super interesting article just came out in the New York Times where they asked 10
Nutrition scientists about their pet peeves, the common nutrition myth they wish would die.
I already went through, I agree with some, I have questions about others, so let's take a
look. myth number one, fresh fruits and vegetables are always healthier than canned, Frozen or dried.
yeah, I agree this is a myth, there are specific studies looking at this and measuring and in
general, freezing is pretty good at keeping nutrient content, sometimes it's even better
than buying fresh because in reality we don't eat everything the day we buy it,
it sits in the fridge for a couple days and by the time we eat it, the Frozen product may
actually have more nutrition preserved because it degrades slower. so Studies have actually
measured and shown that. now, leafy greens may be a bit of an outlier, freezing things like spinach
can cause some nutrients, like some vitamins for example, their level can come down by 25% or so,
but depending how long your vegetables sit in the fridge if you buy them fresh, the
difference between refrigerated and Frozen isn't that big. the other factor of course is waste,
sometimes vegetables sit in the fridge too long, they go bad and we have to toss them, so buying
Frozen can actually result in saving some kaching and of course less environmental impact because
that's less food that gets produced only to be thrown away. now, one caveat of preserved food
are the additives, canned beans for example can come with a lot of sodium added and canned fruit
sometimes comes in this sugary, syrupy water, so those are some things to look out for, but in
general Frozen fruits and vegetables are pretty good options. myth number two, all fat is bad.
yeah this is a relic from the 20th century, from last century, and I still see this here and there
on social media. I think what happens is sometimes people lose weight on a low-fat diet and then they
get told, see, it was the fat you took out that's unhealthy. it's not, we can lose weight on all
kinds of diets, it doesn't necessarily mean that the thing we left out is automatically unhealthy,
you just cut out a source of calories, eating too many calories is bad for us, whether it's
from fat or not. one problem with the fat phobia is people can be drawn to buy and consume Ultra
processed foods labeled low-fat or no fat added and end up eating a lot of refined carbohydrates,
I know most viewers of this channel wouldn't fall for that but that's a pretty common problem. now,
some people like to eat low-fat diets mostly from Whole Foods and that's completely fine as a
personal preference but we don't have to fear fat, the question is not so much the amount of fat,
it's the type of fat. as the professor of medicine from UCLA who contributed this section writes,
saturated and trans fats can increase your risk of heart disease or stroke while healthy fats like
mono and polyunsaturated help reduce risk. so, vegetable oils, avocados, nuts seeds, fatty fish
Etc. we've actually covered this topic in a lot of previous content, we went over all the evidence,
all the cohort studies, all the trials, so we're not going to spend too much time on this,
we're going to move on to myth number three, and I know there's still uncertainty because we hear all
kinds of things on social media but we're going to keep going over the evidence in the future and
we'll bring on as many lipid researchers as we need so people have clarity and are satisfied on
all this, all right? myth number three, calories in calories out is the most important factor for
long-term weight gain. okay, so this one I found strange, I read it several times, it's still not
clear to me exactly what he means. this one was contributed by Dariush mozaffarian who's
a professor of nutrition at Tufts, and he says the critical thing for weight loss is avoiding Ultra
processed foods, I agree with that in general, and he recommends a shift from counting calories
to prioritizing healthy eating overall, quality over quantity. agree 100%. focusing on healthy
foods tends to take care of the calorie problem. I just think the title is weird, how he worded it,
the myth he chose, right? calories in calories out being the most important factor for weight gain,
that's the top myth for him. it's true that conscious focus on calories doesn't seem helpful
for most people but that doesn't mean calories in calories out isn't a key factor. in fact,
we know that eating Ultra processed foods leads to over consumption of calories, so they're not
mutually exclusive, I think his wording conflates best approaches with what the underlying
physiological factors might be. but let me know in the comments if you disagree and if you interpret
his words differently. I agree with his bottom line though, minimizing Ultra processed foods in
general and focusing on Quality Foods. it's just I would have worded the myth as something like,
focusing on calories is the best approach for weight loss, or trying to eat less is the best
approach for weight loss, something like that, and then explain that it's better to focus on eating
better instead of eating less. myth number four, people with type 2 diabetes shouldn't eat fruit.
yeah this is a pretty common one to hear, I think it comes from fruit containing sugars,
even though they're natural sugars in the food Matrix with fiber but there's this notion that
sugars of any Source are bad for diabetes. I don't have a 100% black and white position on this,
the balance of evidence doesn't seem to support that whole fruit is a problem for diabetics. we
know people who eat more fruit tend to have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes and
type 2 diabetics who eat more fruit tend to have a lower risk of complications and even
mortality. now, we can always argue, well, maybe it's some other healthy habit that they have,
it's not the fruit itself, so we also want to see, ideally, when available,
some randomized trials. I've seen a few trials specifically looking at whole fruit separate from
vegetables in a population with type 2 diabetes. this one for example told half the participants to
eat a bit more fruit and the other half to eat a little bit less, and after three months they
didn't see a significant difference in body weight or hemoglobin A1c, which is an average of the
glucose levels over the long run. several caveats of this study that lower my confidence a little,
for example the difference in Fruit intake was subtle, before the trial they ate about 190 grams
of fruit a day average, which is the equivalent of a medium Apple, and during the trial one group
went up to 320 grams a day and the other came down to 135, so it's like comparing an apple and a half
to two-thirds of an Apple. so the trial is saying that in the background of a whole dietary pattern,
eating a little more than an apple a day versus a little less than an apple in type 2 diabetics
doesn't seem to make a big difference for glucose levels and I have no trouble
believing that. I'm not knocking the trial, this is a common hurdle, getting people to
achieve significantly different levels of intake, what we call contrast of exposure. in an Ideal
world we'd like to see one group eat no fruit or close to it and the other group eat five or six
pieces a day, and if we still see no difference, then that's pretty compelling that Fruit by itself
doesn't seem to play a huge role. another source of uncertainty is they don't specify what people
ate instead of the fruit. fruit normally replaces other desserts or snacks so people cutting back
on fruit might eat something worse instead. another factor to bear in mind is heterogeneity.
just saying "fruit" is a very large category, I think it's entirely possible that different fruits
may have different effects, particularly for people with defective metabolism like diabetics.
for example, in this study, blueberries, bananas, apples and pears and grapefruit were associated
with lower type 2 diabetes risk, peaches and oranges with no significant difference and
cantaloupe was associated with a higher risk of type 2. usual caveats apply, I'm not saying this
demonstrates cause and effect and cantaloupes make us diabetic but I think this raises the
possibility of heterogeneity between fruit types. so what about trials looking at specific fruits?
I've seen some with berries for example, and they generally seem to improve metabolic parameters
like glucose, insulin and inflammatory markers, both in diabetics and in healthy people. I've also
seen some trials with grapes meta-analyzed and they don't find a significant effect on glucose or
insulin of whole grapes, although the trials that looked at whole grapes were not in diabetics, they
were in healthy people. also seen a couple trials with dates, generally finding lower glycemia and
no significant change in hemoglobin A1c. so the data I've seen doesn't point to a clear issue
with fruit in type 2 diabetics, with the usual uncertainty around types of fruit and amount and
replacement Etc. as we discussed recently with Dr Nicola guess, the main factor for type 2 diabetes
remission is weight loss and people have different strategies for that, some people put type 2
diabetes in remission with high fruit diets, others with low carb diets where they have some
low carb fruits like berries and they generally avoid more sugary fruits like mangoes and bananas.
both approaches can work, at least for weight loss and type 2 diabetes remission. so overall I agree
the statement "diabetics shouldn't eat fruit" is not supported by the evidence. at the same time,
I don't think it's unreasonable necessarily for some diabetics to choose a strategy where they
focus on specific fruits or even where they reduce the amount of fruit they were eating before,
depending on specifics, I think it's less about whether you eat fruit or not and more about
what you eat instead. I think this gets into the obsession with glucose levels to the point where
we lose track of big picture, overall health including glucose levels and dietary pattern,
healthy overall whether it includes a little bit more or a little bit less fruit. okay,
myth number five, plant milk is healthier than cow milk, and the professor who wrote this one,
she's very categorical, she says "it's just not true". I'm less sure than she is, I would say
that I'm agnostic on this question because I just haven't seen Health outcome data on plant milks.
I see a lot of people jumping to conclusions on this, seems to be a very emotional issue,
some people saying, well, of course the plant milk is going to be healthier, it's from a plant,
it's not from an animal. and some people say the opposite, of course it's going to be unhealthier,
it's a processed food. I don't find either of these arguments compelling, it's not true that
all animal foods are unhealthy or even that all processed foods are unhealthy, so to me it just
sounds like logical leaps. it's one thing to say, my general strategy is to avoid processed foods,
cool, don't see a problem with that, or, in general Ultra processed foods aren't great
Staples. agree with that. it's a completely different statement to say "we know that this
product is less healthy than that product" when we lack the evidence for it. it's okay to say
"we don't know", we should normalize saying "we don't have the data on that yet, we're waiting".
we don't have to rush to form an unshakable opinion on every question before we go
through the evidence, I know that's what social media promotes, the algorithm,
but I don't think that's very productive. now, the writer of the section offers a couple arguments,
one is protein content, Which is higher in cow milk than in Almond or oat milk,
but for example soy milk has as much protein as cow milk, depending on the brand it even has more,
I just don't think protein content necessarily equates with healthier product. now, if you have
someone getting a substantial amount of their protein from cow milk and they do a one-to-one
swap, volume for volume, with oat milk and they don't change anything else about their diet, yeah,
you might run into some problems there, especially if it's like a child, right? so I agree with that.
I just don't think it's as simple as "this food is healthier, period". the scientist also points out
many plant milks have added stuff like sodium and added sugars. I think it's totally fine to
point that out and to bear that in mind, it just doesn't tell me which product is healthier. which
milk product leads to better health? I don't know. happy to lean in either direction when the solid
evidence comes out. I don't consume either one so I don't have a horse in this race. and I, honestly
wouldn't surprise me if the data pointed in either direction or if the data showed that they're about
equal, none of it would blow me away. bottom line, if the argument is that assuming plant milk must
be healthier is not justified, then I agree. myth number six, white potatoes are bad for you. this
is another one where I don't quite share the level of confidence of the writer, to make this a top
myth. in part potatoes get a bed rep because in the west most people tend to eat them fried. when
method of preparation is accounted for, French fries are associated with worse outcomes. as far
as non-fried, baked or boiled or mashed potatoes, I've seen a bit of mixed evidence, many studies
don't show a significant effect but I've seen one or two that show a statistically significant
increase in, for example, risk of type 2 diabetes with intake of non-fried potatoes. lots of
uncertainty with this, very small effect, haven't seen any trials pointing in the same direction,
could it be the gravy or the sour cream or whatever people put on potatoes? absolutely. if I
had to guess, a baked potato or a boiled potato here and there in a healthy dietary pattern,
I'd be surprised if it's a big deal but I'm not at this level of confidence, I wouldn't put it
as a top myth. open to being convinced though, if there's a strong balance of evidence. myth number
seven, never give peanuts to small kids. right, this used to be the recommendation but it changed,
there was a fascinating randomized trial published in 2015, giving little kids under one-year-old
peanut products like peanut butter lowered their risk of developing peanut allergy by several fold,
it was a stunning result. as a result of this trial and other evidence, the guidelines changed
and introduction of peanut products early on is now recommended, especially in kids with eczema
and other hints that they might go on to develop a peanut allergy. there's even some evidence that
existing peanut allergy can be put in remission with a very gradual, very careful reintroduction
of the allergen, of peanut proteins. we've covered this in previous videos, there's some
very striking evidence showing 74 percent of kids with peanut allergies achieving remission after
this treatment. obviously, if your child has peanut allergy, don't start giving them peanuts
on your own randomly without medical supervision, all right? this is a very specific, very careful
process. I'm going to say that again, do not give kids with peanut allergies peanuts on your
own randomly without medical supervision. but in general, introducing these foods early in life is
now recommended and it's thought not only to not be a problem but to actually reduce the risk of
developing the allergy. myth number eight, plant protein is incomplete. this one was contributed
by Christopher Gardner who is a Stanford professor and we had him on not too long ago on the channel.
we're not going to spend a ton of time on this because we have a lot of videos going into this
in detail, all plants contain all nine essential amino acids, it's the proportion that varies,
if your whole diet is one plant all day every day, like in some developing countries, eighty
percent of the calories come from wheat, yeah you might run into problems, you might not get enough
of some essential amino acids, otherwise, if you have a diverse diet, some vegetables, some beans,
some grains, and you're getting enough calories, not a problem. there are a lot of trials now
looking at muscle growth which is a pretty high bar for protein adequacy, and even comparing
people getting all of their protein from plants versus omnivores, they don't find a statistically
significant difference in muscle growth as long as people are getting enough protein overall. one
amino acid that seems particularly important is leucine so see our protein videos for more
details on that. myth number nine, soy raises risk of breast cancer. yeah this is common one to hear,
these concerns with soy and hormones stem from the fact that soy contains phytoestrogens which
are molecules that bear some resemblance to mammalian estrogen, and we have a whole video on
this looking at testosterone levels and man boobs and all that. the key to this whole dilemma is
that phytoestrogens are kind of like a two-faced molecule, in some tissues they act like estrogen
while in other tissues they do the opposite. so we actually have to look at what happens in
a living breathing human in order to know what the health effect of the food is. studies find,
if anything, an inverse correlation between breast cancer and consumption of soy and isoflavones,
which are some of these phytoestrogens in soy, so people eating the most soy, the most isoflavones,
have, if anything, lower risk of breast cancer, better survival rates and lower
risk of recurrence. and the trials that have been carried out looking at breast cancer markers also
don't support the notion that soy or isoflavone consumption promotes breast cancer growth.
concerns about soy and hormones also stem from some work in mice showing faster tumor growth,
so it's just another example that animal research can be very important for hypothesis generation
but it doesn't necessarily reflect what happens in a human so at the end of the day we want to look
at human data. I would summarize the evidence conservatively, I would say the balance of
evidence does not support this concern with soy and breast cancer. and finally myth number 10,
nutrition advice keeps changing. Professor Marion Nestle explains that since the 1950s,
dietary recommendations have been basically similar on the fundamentals, not going overboard
on calories and minimizing saturated fat and added salt and sugar. of course there's lots of
research ongoing and nutrition scientists are not unemployed and views on specific questions evolve,
just like we saw with the peanut example and timing of introduction for kids,
but the notion that nutrition science as a whole, the whole field keeps doing 180s every week,
is just not true. headlines and social media can give that impression but that's not an accurate
reflection of how science in general evolves. now, I've noticed a lot of people asking this question
recently: if the guidelines have been the same, essentially the same, for decades, and if we're
getting sicker, at least in the west, especially in the U.S, doesn't that mean the guidelines are
wrong? so we have a whole video addressing this question coming very soon so stay tuned. so out
of the 10 myths I agree with the authors on most of them, there's maybe three or four that I have
doubts about, I have questions. let me know in the comments how many you agree with. here's more
detail on protein and bioavailability and here's more on soy and hormones, I'll see you over there