Episode 191 Transcript
SUMMARY:
Michael Pollan's Background and Critique 4:41
Determinants of Health 26:50
Organic Food Misconceptions 35:32
Reconciling Social Determinants and Personal Health 40:14
Critique of Michael Pollan's Advice 48:04
The Role of Social Determinants in Health 56:27
The Impact of Social Determinants on Health 56:41
The Importance of Critical Thinking in Health Advice 56:56
The Role of Systemic Changes in Health 1:03:10
Read the transcript alongside the audio.
Vinny Welsby 0:00
You're listening to The Fierce Fatty Podcast episode 191, Michael Pollan, organic food and determinants of health. Let's do it.
You. Hello. Welcome to the face value podcast. So excited to see you here. So excited to see you. I don't see you. I don't even hear you. You're hearing me. I'm excited you're here. Thanks for being here and tuning in. My name is Vinny. If you've not listened to the podcast before, my pronouns are they them. And today we're answering a listener question. I was like, oh so good. I need to put this into a podcast. And we're talking about a food journalist, or journalist in general, called Michael Pollan. If you've not heard of him, Don't worry, I'll give you the Goss. And also talking about organic food and determinants of health, my voice sounds very deep and sexy at the moment. I said that to my friend, and he was like, No, you just sound sick. I just got off a week of feeling sick. So, yeah, it's not covid, thankfully, by the way, did you know if you test for covid on day one of symptoms, there's something like a 75% chance you'll get a false negative, and then day two, it's slightly lower, but you have to test multiple times during your symptoms, and you might not even get the correct positive result. So anyway, I tested three times throughout my symptoms, and it's not covid, but still I'm sick. Anyway, bloody blue, blue, blue. If you like the show and you want to support it, then you can go to Kofi forward slash fierce fatty be in the show notes. If you want to buy me a coffee or whatever, you don't have to. I'm not the boss of you. Let's listen to this. This question from Brittany. Brittany asks, I have a question that I'd love your thoughts on, or maybe it could be a good podcast topic. Yes, it is. Brittany, I'm well aware that social determinants of health have a huge impact on our health and bodies, and that we need major systemic changes so that everyone has the same access to food, health care, less stressful. Lives free, less stressful lives free from discrimination, jobs that allow time to care for ourselves and all the other things that make, quote, being healthy. So very difficult. I'm trying to do my part to help dismantle all those system systemic problems, but very few of them actually apply to me. I'm a white, cis, Apple middle class woman who has access to good healthcare and time in my schedule to do the things that are in my control. I know it isn't as simple as just doing all the right things, but at the same time, I'm still fat, and I have a couple of of the quote, lifestyle diseases that get blamed on the O word. Much of the messaging around social determinants of health comes across as quote, you don't have to blame yourself for being, quote, unhealthy if you don't have access to organic foods, etc. But I do have access to organic foods, etc. How do I reconcile this? This came up after a discussion where someone I know who is thin, white, cis man read Michael Pollan, and the message he took away from the book was, I can see that he's elitist and unrealistic if you aren't in the position he's in, but we are. So doesn't that mean we should do what he says, other than pointing out how that reeks of privilege, and arguing that if he has the extra time and money to buy all organic food and pay for fancy workouts, he could do slightly fewer of those things and funnel money into organizations that are trying to make sure everyone has that opportunity, I didn't know exactly how to counter his argument that if None of the social determinants of health? Are that that are damaging to apply to you you should be healthy. Is he right? Is it possible to be perfect to is it possible to perfect your health if you don't have to battle with so many of the things that most people do have to battle? I recognize that even asking this question points out my privilege too, but I would love to be able to educate the people in my life who don't quite see how lucky they are and how nuanced this topic it is. I love your work, and it has helped me so much in my journey. I would appreciate hearing your perspective on all this, if you have a time, energy, bandwidth, to weigh in. Thanks, Brittany. Well, thank you, Brittany, for such an amazing question. And you know what? When you said, Michael Pollan, my first thought was that other Michael, that's from the UK. What was his name? He died recently in a kind of weird accident in Greece, or something, where he went out walking and then he he died from the heat. Michael, Michael, what was his name? I know Brooke. People are like, his name's this Michael Moseley. That's Michael. Michael Moseley is kind of the was the British answer to Dr Oz, kind of fear mongering, anti fats, diet culture, Doctor Who is not a doctor in nutrition or has any idea about it, and hated fat people. And anyway, so I thought that was it Michael Mosley were talking about, but it's Michael Pollan, who is an American person who, after me looking into him, is not far off from this idea of, you know, he doesn't have that trashy aura of like, you know, this is obviously trashy, bad, bad journalism. Michael Mosley did have that kind of trashy element. Whereas Michael Pollan, it's more difficult to pull out the BS, you know, you doesn't have books like books like lose 50 pounds in three minutes. Michael Pollan is more of a serious journalist, so I can see why it's difficult to pull out the BS. So first off, I just want to look into like, who Michael Pollan is, and just a little bit of a Google Michael Pollan website. And one of the first things on the on his website is a advert for his masterclass. So, you know, the the brand masterclass where, you know, they get celebrities to do a lesson on how to and like Oprah would do a lesson on how to be a like Oprah or whatever, or whatever the person's expertise are. So he has one. And so it's a short advert, and I watched it. The first thing that he says, This is so this is she wrote down word for word, everything you said in this advert. Food companies don't want to satisfy you. They want to addict you. We have to resist that. So first so I went in, and also, I don't really know who this Michael Pollan is. Is he? Is he a diet culture schlepper, or what? As soon as I heard that one sentence, I was like, Oh, my girl, so food companies want to addict you. So first off, he's saying that food addiction is a thing, and food companies want to make their food delicious, right? Obviously, food companies are not like, okay, okay, everyone they're in the board meeting. They're like, All right, so girlies, how do we make our food taste not as good? Let's think about it. Let's think about what flavors can we take out? Okay, no, obviously, food companies want their food to taste good. So anyway, but I there's they're not, I doubt that they're in, you know, their quarterly meetings being like, how many addicts have we got this month? Come on, let's see. What quarter how many more addictions do we have to our food No, so food addiction, I've got a whole episode on it. Food addiction is not real. The reason why we know that food addiction is not real is if you look at the studies that show that we have a reaction in our brain when we have food or sugar, it's the same types of reactions that we'd have if we saw a picture of a puppy or hugged a friend, or, you know, if we're eating things or experience pleasurable things, those centers are going to be lighting up in our brain. The studies they've done were on rats, Non Humans, and if you think about if something is addicting, what happens if you have more access to that? Or will you want what you want? More access to the to the thing, and you feel obsessed. And so it's understandable to think, aha, we're addicted to this thing. But with food, if you increase the access those addiction, sensations and feelings disappear, the more access you are granted to that thing, food, sugar, whatever it is. Whereas with something that is actually addictive, those feelings of addiction, because they are actually addictive, don't go away. They increase, right? You know, it's just like a spiral. So already we're after a bad start here. Mike, we're after a bad start. The next line, he says, this class is not about learning some short term new diet. Now, does this sound familiar to you? How many diets have said we are not a diet, babe. Okay, listen, we're not like those over those nasty fad diets. We're No, we're the real deal. This is a lifestyle change. What's the next line? He says, this is really about a sustainable way of eating, long term lifestyle change. We should have like a bingo of, is this a diet? A bingo card, of all the things that are going to say, this is a lifestyle change, this is not a diet. The other things don't. Work, but we work. We allow you to eat your foods. We don't like shame. He said, all of them next. He says, I have written about agriculture, nutrition, cooking, and this is everything I know about food. Okay, great. He's a journalist, so he's written books about those things. Does that make him a nutritionist? No, no, it doesn't
the best wisdom we have. He says can be reduced to seven words, okay, what are those seven words, eat, food? Oh, okay, yeah. Love it. Not too much. No, mostly plants is this the best wisdom that we have? Michael, I don't think so. Michael, Michael, Michael, the best, but the best wisdom is where this is the best wisdom, real food, eat food, but not too much, and mostly plants. This sounds like innocuous, and by the way, I should have given a trick or one at the beginning. We're going to be talking about this, this food bullshit, right? So this is not feeling good, and you don't want to be exposed to these messages, even though I am going through telling you why they're bullshit. If you don't want to be exposed, don't. Don't listen to the rest of the episode. I'll put a trigger winning one on the show notes. So if it's not feeling good, yeah, don't. Don't listen. Don't listen, don't listen, because this stuff is really harmful, honestly. So eat food. This is so easy to be like. This is reasonable. Obviously, eat food, not too much, mostly. Plus he sounds he's, he's the way, the way he's talking about is, is like, this is revolutionary. Stuff like this has not been said to us for decades and decades and decades, and the reporting that he does, I'll show you in a second, but we don't. It's not supported. It's not it's not support. It's supported by anecdotal evidence, from what I can see so far. So this is the best wisdom we have can be reduced to seven words. It might as well read the best and wisdom we have to help you trigger disordered eating. Eat food, not too much. Eat plants, mostly plants. Now there's nothing wrong with eating plants, as you may know, I was vegetarian for like, seven, eight years, and then I started slowly eating meat. And that happened a few couple of years ago, and still, I'm very don't eat that much meat for ethical reasons, and I'm just not that interested in meat. So I'm not anti being a vegetarian or vegan or whatever. However, we know that a lot of people are using vegetarianism veganism, or that some people will have will say, you should say plant based. I think plant based is more than movement, or maybe vegetarianism is the more the movement anyway, a lot of people do use that as a way of restricting and a way of restricting without, without getting called in for maybe being in an eating disorder or engaging in disordered eating, because there's an ethical component. And absolutely, you can be a vegetarian or vegan and not be disordered eater, in eater or have an eating disorder, absolutely, and also you can be vegetarian or vegan and also have an eating disorder, and sometimes it might be a good way to hide disordered eating under the ethics. So it's kind of a complicated story. A lot of people say, Well, if you're vegetarian or vegan, 100% you have an eating disorder. I don't believe that at all. Obviously, as someone who was vegetarian for many years, and also probably did feel a huge sense of superiority, not, probably did. It did feel a huge sense of superiority, of like, I'm a vegetarian, so I'm healthy, and that's, you know, that's bullshit. That's healthism. And is it true? No, because I have different health conditions, which hasn't changed because I do or do not eat meat. But saying that too, eating plants and vegetables is not a bad thing, unless you're becoming obsessed with it, right? Unless it's becoming a disordered eating eating disorder. So anyway, the words on the screen say, learn to eat wisely so, and then he's like, join the masterclass. Blah, blah, blah, bye. Thanks, babes. So all of this seems very reasonable, doesn't it, doesn't it, doesn't it. This is, this is why we have to be very, very discerning with listening to these types of messages. Because it's, it's easy to be like, Okay, Mr. Michael, you sounding like? This sounds all reasonable. Yeah. I, you know. I want to get behind, supporting. I. Uh, you know, eating, I don't know well, or whatever it is that's drawing you to him. But then we kind of scratch the surface a little bit, and it's for me, red flag Central. So you can go to the masterclass thing, and you can read this transcripts from the or you can probably watch the videos too. But I was looking at the transcripts just for a little lucky look to see what came up. And so the first one from lesson two. The lesson two is, rethink your relationship with food. And I was like, oh, okay, oh, let's check this out. So basically, let me read this first. The intro. The Western diet is a term that nutritionists used to describe basically the way that we eat. And when I say we, I mean people in America, but also now, increasingly, people all over the world. It's characterized by lots of sugar. This is just so fucking triggering sugar, refined flours, oil, cooking oil, vegetable oil, lots of meat and very little whole grain, very little fruits and vegetables. Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? What's the evidence we have here? What's What's no links to studies and Okay, say if every single American eats lots of sugar, lots of flour, lots of oil, whatever does is that, what does that mean? What does that mean? And well, he tells us, and that way of eating is closely associated with no coincidence, the Western diseases, a term also coined by nutritionists. What are the Western diseases? Okay, put your bets. Bets, bets, bets, bets. What are the Western diseases that Michael is talking about? Place your bets. Okay, have you placed your bet? These are o word, type two diabetes, oh, several types of cancer that are linked to diet and cardiovascular disease, which includes stroke for fuck sake. What a load of bullshit. What a load of bullshit. Well, first off, oh, word isn't a disease. Type Two Diabetes is almost exclusive, exclusively a genetic condition. People who happen to be racialized are higher risk of of getting Type Two Diabetes, not because of their diet or what they do is genetic. You can't eat your way into getting cancer, so it's just such a load of dog shit. And this is not new stuff. This is the same old diet culture bullshit that we've been hearing for decades, being repackaged into slightly less egregiously harmful wording on the outside, but then going straight in, Americans are fat, and it's because we eat we, as in him, are saying that Americans are eating too much sugar or whatever it is, meat or whatever. Okay, Michael, so the next, the next module that I looked at was, I was like, Okay, well, let's see what he says about not too much. Okay, so one of the modules is called Eat and not too much, not too much. So he starts off with, I want to say that eating disorders of all kind are a serious concern, and anyone dealing with them should seek medical support. But here I want to focus on overeating. You know what? It's kind of like, you know the smile with the with the with the dagger to the side, you know, like I'm your friend. But listen up here, you fat losers, you know? O, word is a very big public concern today in many countries, and then he goes just more bullshit. Bullshit increases your risk for type two diabetes, for covid, for a host of chronic diseases. Okay, so we've done many episodes about these types of things. We even did one for covid. So for covid, what? What happened? What turned out? Okay, so it increases your risk for covid, which is absolute bullshit. What he's trying to say is it increases risk of adverse outcomes for covid, is what he's trying to say, which is also coated in a lot of bullshit. So with covid, if you want to go to Hayes health, sheets, H, A, E, S, if any of these things are triggering you and you want to learn, like the DL on on the real deal behind what's going on with diseases or conditions associated with fatness, and again, associated is huge work. Word. We do not have the evidence to show that having more adipose tissue on your body causes these conditions. So anyway, so with covid, what we found was that, so we rewind a little bit, h1 n1 bird flu, there was a big study to show that being fat meant that you had worse outcomes if you got a h1 n1
they. Did, then a analysis and looked at, why could that be? Is it because fat people are just, you know, so unhealthy that, you know, we just die left, right and center? Or could something else be going on? Surprise, fucking surprise. What was going on is that the healthcare, the healthcare providers were biased in their treatment of fat folks. Fat people were getting worse treatment. They were getting put on ventilation later. They were basically experiencing poor health outcomes because of the biased treatment from the healthcare provider in places where fat people got equal access to people with smaller bodies, the outcome was the same, if not better, than people in smaller bodies. And that's what we found with covid as well. Because, you know, all of this fear mongering, you know, fat people are more at risk, and it's because of the fear mongering that tells us that fat people are, you know, have worse outcomes. And then, you know, healthcare providers obviously have that message of fat people have worse outcomes and, and it's a self fulfilling prophecy, right? So, yeah. So just a little look at his course is full of total old snooze fest, boring bullshit. I looked at, he's got many books. One of his books is called In Defense of Food. Actually, that's one of one of his shows which, it's a book that was made into a show. He has a show, Food, Inc. You might have seen it on Netflix. I hope you never watch it. I didn't watch it, but it's just filled with a lot of diet culture. So a synopsis of this, this documentary, which is a book in defense of food, if I just saw a title in defense of food, I'd be like, Okay, what's this about? Are you going to be like, listen, eat some food. It's great. No. In Defense of Food, the PBS documentary, based on the book, takes viewers on a fascinating journey to answer the question, What should I eat to be healthy, cutting through confusion and busting myths and misconceptions. Of film shows how common sense old fashioned wisdom can help us rediscover the pleasures of eating and avoid the chronic diseases so often associated with a modern diet. How are we still talking about this stuff? Michael Pollan's journey of discovery takes him from the plains of Tanzania, where one of the world's last remaining tribes of hunter gatherers still eats away our ancestors did to lo Melinda, California, where a group of Seventh Day Adventist vegetarians live longer than almost anyone else on Earth. Listen, I hope you're spotting this while I'm reading this. This is popping up to you. This group of people live longer than anyone else on Earth. This group of people eat the last hunter gatherers. So because someone is a hunter gatherer, we I don't know what's assumed that they are healthier or they have less disease, or they live longer, but they've said it for the group of vegetarians, they live longer than almost anywhere else on Earth. The basic, the basic thing that that that should be popping up here is anything else going on, anything, anything else that's going on with this group of seven days Adventist vegetarians. Is it just vegetarianism? That means that they live longer anyone than anyone else on earth. How? How many people are in this group? Is it just a handful of people? How many of them related? What else is going on in their lives? Do they happen to be white, well educated, with access to health care? Do they are they privileged in other ways? What else is going on? Oh, definitely, it's like the vegetarian it's vegetarianism definitely, along the way, he shows how a combination of faulty nutrition science and deceptive marketing practices have encouraged us to replace real food. What the fuck is real food with scientifically engineered food like substances? Oh, fuck off. Food like substances. What are you fucking talking about? Is it food? Can you eat it? Can you eat it? Is it gonna give you nutrition pleasure? Is it gonna satiate you? Is it gonna poison you? You know, if you can eat it. It's food. Food like substances, and just because something is engineered doesn't mean that it's not real, honestly. And he explains why the solution for our dietary woes, what dietary woes is, in fact, must be remarkably simple. Of course, it is. It's so simple, eat food, not too much, mostly plants. So simple. Oh my goodness, if only we all listened to Michael Pollan and we would be thin and healthy on the environment anyway. So that's Michael Pollan. And actually, I had, I remembered that I had heard a listen to something that he was a. Before because he'd written a book, he'd written a book on psychedelics, and so I was listening to a show on YouTube where he was talking about psychedelics and stuff, and that kind of like entertainment thing of, okay, this is a journalist. He's kind of bringing together stories to kind of create this narrative that is interesting to us. And so, you know, psychedelics, I'm, I'm interested in psychedelics in regards to healthcare, and also, probably, it's a lot of overblown. Is psychedelics going to cure everyone and everyone, everyone, no one's gonna have mental health problems anymore, and people who've got treatment resistant depression, everyone, they're going to be, they're going to have wonderful results. And blah, blah, blah is a lot of hype. Probably, could it help some people probably, who knows, but it's interesting, right? And it's, it's a topic that people are curious about, and so that's why I watch his video. And he's presenting in a way that's interesting, because he's telling stories, same with his book. So that's one of his what he does, but the rest of his stuff is a lot about food, and so I understand this stuff is interesting. He's a journalist. He's a good writer. He's telling stories. So of course, it's, it's so easy to get swept up in that stuff. Of well, he went to some tribe who are the last hunter gatherers, and this is what he found. So therefore, versus looking at actual evidence and studies and not boiling it down to it's simple. We all know. We've heard that. We all know so many times. Okay, so that's Michael Pollan, and Brittany also talks about the determinants of health. So the determinants of health, I've spoken about it in another podcast. I have a post on Instagram that goes into the determinants of health, but go INVO, G, O, I, N, V, o.com,
search, go INVO and then determinants of health, and you'll get a really good visual of the determinants of health. So I'm gonna go there, and I'm gonna talk to you about this. Okay, so go INVO identified this gap. Okay, so let me read the whole thing. Determinants of Health. Health is more than medical care. 89% of health occurs outside of the clinical space, through our genetic behavior, environment and social circumstances. These factors are known as the social determinants of health. Despite their importance, attempts to integrate the determinants into a single visualization has been limited. Go INVO identified this gap based on their extensive work as healthcare design studio, and conducted a literature review of sources World Health Organization and the Kaiser Family Foundation, and face to face interviews with public policy analysis health IT experts and Clinical Professionals relying on their expertise of mapping complex systems within healthcare, goinvo created a comprehensive open source visualization of the social determinants of health. Okay, so this is, this is work that they've been doing taking information from 2017 2018 etc. And so you can go and look at their methodology, and it's in Spanish too, and their references and blah, blah, blah. So basically, what we know as what makes up someone's health, what we know as in, in quotation marks, is like Michael Bollen says it's simple, eat less, exercise more, maybe drink water. You know, we are, that's what we need to do. Turns out, turns out, turns out, who would have believed it? Who would have thought it? It's a little bit more complex than that. So we have individual behavior that makes up 36% of the determinants of health, social circumstances make up. 24% genetics and biology, 22% medical care, 11% environment, 7% okay, so individual behavior, that's the food we eat and how much we exercise. All meals away. Well, no, well yes, in some ways, but it's not the it's not like the 100% or 90% that we thought. It's things like psychological assets. So that's conscientiousness level, the self, self efficacy, optimism, level, life satisfaction, level, cognitive, cognitive function in late life, net negative, mood and effects. And that is stress level, hopelessness level, anxiety level, depression level, other risk related behavior, gun behavior, sexual activity, motor vehicle behavior. And then we have the categories of physical activity, sleep patterns and diet patterns. Now we're not breaking down in physical activity and diet patterns. They don't break. On what that means they do. They probably do in but in this, in this overview, they've not broken it down, so they're not saying, okay, diet patterns, exactly what Michael Pollan said. Only eat plant based, eat less, whatever. So let's look. Let's dive in. Let's dive in a little bit more, and let's dive in a little bit more so of this individual behavior, which is only 36% it's broken down into those six categories, and diet and physical activity is 111, each. So that makes 3% okay, so 3% and this is, by the way, this you could say, okay, my sleep, my diet, my physical activity, my negative mood and outfits, my blah, blah, blah, it's all perfect. That does not mean that you're gonna have perfect health outcomes. These are determinants. These are what we've seen in populations determines better health outcomes, but it's not a do ABC and you're never going to die, right? So just keep that in mind. So we've got 3% but hang on. Michael Pollan says that. Well, what does he What does he say? I don't know if he says that if you eat these things and you're going to be healthy Actually, no, this is like how to eat healthy food. But does that make up a huge portion of what our health outcomes are? No, no. So when we're thinking about health, we can think about if we want to food and physical activity, and it will be things like access to enough food, access to reliable source of food, access to food that brings you joy and access to things that are nutritionally dense and can support our health outcomes in whatever way that means. So, for example, if you are allergic to shellfish, that you don't eat shellfish, right? Or if you are an epileptic, epileptic child, that you might want to do the keto diet, because that helps with that, right? So it's not just, did you eat a lettuce today? Right? It's all of it is more complicated than that, and something that's going to be good for one person isn't is going to be terrible for another person. So Michael Pollan saying this one thing, okay, this is, this is, this is, it's simple. It's simple. Is it? Michael, is it simple? Okay, so, so then, when we're talking about health, we also need to think about the all the other things. So individual behavior is 36% what about social circumstances? 24% and by the way, individual behavior, we also, I forgot to mention here a drug use. Did I forget to mention that anyway, individual behavior, when we think about psychological like psychological assets and negative mood and affects, is that something that we can change, for example, your stress level, your hopelessness level, your anxiety level, your depression level, so are those things that you can change? And sometimes yes, sometimes no, so that's individual behavior which is also not necessarily things that we can change. So social, social circumstances. What is social circumstances? Gender identity, military service, sexual orientation, citizenship status, race and ethnicity, social status, occupation, language and literacy, level, your income, your family income, your religious involvement, your culture and tradition, your history of incarceration, work conditions, discrimination, early childhood education, social connectedness, etc, right? So we do not think about when we say, let's be healthy. We don't say, hey, maybe let's not engage in maybe let's wear a seatbelt while we're driving. Maybe let's become a citizen and we're going to be more healthy. Maybe, let's not be around guns, and we'll be more healthy. Maybe, you know, that's not how we talk about health. But these are, you know, equal to diet and physical activity, right? So we have other things, physical environment, that is 7% so that's things like allergen, exposure to firearms, your location, pollution levels is where you live, walkable. Do you have a nice place to live? Are you exposed to carcinogens or lead? The water quality medical care is 11% that is things like. Patient Engagement, health literacy, quality of healthcare, access to healthcare, etc. And then genetics, we have body structure, body function, your chromosomes, your your gender, your age, your bone density, your blood pressure, your nutritional status, your biochemical function, sensory function, strength, right? And that's, you know, genetics, genetics that have given you those versus individual behaviors. So basically, what I'm trying to say with that is complicated, right? It's complicated. Now let's move to another thing that Brittany mentioned, organic food. And someone that I like listening to is food science babe, which she used, she's using that handle because there is someone called Food babe who makes videos, which is all you know, like, don't eat this because you're gonna die, those types of videos. And so she's called herself Food Science babe, to contradict the misinformation that food babe is giving out link to Food Science babe in the show notes, but you can just Google Food Science babe, and it's great because you'll have all of These wellness influencers who don't know anything going around the store being like, do not eat this thing because you are your eyeballs are gonna burn out of your head and you're gonna die as a carcinogen. And then Food Science babe says, chill, it's not and food science babe, by the way, is a chemical engineer and food scientist, so it's her job. It's her job to do this stuff, and she's studied it anyway. So organic so we talked about organic food. We've got talked about organic food. No, let's listen to what food science babe says about the top three organic food misconceptions.
Speaker 1 37:02
Here are the top three misconceptions about organic foods and organic farming. Number one, organic uses pesticides. Most are naturally derived, but some synthetics are also allowed. Now, natural doesn't mean safer for humans or the environment. Either naturally derived pesticides have overlapping toxicities with synthetic pesticides, and in many cases, the natural ones can be less effective and more has to be used. The organic restrictions wouldn't allow for a synthetic pesticide, even if it were the better option that would be safer and better for the environment. Number two, organic food is not more nutritious than conventional food. There are a few large systematic reviews and meta analyzes that show that there is no meaningful nutritional difference between organic foods and conventional foods. Number three, organic farming is not necessarily better for the environment, and in many cases, is worse. The main factor being that it's less efficient. It's up to 40% more land. It represents an ideological false dichotomy based on the appeal to nature fallacy. Okay,
Vinny Welsby 38:00
so thank you, Ed science babe, for explaining the science behind organic food that it's a scam. Basically, it's a scam. I used to work for an organic food company, and they would talk about how we know that organic food is a scam. And when I say scam, it's basically rich white people want to have a food to make themselves feel superior and that they believe is more healthy. So if they want this food, we're going to charge them more for it and sell it and make money from them, basically, right? If city rich white people think that this, this is going to be more healthy for them, or, you know, it helps with the elite status, then let's give it to them. But we know it's bullshit, right? So I because, before I worked there, this is like 10 years ago, before I worked there, I thought, you know, organic food is probably better. I don't know what's the harm. And and when I, when I started working there, I was like, what fuck? Hmm, like, Oh, okay. But also, they did have a ton of, like, other, they did believe a lot of other kind of really unhelpful bullshit around foods. And they'd have things like the Dirty Dozen, like, things like, don't, don't eat these foods. You have to eat these foods as organic. And it's like, what? But we know that it's bullshit. So, so anyway, it was kind of confusing. But organic food is not better. Organic food is basically, if you want to spend your money on it, it makes you feel good, then go over it. But, you know, it's kind of like the way I see is going to, you know, a mystic calling a phone line and talking to some mystic that's on, that's on Tiktok. I'm just laughing because I'm thinking about this woman that was exposed, and she would do like tarot card readings while doing a poo on the toilet, and people would complain, being like, we can hear her shitting while doing her readings. It was fun. Right? I wish I could remember what it was so I can share the video with you, but it was really fucking funny anyway. And so, you know, if you enjoy it, this is the way I feel, if you enjoy it, fine, whatever, you know, as a bit of entertainment, but, you know, it's not real, right? It's not real. So let's go back to, we've got all of those, those things in place. Let's go back to what Brittany has asked. I'm well aware that social that social determinants of health have a huge impact on our health and bodies, not necessarily, not necessarily so. If Brittany is talking about the social the the individual behavior, I'm thinking that Brittany's talking about individual behavior versus the all of the social determinants of health thing is huge reminder here we could follow all of these, right? We could be have perfect, quote, perfect mental health. We could never use any type of drugs. We could get eight hours of sleep, or however much sleep you need. We could only ever eat, quote, perfect food or work out in the perfect way. That's perfect for our body. We could always have safer sex. We could never speed right? These are all individual behaviors. We could also be white and CIS and heterosexual and have the perfect childhood and never experience any type of discrimination and never have any genetic conditions. We could never have exposure to locations that are not ideal. We could have perfect patient engagement. That doesn't mean that you're not gonna have poor health outcomes. It just doesn't work like that. We're all gonna die, right? It just means that you probably you might have better health outcomes. But you might not. You might do all the quote, good things and still be like, oh shit, I've got this debilitating condition or disease or whatever, right? Okay, so I'm well aware that social determinants of health have a huge impact on our health and our bodies, and that we need major systemic changes, yes, so that everyone has the same access to food, yes, healthcare less stressful. Like, yeah, yeah. So that's all great. So, so yes, yes, all of that. It would help. It's not the thing that's going to solve any health poor health outcomes. I'm trying to do my part to help dismantle all those systems, but very few of them actually apply to me. Is that true? I'm gonna make an assumption that Brittany is a woman. So does that mean that Britney's never experienced discrimination or any show that you have now in Brittany's life? Did Brittany have a perfect childhood? Has every work place that that that Britney's been in was fantastic. Does Britney have social connectedness? Does is Brittany a citizen? Has Brittany ever engaged in sexual activity? Does Britney have genetics from, does Britney have genetics passed down from the genes that will pass? Yes. Does Brittany have a body that ages? Yes? Does, yeah? I mean, yeah. I'm laughing. It's like, yes, you know. Does? You know? Does I mean? I mean no to all of it, like no, maybe, maybe not. Is, is Brittany living in the best location ever with with access to vocational training and education opportunities and public space quality and carcinogen exposure and high air quality, and ever been exposed to tobacco. And no, I mean, like, just because someone has privilege in some areas does not mean that you have privilege in all areas and and so just being white or cisgender or straight does not mean that you're going to have perfect health because, obviously, because, you know, white, straight people die too and have poor health outcomes too. But you know, it's better for us to not be exposed to these discrimination, right? Okay, so I'm a white, cis, upper middle class woman who has access to good healthcare, great and time in my schedule to do the things that are in my control, which doesn't mean that you're going to be healthy. I know it's not as simple as doing all the right things, but at the same time, I'm still fat, right? So health and weight are not the same thing, right? Um, and obviously Britney knows this. I'm still fat, and have a couple of lifestyle diseases that get blamed on O word, which is, you know exactly, get blamed on being fat. So we've got this jump of health is health is size and size is ill health. Size is the reason why I have these quote lifestyle diseases, which are in quotation marks because Brittany knows that that's bullshit, right? It's my assumption that you people with smaller bodies can have any of these things that are associated with having a bigger body and vice versa, right? So there's a kind of circle of health is in my control, and I'm fat, and fat equal fat equals poor health. And here's evidence I have, oh, related health outcomes, poor health outcomes. And therefore I'm in control of my health, and should do these things that make me have better health, but I don't, and the outcome is I'm fat, and so I have this so, you know, it's like a circle that goes around where something in here is not working right? Maybe, is it that health is not body size, that body size could be a predictor, not because of having extra adipose tissue, but because of all the things that fat people go through, diets, poor healthcare and lack of evidence based care. So anyway, continuing much of the messaging around social determinants of health comes across as you don't have to blame yourself for being unhealthy if you don't have access to organic foods, etc. But I do have access to organic foods. How do I reconcile this? Because organic food is not going to make you more healthy. It's just a marketing thing, right? So if you have access, if you have access to everything, say, if you're a multi millionaire, you have all the time, money, everything that doesn't matter, that doesn't matter, because our bodies are going to do what they're going to do. You can reduce your risk in certain ways, but, you know, our bodies are going to do what they're going to do. It's like, you know, taking the vaccine, taking a covid vaccine, it reduces my risk of getting covid, the strain of covid That, that, that I've you know, the vaccine is covering, but it doesn't mean that I'm not going to get covid, but I'm decided that I'm going to engage in taking vaccines, because that takes up a little bit of risk, right? So when I got covid in October, I wasn't like, oh, well, how could that possibly be because I've done, I've done the right things. It's just one of those things, right? And so you could have access to everything, and it doesn't, you know, you could have wonderful health outcomes or not. You could have access to hardly anything, and be, you know, in
have a marginalized status in life, and, you know, have everything against you and still be, quote, unquote, healthy, whatever health is. So anyway, so this so then Brittany goes on to talk about Michael Pollan and the thin cis man that says, I know he's elitist, but you know, we are in the position that we can do things, so why don't we do as he says? Michael Pollan is a diet schlepper. Michael Pollan is a an entertainer, a journalist that is not looking at, is not involved in, in studies and looking at meta analysis, and he's looking at, so far, what I can see anecdotal data, even if he was looking at studies that said 100% only eat plants and then you're going to be super healthy. That still is not helpful advice, because you are not ever going to be able to be 100% healthy. And who says that you personally only eating plants is going to be good for your health. Who who says that? Who, who knows if you getting that advice is not going to turn it into some orthorexia, spiral into disordered eating, into being obsessed about food, into terrible mental health and restriction and just going on to the same diet culture cycle that many of us done for most of our lives. So why should we? Yeah, so why should we? Why? This person says, Why don't we do as he says, well, for many reasons, it could be really, really harmful to us. And why is it this one journalist is the arbitrator of what is healthy. So Brittany says I didn't know how to exactly how to counter this his argument that if none of the social determinants of that damaging apply to you, you should be healthy. Is he right? No, he's not right. He's not right because we have these unique bodies that do what they. Gonna do? We can try and reduce risk, but still, you could be wearing a seatbelt and still get into an accident. You could be wearing a seatbelt and get in an accident and have a terrible outcome, but you still gotta wear the seatbelt if that works for you, right? So is it possible to perfect your health? No, sorry if you don't have to battle so many of the things that most people do have to battle. No, sorry, you know what it's like. It's, it's, you know what I'm doing, dei training. And we talk about white privilege. What a lot of white people hear is that white privilege, that means that you have never struggled in life, and that your life is wonderful, and that you couldn't possibly have worked hard to get to where you are today. It doesn't mean that. It means that you just didn't have these extra hurdles in the way to get to where you are today. You still ran the race, right? You ran the race, and maybe there are a few hurdles along the way, but maybe the person next to you who doesn't have the same privilege that you have is running the same race, but has extra hurdles to overcome, or maybe extra hurdles, and also started later, or whatever it is, so you still fucking run in the race. And also, does that mean that if you run in the race and you have hurdles and you got to start first, doesn't mean you're going to win the race, does it? It means that you've got these privileges, but it doesn't mean that the outcome is determined. So just because you have these privileges, that it's just it's just data, it's just information, it's just knowledge about what ways that you have it good in life, and also is not a guaranteed outcome or recipe. So basically one, Michael Pollan, is a journalist who is selling diet culture, anti fatness and outdated bigoted views and packaging them as brand new, sparkly insights that he's gathered and put into this package of authority. You know as well, thinking about Michael Pollan, he's a rich, white guy. I don't know if he's, I think he's, he's cisgender. I don't know if he's, if he's straight, but anyway, he's got tons of privilege, right? He's got privilege, and he's got influence. And he's like, it's easy. He's like, she said, it's simple. We know it's not right. He's he is doing harm with this, the work that he's doing. And also, there's probably things in there that are true and that are entertaining and that are valuable, right? So we have to recognize, we have to recognize, as soon as we hear or see anything. So that quick Google I did of Michael Pollan. Within three minutes, I was like, Okay, I know what this guy's about. He's about diet culture, anti fatness, boring, same old, same old, same old, bullshit we've been hearing for decades, but they've done a good job of packaging it to not look like that. So you gotta get your kind of year diet culture radar and be like, Do
Unknown Speaker 53:09
you know
Vinny Welsby 53:11
what listen to that episode, which, which I did, which was, let me tell you what it was, episode 134, how to decode alarmist fatphobic news stories. So that one, how to decode alarmist fatphobic news stories that goes into Okay, so they've got a study. Great. Well, how many people were in the study? Who were, who was in the study? How long was the study? What was the results of the study, because, you know, you see all these, these, and I guess this is in this is, this is not a news story, but this is media. We've got this media that says XYZ. Well, let's look under the surface. Let's, let's, let's, let's look at, let's pop the hood. Let's pop the bonnet and see what's actually under there. And basically, is it anecdotal evidence? And for what I was seeing from that was stories, you know, and stories make really good ways to convince people, because it sounds right, if you go to this, this seventh day Baptist event is whatever it was, and they're vegetarians, and they live to 102 so therefore, you know, that's a great way to share information that makes it seem really compelling, but is it backed by data? And that's kind of the boring thing is like, is it backed by what else is going on? And so it's a great way for us to feel emotions and get as interested in things, and so we have to kind of do the boring work of, is a Is that true? Is like, is it backed by science? Is the science good? Is it reliable? Is it can we replicate this? Because so much of it is just a load of dog shit, honestly, and so. Whenever I see a headline, someone sends, I won't go out and look for him, but people will send me be like, have you seen this? And I'll just, you know, roll my eyes, because it'll be like, new thing makes people thin in three seconds. And you just know, you just know, oh, it was a study that was done on fucking dust mites. And it turned out that if you, you know, a dust mite lost weight if it was not fed food, and therefore you shouldn't eat food, because the dust mite became thin one time in 1974 and, oh, but it's a new study. And, you know, and it's just laughable, really. So getting that kind of critical thinking, of critical thinking of what, what really is the information I said. What's the harm of listening to Michael Pollan? What's the harm is the you know, who? Who is? Who is He? Is he a dietitian? No? Is he someone who is able to look at studies and show information that is free from harm. Doesn't look like that's what he's doing. Does he have his own biases? Yes. Is he bought into diet culture and anti fatness? Yes. So the harm is really quite evident, right? Why shouldn't we just listen to him? Because it's his call. He's causing me harm. Friend, is what I would say to him. This is such a great question, because I think it's more, it's it's nuanced, right? This stuff is, is it's more difficult to spot nowadays, because these motherfuckers are getting smart. They know that we're tired of, Hey, Fatty, lose weight, you loser. Stop eating donuts. You know? We, you know. We know that that's bullshit, and we can spot that really easily. And so they're going to have to get smart, and that's what they've been doing. And so make sure that you stay safe out there. And so when you see any type of headline, just think, I want to know what's already behind the headline. And when you're feeling that sense of, oh my goodness, well, I'm doing it wrong. Clearly I'm doing it wrong because I'm fat and I have health conditions, and if you get that kind of, well, maybe this is true. He's saying that. He's saying that if you eat this thing, then it's going to hit your gut at this point and and it's, you know, and making these statements like, we all know that being fat is bad, you know, like you said, like, oh, Americans of Americans eat, eat food, and so therefore they're fat, and therefore that's bad. You know, those types of statements, is that true? Is it true? Could there be bias there? Yeah, so I'd say maybe don't read his stuff. And also, as well, with stressing about health, stressing about health is not good for our health, right? And I know it's so hard, because we want to do everything we can to be alive for, you know, for as long as possible. I mean, not everyone you know, but a lot of people want to be alive for a long time, and a lot of people are really focused on health and and, and so it's difficult when you hear these messages over and over again about what makes up health, and maybe you're not healthy, and maybe we're aging when our health is changing, and that's difficult as well. It's difficult. So you know, trying to take in that shame and blame off you off yourself. If you can try and do try and do that, try and do that. Because, you know, it's not good it's not good for us, it's not good for us. Or maybe it works for you. Maybe you like that. You know that works for you. Go for it doesn't work for me. Doesn't work for me. Okay, well, next, I think we've been talking about in the show notes. I was in Ireland for a couple of weeks, and my sister got married, and I was a brides and mates, which is the gender neutral term for brides and mood, and I did a speech, and people laughed, and so made me improve my self esteem. Yeah. What else have I got to tell you? Oh, shit, yeah. Listen now. Listen now. Listen, if you have a job, you work at an organization, go get the fat work report. It's out. It's out. Okay, listen up here. It's out. I'm going to put the link in the show notes. I did a webinar. You can watch the webinar replay for free, and the report is free. Or if you want to, you can do a $3 donation or not. Well, it's up to you. You can just go to anywhere and find fat at work. Fat at work webinar, but I'm going to put it in the show notes so you can watch the webinar, or you can get the report, or you can do both, whatever you want. It's really fucking good. It's really good. Okay, it's good. Okay, okay, fat at work. Oh, and if you don't, you might not even know what I'm fucking talking about. Work. Fat at work webinar, basically, if you've not, if you're not in the loop, what the fuck are you talking about? I surveyed 336, fat people and asked them about their experiences at work. It could have, could have been you come you could have been one of the people that did the survey, if you did. Thank you so much. You are an absolute. Superstar, and it turns out that 95.65% of fat people have reported experiencing anti fatness in the workplace, which is a gargantuan, gigantic, enormous number, especially considering, depending on the workplace and the location, most people in our society live in, quote, plus size bodies, or larger bodies. The data that we have is 67% of people in America are plus size, and that's talking about women. But also we know that most men are mostly plus size anyway, and as well, you know, fat people are employed less and straight sized people, and some organizations might not have that many fat people. But anyway, a lot of people are living in bigger bodies, and almost 100% of people in bigger bodies in the workplace have experienced anti fat bias, which is not acceptable and really inappropriate, and so came up with the weight inclusive framework, which is weight weight inclusive consulting framework. Weight inclusive consulting is my consulting side of my business, which I go and talk and consult with companies and do this work, you know, work with, with, with organizations, training and whatnot. Anyway, what the fuck was I talking about? My brain just stopped working right then. Thanks. ADHD, no, must have been good. Whatever I was talking about. Yeah. So most people are experiencing, oh yeah, weight inclusive consulting framework, yeah. So the framework for making a workplace safer for the tap folks, the first step, which seems really just B, a n, a n, a n, a n a s bananas, is providing basic amenities, and most workplaces are not even at this first step, which is somewhere to sit close to where, and a washroom that's accessible and a workplace that doesn't have physical barriers in the way that people can't navigate very sick stuff. Can you imagine? Yes, you can. If you can imagine this stuff, if you're in a bigger body, basic amenities. So, so anyway, in the webinar and the report goes through all of those steps and and and whatnot. So, so you've got that, you've got that, you've got that free go to the link in the bio to get that. Thanks for hanging out with me today. Thank you to Brittany for the excellent question. And don't like, listen, listen, I'm always like, don't, don't feel ashamed. Don't feel ashamed. In case I was like, you know, being sassy and stuff, being like, this is bullshit.
Doesn't mean that you know you're not. You should have detected the bullshit. Obviously, I do this. I do this as a job, right? And these amazing motherfuckers are getting tricky. Okay? So if you're, you know, getting sucked into this, this bullshit, don't feel like you should not have, because it's really hard not to, because it's everywhere and it's insidious, all right, well, I'm gonna stop talking. Thanks for being here. Thanks for hanging out. Remember to stay fierce, Fatty, and remember you are worthy. You always were, and you always will be okay, buddy. You
Unknown Speaker 1:03:44
perfect. You.