So you take high fructose corn syrup and that tells you eat more. So look at all of the products right now that have high fructose corn syrup.
That's one of the additives. That's one of the things that they put in there that tells you, ah, I should eat more of this. Like your body at the hormonal level, the way your body is reacting to the things with high fructose corn syrup is eat more. Right.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Well, the thing though that they do is they get you in the labeling. They get you on the front of that box. All natural, healthy choice, right? They get. They use words that are. That trigger to the consumer, this is good. It says it's all natural, everything in it.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: And while you're looking at his labels, that says all natural. But the broccoli doesn't.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: No, it didn't say anything.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: It doesn't say anything. Broccoli sitting there, just broccoli.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Broccoli.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: It's not labeled as all natural because it is.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: Doesn't need the label.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: All natural. It doesn't. You don't have to be told that broccoli is all natural.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: So opening a package is convenient. That is convenient. But in the long term, the inconvenience comes on the back end. The inconvenience comes whenever you're having to take multiple medications for, you know, being type 2 diabetic or having to deal with being overweight and your body just isn't working well for you anymore, even though you really thought that you were eating the all natural, healthy choice. You know, the alternative would be to find whole foods, go after the broccoli, go after the carrots, go after the steak, go after the thing that if it is what it always was and if it comes in a packaged box, what if we put the same thing on the packages of Nabisco crackers or on the packages of Oreos and we did that big black and white label like they did on the sides of cigarettes. Surgeon general, Surgeon general warning, this product will cause type 2 diabetes. And if we could go there and we put it on everything that has ultra processed foods in it. If it's got those, the four main.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Things, wheat flour, rice, may cause cancer is what they. May cause cancer on cigarettes or fine.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: May cause type 2 diabetes, may cause metabolic disorder, may cause obesity, may cause, you know, and do a surgeon general's warning.
And I think if we did that, then we could shut down some of the ultra. Now, some people still smoke and cigarette companies still make cigarettes, and that's okay. It's everybody's free choice. But how about we put a warning on there so that it becomes like, oh, why don't, like, want type 2 diabetes, you know? Well, I don't really like. It's just kind of in your face. Like people knew, began to know that cigarettes weren't healthy for you. But, like, when you put it in someone's face, it changes their behavior.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: And maybe if we put it in their face, our faces, then it would maybe just trigger us. Pause.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: First of all, let's get the heart healthy crap off of the box because we know that's not true.
We're learning that that's not true, and then. And get some warnings onto there. I think that could go a long way. Okay.
Myth number five.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: Myth number five. Organic is always better.
So this one is a bit nuanced.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: That's nuanced because I would say if you went back 15 years, that would be true.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: What's happening today, though, is a large percentage of the organic produce that is offered for sale in the stores in the United States is imported.
And of the imported produce that is labeled as organic, only 2% of that is USDA inspected.
So the nuance here is saying that it's always better. Organic can be better.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Oh, for sure. But the fact is, in our, in our grocery stores now, you don't know whether it's actually organic or not. Now, if it says product of the USA and organic, then the likelihood of that being grown by USDA standards under. Under the organic standards rules, it's higher. Yeah, but if it says product of another country, then the odds are 98% or the odds that it was not inspected. And therefore, we don't really know if it was raised under those practices or not.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: That's correct.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: Now, eating produce is a good thing.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: You know, good, better, best. So if we go over to the produce aisle and you've gotten away from the Nabisco aisle and you've gotten to the produce aisle, you're way better. You're way, way, way better. You know, but always better on organic, unfortunately, it's been greenwashed such to the point that it's really hard to know, I think, on.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: On this one. Local.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
If you're seasonal and local.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Well, if it is local, it is seasonal. Right.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Exactly.
Yeah. And I think that's what has led to where we are right now is a demand for year round everything.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: And the only way to get year round everything is to import it from the other side of the earth.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Where the weather is Different.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: True. That's true. So, man, as consumers, like, what can we do though? You know, it's a, it's a man, it's a fierce battle. When you go into the grocery store, it is, man. You walk past, you know, tables of donuts before you can even get in the store.
You know, you're like going to war just because you got to go get some food.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: And the first thing you're hit with is the smell. If any of you have ever shopped at a Publix, if you're from the South, Publix, you walk in, you're just wham. With the smell of the bakery. So it's difficult.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: It is difficult, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. And I think by exposing myths, at least you can make a decision.
Right. Like decide. And if you decide that you want to follow the food pyramid, that's fine, but don't do it because you think it's true. Right. Like do it because you've decided I want to eat that thing and not because I think it's healthier for me. I've, you know, like the. Come up, come up with your own thoughts about health and nutrition. And I think, don't just listen to, you know, these are the government guidelines that are given to me, you know, after lobbyists have paid millions of dollars to have things inserted, you know, like.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah, so buzzwords, if it says low fat or zero calorie or something that got you to go, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Like steer away from those buzzwords and steer towards those whole foods. Yeah, whole foods do not take convincing. And there aren't any buzzwords around them.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, but it doesn't, I mean, it doesn't mean that the regular sugar sweetened cookie is better than the zero calorie.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: Yeah. If it's an ultra processed food, it's an ultra processed food.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: At the end of the day, it's ultra processed and it's not, it's not great.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: Just try to avoid the ultra processed stuff if you can and just shoot for that. Those whole foods.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah, local whole foods, definitely. So there are counterarguments to the things that we've just talked about. One of those being that the food industry, they're just trying to make healthy things and make them accessible to everybody so that they can get them.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Okay. But there's a high profit margin on the end of that.
Profit motive. Profit motivation is always behind what a food processed food company is about. You know, they're going to tell you.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: Anything Go right back to the high fructose corn syrup.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: That's made from corn, which is highly government subsidized already.
So, you know, you've got a cheap product that's government subsidized that is inserted into a large amount of food that makes you want to eat more of it.
I just find that hard to believe that we're just trying to make things accessible.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Not everyone can afford or access local whole foods. Okay. There are food deserts. Yeah, there are food deserts in this country, which is unfortunate. And creating better, more localized, decentralized. If we could decentralize the food industry completely, maybe we would have less food deserts. It's centralized, and then it only goes where they send it. So if we could come back to decentralized local food systems, then maybe the food deserts would turn green again.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it can't hurt. It's got to get better.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: It's got to get better. You know, I get it when you're. They're shipping food into the cities, but if food was grown in those locales, some more food could be shipped into the cities.
It's not an easy. It. That. That part is not an easy problem.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: No, it's. It's not easy at all.
It's really not. And I think food is artificially cheap. It's not actually cheap. Food is hard to grow.
Food is not cheap to grow.
We didn't. We didn't realize how much so on both of those until we started doing it ourselves. And trying to grow good food at a. In a manner that you can still make a profit while growing good food is really hard.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Like, it's just. It's not. It's not easy. It's not cheap.
But neither is all of the hospital bills and all of the medications and all. Like, imagine if you could spend the money that you're currently spending on all of the medications on food.
Like if we could reverse it so that we're not treating a disability caused by eating cheap food. Right. Like, just reverse it. Just spend the money on the more expensive food, and then you don't have to spend the money on treating all of the illnesses and diseases that are caused by eating the cheap food.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: And this is exactly where Casey and Kelly Means have been.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: You know, his. His background in food and her background in medicine and where the two are intersecting in our nation is the food is creating the problem and the customer.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Well, yeah, Cali was for the health care system for Big Pharma as well. So he worked for Big Food and Big pharma. And so he saw on both ends of it how they're working together. Basically they're creating a customer for life.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: And the only way that we as humans, as Americans can really fight it is to get out of that system.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: Get out of it.
Choose whole food.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Step back. Eat local, eat good, eat healthy. Like real healthy.
Try, try out a ketogenic diet. Like give it a try.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Yeah, why not? Or Carnivore. That's huge. Now try something other than the standard American ultra processed make you sick diet. Try something else. Because we have been lied to. These are just five of the myths that we've been told through the course of our lives that have led all of us to a place where we're sick and we're tired.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
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