Search for tag: "food"

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Scot: Troy, Mitch, have you ever seen someone in an article or an ad or on social media and they talk about inflammation? Have you ever heard of this?

Mitch: Yes. Yes, I have. On TikTok every so often there will be someone trying to tell me what I should and shouldn't be eating.

Troy: That's funny, because I'm a physician, and I've probably heard about it less than Mitch has. And I'll clarify, I'm not on TikTok.

Scot: All right. And oftentimes, after you heard about inflammation, then there's some story that follows about how somebody stopped eating bread, or using seed oils, or dairy, or red meats, or other foods, and now they feel better. Maybe they were bloated for a long time, and now they're not, or their skin has cleared up, or their migraines have gone away, or they used to be congested all the time and that went away, or they've got more energy, their mood is better.

So the question is, are these health risks and benefits overblown? I mean, is this a legitimate thing, this inflammation, and can the foods we eat really impact us in these ways? And there are a lot of ads online claiming that that's super important. There are supplements or diets that tell you, "This is a legitimate deal." But we want to find out if it's true, and we're going to dive into that topic today.

This is "Who Cares About Men's Health," providing information, inspiration, and a different interpretation to men's health. I bring the BS. My name is Scot Singpiel. The MD to my BS, Dr. Troy Madsen.

Troy: Hey, Scot.

Scot: A guy who is working hard on his health and is always bringing his unique perspective, Mitch Sears.

Mitch: Hey, there.

Scot: And Thunder Jalili, who is a professor of nutrition and integrative physiology at the College of Health at University of Utah. Thunder, how are you doing today?

Thunder: Hey, I'm good. I'm happy to be back on the podcast.

Scot: Is inflammation a real thing? That stuff I talked about at the top of the show, is that what's going on? That's what we want to dive into. Let's just start with that. I mean, is it legit? Because it seems a little crazy to me that changing my diet or getting rid of some of these foods is going to clear up all these health issues that I've had.

Thunder: So to answer your first question, yeah, inflammation is definitely a real thing. It's like a normal physiological process. And it has a purpose for wound healing and immune response and things like that.

But I guess what we're talking about here is kind of a low-grade, chronic inflammation that could increase your risk of unhealthy things, like maybe increase your risk of artery disease, or make your headaches or your arthritis worse, or things like that. So that's how I kind of look at this inflammation as we're talking about it.

Scot: How is the inflammation caused by the foods we eat different than the inflammation that's caused by other causes? I twist my ankle, and that gets inflamed. How is that different?

Thunder: You're talking probably an acute stimulus for inflammation with the ankle twist versus a more low-grade, systemic inflammation that's much lower level. So it takes longer for it to have a physiological impact. That would be my take on it.

Scot: And with a twisted ankle, though, I can look at it and see it's inflamed because it's swollen or it's hot. I mean, can I tell that with food as well, or is the other symptoms that I know that maybe something might be up?

Thunder: No, you can't really . . . I mean, it's different with food. It's a low-grade, systemic type of inflammation. A little bit more cytokine activation, a little bit more oxidative stress.

In the short term, it's not going to do much. In the long term, having it exist month after month after month can exacerbate other things that are already going on. So in someone who has high LDL levels or someone who has diabetes, and now you throw on this systemic inflammation, this low-grade, systemic inflammation, it could accelerate underlying artery disease, for example.

Scot: Yeah. So digestive problems, joint pain and stiffness, skin problems, fatigue, lack of energy, headaches and migraines in some people, even mood changes, anxiety, depression, irritability, allergies, erectile dysfunction, low testosterone levels, increase the risk of certain cancer and other chronic disease. This is all true, huh?

Thunder: Yeah. In a way, it's all true. I mean, maybe not exactly the way most people think of it, like there's a direct cause and effect of these inflammatory foods in every single condition you mentioned. But I think it's more that if you have these conditions, what you eat could exacerbate it and make it more difficult to deal with.

Whether there's a direct cause of eating these foods and then developing all those conditions you said, that's debatable. But they definitely don't help if this is one of the things that you're trying to deal with.

Troy: And I think too, Thunder, you talked about some conditions like coronary artery disease. And there, we're talking about longer-term effects rather than eating something and then an hour later, I have a heart attack because of it, things like that.

I agree, there are definitely inflammatory properties of certain foods. Again, we know certain triggers for migraines from certain foods. But yeah, like you said, it seems like a lot of these you've got an underlying condition, or it's long-term effects of maybe some of the food you're eating or some of the processes that can go on chronically.

Thunder: Yeah. And if we could just pick up the example of the coronary artery disease that you just mentioned, Troy, yeah, it's long-term. It so turns out that these foods that everyone . . . and I'm doing air quotes, okay? You guys can't see the air quotes. These foods that everyone labels "inflammatory," well, they also turn out to be the same foods that may increase your LDL and maybe make you more prone to diabetes. And these are risk factors for developing atherosclerosis, right?

So, in that sense, it's kind of hard to separate out. Yeah, they're inflammatory foods, but they also increase your risk for artery disease as well.

And that's kind of how this goes. It's not like, "I'm going to eat a cookie, and then have a heart attack or develop cancer in the next 30 minutes." But if that's my eating pattern, then by definition, I'm probably eating kind of more processed, high-sugar foods, foods with less healthy fatty acids, etc., which sets me up for all these other chronic diseases over the long term.

Mitch: So if I'm understanding this right, you're saying that having these foods is not necessarily directly causing, say, maybe the inflammation or the whatever, but it is definitely exacerbating problems that you might already have?

Thunder: Yeah, or it causes a very temporary inflammatory response that goes away after the food is processed. So that brief, mild inflammatory response, is that damaging? Probably not. If it happens all the time and the foods that you're eating are more in that processed food category, then yeah, that kind of increases the risk.

And remember at the same time, if you're eating a lot of inflammatory foods, then by definition, you're probably not eating a healthy diet with vegetables and other plant-based products and whole grains and things like that. So it's not just the addition of the inflammatory foods. It's that we're making a substitution of those types of foods and not eating the healthy foods.

Scot: So let's jump in here with some of the foods that are — I'll use Thunder's air quotes here — that are "inflammatory foods." Actually, I shouldn't use air quotes because they are, right?

Refined grains, bread, cereals, white flour, refined sugar, especially that added sugar that we've talked about before on the podcast that you want to avoid, sodium, red and different processed meats. The processed meats because they tend to have a lot of salt and other types of preservatives in them that are inflammatory. Trans fats, ultra processed foods also make the list, and then finally alcoholic beverage.

Did we cover most of the foods that are considered inflammatory, Thunder?

Thunder: Did you mention refined carbohydrates and monosodium glutamate, MSG?

Scot: Talked about refined grains like breads and cereals and white flour, but not MSG.

Thunder: Yeah. So let's just add MSG to that list. That can cause a little inflammation as well.

Mitch: Wait a minute. Didn't I read a study recently that said that alcohol is anti-inflammatory, like red wine and stuff?

Thunder: It depends how you take your alcohol. Is it in the form of Everclear or red wine?

Mitch: Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah, it depends on the night, but . . .

Scot: All right. Which one is inflammatory and which one isn't then? Is red wine is inflammatory and Everclear isn't, or what?

Thunder: So one of the things that we're doing, all of us, is we're oversimplifying this.

Scot: AIt's what we like to do.

Thunder: Yeah. Here's a dose response. If you have a glass of red wine or a small alcoholic drink, that's really not a big deal. If you pound half a liter of vodka a day, or you have a bottle or two of wine a day, that's a different ballgame. So we have to be mindful to dose. So a glass of red wine is actually anti-inflammatory. A bottle of red wine, probably not so much.

Mitch: Okay. All right.

Scot: So with inflammatory foods, it sounds like dose response and time, like how consistent have you been consuming these foods, those things start to add up then to possibly some of the negative effects that we talked about.

Thunder: Yeah, and let's add one other thing to that. How much of the anti-inflammatory foods are you consuming? So, yeah, you may be having some of these inflammatory foods, but are you eating a lot of anti-inflammatory foods? Because it's not like we wake up in the morning and flip a switch and decide which way we're going to go. We're probably all having a mix of inflammatory and anti-inflammatory. It just comes down to what's predominating.

Scot: All right. I mean, it really comes back to this notion of a balanced diet then, right? Pragmatically, in real life, sometimes we want to have some of these foods that might be labeled as inflammatory, but in moderation, that's fine as long as we're not going crazy with the dosage or the time. But we also need to look at how much of the good foods we're eating. What are some of those foods that reduce inflammation?

Thunder: So pretty much anything from the plant world, any plant-based foods. Whether it's a whole grain, or a vegetable, or a fruit, or a plant oil, those will all fall into that anti-inflammatory category.

And remember, really what we're talking about is eating patterns. If somebody is used to eating healthy and is trying to avoid processed foods and going after those plant-based foods, that's kind of an eating pattern, a lifestyle.

On the other hand, you can have an individual that doesn't really cook, they're not much into food preparation, they buy a lot of packaged foods, it's convenient, it's fast. That's kind of how a lot of people eat. And yeah, they may have an apple once in a while, but the dosage of the anti-inflammatory side isn't the same. So the balance shifts towards inflammatory foods.

Troy: See, Thunder, I'm hearing all this and it really makes perfect sense in terms of the balance, and some foods may be more promoting inflammation where others are anti-inflammatory. But then I think getting to what Mitch talked about is . . . Again, he's probably read more about it on TikTok than I have.

Mitch: You don't read TikTok. You guys understand that?

Troy: He's watched more TikTok videos than I have about this. But how much truth is there to that? If someone is saying, "Hey, I eliminated this, and it eliminated my migraines, or I eliminated this, and it eliminated my fatigue," is there something of a placebo effect there? Or is there some truth to saying if you eliminate certain foods, you are going to see a physical effect from that?

Thunder: Yeah, I think we can never discount a placebo effect for sure. But there's definitely truth in there too, because these foods that we do label anti-inflammatory, there's data in cell studies, in animal studies, and even human studies when you eat more of these plant-based foods that have phytochemicals and healthy oils and fiber and things like that, and you measure indices of inflammation or oxidative stress, you see they are lower, right? So there is truth that they have a physiological effect.

Now, the placebo part kicks in, in how good you feel after you eat those foods. I mean, there is probably a role in helping migraines. Definitely if people have gut issues, there's actually a role there in improving that. But how good you feel, I think that's where the placebo part comes in.

So I don't know if you can really separate the two. There's definitely a physiological role, but their mind is a powerful thing, right? So there's definitely going to be placebo in there as well.

Scot: I also feel like maybe some of this effect could be that . . . and I don't want to diagnose people or make assumptions, but when we see these videos on TikTok or hear these stories about people that remove these things from their diet and they felt better, we don't know what life was like for them before.

It might have been really bad. They might have not been eating very well, a lot of inflammatory foods. They might have had other underlying sort of medical things going on that when they eliminated some of these things, that's why they experienced this transformation. Whereas maybe I'm experiencing some bloating or whatever and I quit doing those things, I don't really experience anything, because for the most part, I'm pretty good.

Is that fair? Is that a fair thing to say, or am I just making stuff up?

Thunder: I think that's fair. And throw in "What if people lose a little weight when they're trying to eat the anti-inflammatory foods?" That somehow plays a role, but maybe they don't talk about that. But we know that's in the background.

So, yeah, I think it's all of the above. At the end of the day, I mean, we can try to pin exactly what the reason is, but we do know the long-term effects, right? We know what the result is, and I think that's the thing to focus on.

Troy: I guess so. And that's what I've wondered, too, is if sometimes we can drive ourselves crazy trying to identify every potential piece of our diet that could be causing certain symptoms and eliminating, and adding and eliminating something else, versus just trying to have that balanced diet. I don't know.

I guess if you were to go to someone and say, "Well, whatever symptoms you may be having . . ." Whether it's headaches, fatigue, gut issues, whatever it is, where would you even start? And where would a person even start to try and assess that and eliminate things?

Thunder: I mean, ideally, you would want to have a physician that has patience and is open to dietary experimentation and has time.

Troy: So you're saying not me. No, don't go to the ER for this, please.

Thunder: I mean, our healthcare system in general is not set up for that. Doctors have that 5-minute window, 5, 10 minutes, to talk to you and throw a bunch of things on the computer and then move on. So you've got to have the right healthcare team.

And then you need the dietitian as well who is willing to give you advice, kind of keep a log how you feel after you've taken this out or added this in.

But to get back to your kind of original basic question, "Where do you start?" the easiest thing to start, in my opinion, is try to reduce added sugar as much as possible, and try to increase your intake of vegetables, fruits, whole grain, and oatmeal. Start with that. And then if it comes in a box, try to eat less of it. I mean, that kind of covers a lot of ground.

But if you can do that, you may end up cutting the foods that were giving you problems, and at the same time adding things we know are helpful. And maybe that'll help. Maybe you don't have to go through this systematic thing where you try to identify the one particular food.

I mean, if you want to, great, go for it and have some patience and experimentation. But you can probably get results from just doing that kind of basic across-the-board approach.

Scot: I was going to say I heard one time when you're eating, if you can eat stuff that has one ingredient in it . . . Like, if it does come in a box and it's rice, that's fine, because the ingredient is rice. And that's generally pretty healthy, right? So I started applying that rule.

I know dairy kind of gets a bad rap for being a really inflammatory food, and that has one ingredient. What's your take on dairy in this list?

Thunder: Yeah. I think the dairy story is a little tougher because it could be inflammatory. But when dairy is processed into yogurt, that's actually pretty good. So I think we have to decide what dairy are we talking about? Milk, probably inflammatory. Yogurt, it's actually probably good.

Scot: All right. By the way, Troy, I don't know if you noticed this, but the foods that have the best evidence of being anti-inflammatory are stuff like tomatoes, olive oil, leafy vegetables, nuts, fatty fish, fruits. What does that sound like to you, Troy?

Troy: I was going to say, as soon as Thunder said that, it sounds like the answer is the Mediterranean diet. I just come back to it again and again.

Thunder: It's the answer to everything.

Troy: It's the answer to life, the Mediterranean diet. I do like that, though. It just keeps it simple. Because like I said, that's the thing I worry and I hear people talk sometimes about this. It just seems like they are kind of going . . . it's driving them a little crazy, because they're just saying, "Well, I've got to cut this. Okay, that didn't work. Let me try this."

But it seems like if you can just try the Mediterranean diet, like you said, Thunder, you're cutting a lot of that stuff that could be potentially bad and adding the anti-inflammatory properties of all the great stuff in the Mediterranean diet.

Thunder: Yeah, very well said.

Scot: It keeps coming back to just a . . . This is feeling like a familiar conversation now, right? Try to eliminate some of the stuff that's not great for you. And I think most of us are pretty good at knowing what that is. Are we eating processed foods? Are eating fast foods? Are we eating boxed foods? Try to add in some vegetables and fruits and nuts, if we're not doing that. Try to get rid of some of the red meat, if you're doing that. I mean, this is just the familiar refrain that we hear.

And over time, you'll hopefully start to feel better. Maybe then if you're not feeling better, that's when you might want to talk to somebody to drill down a little bit deeper, because that might get 80% of the people there.

Mitch: Sure. And I guess that leads to a next question. I don't know if this is something that Troy or Thunder could answer. At what point is gassiness, bloating, these different kinds of inflammatory responses, at what point is it something you should probably go see your doctor and not just, "Oh, I had a bad meal," or, "Oh, my diet isn't super great," but you should probably go to a doctor?

Troy: Yeah, that's a tough question, Mitch. It's something I see so often in the emergency department. The most common complaint I see is abdominal pain, and it includes all those symptoms. Maybe it's constipation. Maybe it's other things that are causing it.

But I think if it's becoming a chronic issue there, and more chronic issue is we're talking three months or more, then it's probably worth seeing your doctor, the idea being that you may have underlying conditions. And particularly if you're having any bleeding. I mean, that's a big red flag. Any blood in your stool, you probably need a colonoscopy to look for underlying conditions like ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease, things like that.

Once you get past that three-month mark, it's a good idea to really go see your doctor rather than trying to figure it out on your own.

Thunder: Yeah. And I would also maybe add to that it depends on someone's personal discomfort tolerance. If it's bad enough, maybe some people after a month, they would want to do something about it. But it can be kind of a lower grade, but lasting more than three months, and I know people who would probably just continue to try to walk it off. It all has to do with your personal tolerance for pain.

Troy: Yeah, exactly. And when I say three months, I don't want to necessarily imply you should suffer for three months with severe abdominal pain, have your appendix burst, or something.

Like Thunder said, and I think like you implied, Mitch, kind of those low-grade symptoms where it's bothersome, and maybe it's some discomfort and some gassiness, things like that, once you hit the three-month mark, it's probably worth just seeing your doctor to get some other input, if not sooner.

Scot: So inflammation caused by the foods we eat, inflammatory foods versus foods that are anti-inflammatory, that's all real.

Thunder: Yep. It's all real, and it can all be traced back to dietary patterns. If you're kind of in that dietary pattern that favors processed foods, you're going to be eating a lot of these inflammatory foods we've mentioned. If you have a dietary pattern that favors more natural plant-based foods, whether it's a Mediterranean diet or a vegetarian diet, or just even omnivore diet, but just choosing healthy stuff, I mean, that's an eating pattern.

So we've got to always remember, at the end of the day, we're coming back to an eating pattern not targeting specific foods, but more a pattern of habitual eating.

Scot: Mitch, takeaway from today's episode?

Mitch: I'm shocked. I've been quiet because I'm sitting here being like, "No, these people on TikTok can't be . . ." They stopped eating bread, and all of a sudden, their skin is better and their mood is better. It just seemed too extreme, right? And it just seemed too simplistic, too everything.

So I guess it's yes, inflammatory and anti-inflammatory food exists. But I do really like that takeaway where if it's part of a larger change in your diet, yeah, maybe you can see these sorts of things, right? But this idea that you stopped eating bread for a week, and all of a sudden, you've got perfect skin, it still feels weird to me.

Thunder: Yeah. If you have celiac disease and you stop eating bread, you'll see immediate effects. But otherwise, yeah, it's not going to happen.

Scot: Yeah. So I think, Mitch, what I take from that is, again, you just can't tell. You don't know what the backstory is there, right? You don't even know if what they're saying is true. Do they have some other sort of agenda why they're saying these things?

Mitch: They're anti-bread.

Scot: Maybe they are. Yeah, I don't know. But my takeaway is it comes back to try to eat more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff, right? And you're going to be okay. That's where I'm at.

Troy, takeaway?

Troy: My takeaway also is just balance. I think, Thunder, you really emphasized that. And I think if you're looking for anything, try to just achieve that balance rather than focusing on very specific foods and I think you'll see improvements by doing that. Again, Mediterranean diet. If you can do that, I think you're going to see improvements.

Scot: Have you ever experienced what we're talking about eliminating some inflammatory foods and you had a sudden change in your health? Do you have a question about the food you eat? Have you found a diet claim on the internet that just seems too bizarre to be true, and you want to know what's really going on? We would love to hear from you. You can reach out to us via email at hello@thescoperadio.com.

Thunder, thanks for being on the show.

Thunder: Yeah. It was a pleasure to be on and talk with you all.

Scot: And thanks for caring about men's health.
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This content was originally created for audio. Some elements such as tone, sound effects, and music can be hard to translate to text. As such, the following is a summary of the episode and has been edited for clarity. For the full experience, we encourage you to subscribe and listen— it's more fun that way.

Everybody thinks about food on occasion. And all religious holidays and cultural holidays are surrounded by food, or by fasting and then surrounded by food. So food has a powerful role in our life for health, for illness, for our spiritual lives, for our emotional lives.

My mother was a great cook, and she cooked in German, and she cooked in Mexican, and she cooked in American. She didn't really cook in Asian, but because she had lived in those countries, she was a really good cook. And she passed down some of her recipes. But all important dates and "I love you" was said in food.

And she passed on this interest in food to her four children. We are all highly food motivated. When we get together, all we do is talk about food, food we're going to eat, food we did eat, the best food we ever ate. It was hard for people sitting at the dinner table who were not food motivated, and that would include my husband, whose family is not food motivated, and neither is he.

So those of us who eat to live, and that would be my husband, and those of us who live to eat, and that would be me, and to every family, food means something different. But as we're trying to grow our children and trying to feed our grandchildren, nutrition takes our focus from just any food that is yummy to something that's good for us.

Often, at least in our culture, women make the decisions surrounding food. They plan the menus. They have a kid who only eats white food, and then they've got a kid who won't eat that, and they have a kid who's allergic to this, and the husband who is a meat-itarian, and they might be snacking on the food they make for everyone. So by dinnertime, they are all full.

Kary Woodruff joins this epsiode and Kary is a registered dietician, a clinical dietitian, and that means not just talking about food, but clinically thinking about food, and assistant professor here at the University of Utah about food and nutrition.

Dr. Jones: Thinking about the health aspects or the physical aspects of the seven domains, there are people who have to eat certain things or have to not eat certain things, and those would be diabetics, or people with liver failure, or maybe some people with an odd genetic disease like phenylketonuria...

Kary: So there are individuals, for example, you identified PK. Someone who has a diagnosis of PKU, phenylketonuria, they need to avoid anything that has been phenylalanine in it.

Dr. Jones: That's a basic amino acid that all of us need supposedly. And it's in everything, isn't it?

Kary: Correct. Well, all protein foods. And so it's really a diet comprised of refined carbohydrates and really sugar-containing foods. And so they rely upon dietary supplements to make sure that they're able to meet their dietary needs for vitamins.

Dr. Jones: And people with liver failure aren't supposed to eat a lot of protein, right?

Kary: Yeah, depending upon their stage of liver failure. Absolutely. Or even with kidney disease, end-stage renal disease, they need to be cognizant of their protein intake, depending upon their stage of dialysis or form of dialysis as well.

What I find is clinically there are very few patients who, in a medical setting, really don't have some sort of dietary implication of their disease. So it could be more mild or moderate. It could be more extreme. But so many of our body systems are impacted by the foods that we eat and the nutrients that we consume. And so, to some degree or another, almost any medical condition may necessitate some sort of adjustment or tweaking with our diets.

When I have a dinner party or invite people over or having people stay, I now automatically, in my email, say, "Are there any food preferences?" because more and more people say, "I'm allergic to this, this, and this." But I didn't know that people could be so allergic to food. What are these food allergy things? And what's a food allergy versus food preference?

Kary: The body's immune system is responding to that specific antigen. And so, in that case, that person does need to eliminate the food from their diet because if not, that could result in maybe mild symptoms of itchy, rashy skin, or very severe symptoms of anaphylaxis, which can be life threatening.

Dr. Jones: So anaphylaxis is when their throat closes, and they can't take a deep breath, and they can't breathe. So they can have hives, or they can have difficulty breathing or feeling like their mouth is getting swollen. Those are scary things.

But then there are people who say, "Oh, no, I'm allergic to this, that, and the other." So I always ask as a clinician, "What happens when you eat that?"

Kary: A lot of times, there are perceived allergies. And by that, it could be an intolerance. So a very common example would be gluten intolerance. Now, there is a condition called celiac disease, which is an autoimmune disorder, whereby the consumption of gluten, which is a protein type in wheat, barley, and rye, causes damage to our gastrointestinal system.

But some individuals really do seem to be more sensitive to gluten. The challenge is some of the studies, if you actually do a placebo-controlled study, if someone thinks that they're consuming gluten, they may often report the same symptoms even if there actually was not gluten in the food.

Some degree of bloating is normal when we consume food, and some degree of just feeling of fullness is very normal. Fiber is contained in many healthful sources of wheat, and so some of that can just be normal digestion. But I think there's a little bit of media hype around bloating and distension that we've almost become... potentially, some individuals are a little hypersensitive to that.

My table food is love, because that was my upbringing. Food is love. I want them to be completely comfortable with what I offer. My goal is to honor everyone's dietary preferences, which can be an emotional choice. It can be a spiritual choice, meaning people who've made either a religion... their faith demands that they not eat meat, or they can't eat certain kinds of meat. I think of religions, and I think of Islam, and I think of Judaism where they can't or don't eat pork and shellfish.

There are some reasons some people have. Epidemiologists and anthropologists have said, "Well, here are the reasons that people don't eat pork and don't eat fish." But I want to make people comfortable at my table.

Dr. Jones: You work in the hospital. You have people who say, "I can't eat this because of my faith," or, "I'd prefer not to eat that"?

Kary: Yes, absolutely. And it absolutely depends upon the specific faith. So, for example, someone who is Jewish and they follow the Kashrut would dictate that they don't do animals that actually chew their cud, or that have, I think, split hooves is what the Bible says. So, in those instances, they would not eat cow products. And so pork would not be allowed.

And they would not eat shellfish because it doesn't have both fins and scales. So that's in accordance with the Kashrut, which is provided by the Bible in the Old Testament. And so those dietary practices are followed by members of the Jewish faith.

Now, someone, for example, who is Hindu, they're going to follow the do no harm principle. And so, for them, they may choose to be vegetarian or vegan, depending upon their personal preference and their interpretation of that principle. They may limit their intake of animal foods or omit them altogether. And that's out of the principle of doing no harm to other organisms, to other animals.

And so it does depend upon the specific faith as to what foods might be not allowed and why, but many different religions do have specific dietary principles.

The WHO came out and said, "If the planet ate less meat, we would have less carbon dioxide. It would be a healthier planet." So some of the choices we make actually affect our environment just in terms of the food choices that we make.

Kary: The production of meat, it results in greater carbon emissions. And then also the input, so the amount of water, for example, that's part of the food manufacturing system of producing meat is much greater than for plant sources of protein.

Dr. Jones: In terms of trees, I think of what's happening in Brazil. Do you have to burn down the rainforest so you can make places where cows can graze? Because they don't graze on the rainforest. It becomes difficult.

Can a vegan be happily married to a meat-itarian? How does that work out? There are obviously going to be some ethical implications of that as to why someone is following a vegan lifestyle, out of what principle. And if it's for how the animals are treated, there might be some ethical tensions there.

Michael Pollan says it best. He says, "Eat foods, mostly plants, not too much." And whether you consume some meat as part of that dietary approach, it can still fit into a plant-based diet. Plant-based diet is sort of a catchall phrase, but it's a diet that subsists of mostly plants. But sure, maybe some chicken or other environmentally sort of sustainable forms of protein are included in that, and yet still be a plant-based diet.

It's done with honor. As long as each honors the other's choices and supports them as best they can. It doesn't help when people don't honor someone else's choices.

So let's talk about Princess Kate and the Dukan diet. It's very popular in some circles—it's a periodic fasting. And that actually makes sense to me based on how we evolved to eat. We evolved, I think, not having a refrigerator full of yummies that we could eat on every couple of hours. We might have had things that we ate every couple of hours, but we had lots of time and we didn't have food.

Kary: Metabolically, there are some advantages to the intermittent fasting approach. Now, keep in mind, intermittent fasting is a catchall phrase. There are so many different ways to approach that. So it could be alternate day fasting. It could be limited hour fasting, so eating for 8 hours a day, fasting for 16 hours. So there are lots of different iterations of it.

But here's where my bias as an eating disorder dietitian comes in. So what happens, though, when we don't have food?

Dr. Jones: You mean other than I get hangry and I get pretty cranky?

Kary: Right. And then from an evolutionary standpoint, our bodies have evolved to prompt us to think about food. That sort of concept of deprivation can really result in the opposite end of the spectrum, of thinking about it all the time and seeking it out and can result in bingeing.

So, from sort of a medical and metabolic standpoint, it can work. And for some people, it's very sustainable. They don't experience any of these sort of increased thoughts and fixations on food. But for some individuals, they find that restriction of intermittent fasting can really exacerbate or worsen one's relationship with food and can prompt some unhealthy thoughts as well.

But more and more, we're learning diets don't work in terms of long-term studies of how effective they are. Now, short-term, three, six months, people may lose weight. Ninety percent to 95% of individuals gain the weight back. Sixty percent of those individuals will gain even more weight back. Long term, now. We're talking three, five, or more years out. So that's the challenge.

Eventually we're going to go off of a diet. And so, if what we're doing is something that is viewed to be temporary... even though there's sort of this wellness culture that now is putting everything as a lifestyle. But cutting out so many food groups like the ketogenic diet, for very few people, that's actually a lifestyle, and it really is more of a diet. Then when they go off of that approach, they then resume their previous dietary habits.

So what's the best diet? I really have come back to sort of my catchphrase... balance, moderation, and variety as an approach to food. I really like Michael Pollan's tagline of "Eat foods, mostly plants, not too much," and really just focusing on increasing the healthful components of our diet, decreasing some of the what I call foreign substances, foods that our bodies are not used to consuming, so the more processed foods.

It's not very sexy, it's not very exciting, but it really is how we can sustain a helpful relationship with food and try to sustain our health.

It's hard to do the right thing, but the good news is there are so many ways to do the right thing. There's no one perfect or right way.

• DO have both everyday foods and sometimes food in the house. Everyday foods are foods like fruits, and vegetables, and proteins, and dairy, and healthy fats. And sometimes foods will be the sweets, and treats, and snacks.

• DON'T moralize food. It's not that the apple is morally good and the chocolate cake is morally bad. The chocolate cake can be just as good for us sometimes as the apple is. And so it's just recognizing that we have our everyday foods and then we have our sometimes foods and try not to moralize it.

• DO eat a balance meal. Include a protein source, a whole grain source, and a fruit and/or a vegetable.

• DON'T be a short order cook. Cook one meal for the family. If someone doesn't like it, they can make themselves some neutral food, such as peanut butter toast

Dr. Jones: I think the fabulous thing about living in a multicultural society is how many fabulous flavors we have. But actually looking at the way the grandmothers of our multicultural societies cook, whether it's Indian, or whether it's Middle Eastern, or whether it's Mexican, or whether it's Asian or if it's Native American, you take a look at the way the grandmothers cook, that gives us a view of probably a healthier way to eat.

Kary: Absolutely. They are preparing foods that are minimally processed, lots of chopping and cutting up of vegetables as a good base, and whole grains, and really sticking to foods that have been around for thousands of years.

Dr. Jones: Well, that's my pitch for keeping grandmothers healthy.

Food is personal
You don't like stuffing or sprouts?
Hey, don't yuck my yum

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Interviewer: Food poisoning. How long after you eat it will it take to affect you? You're at a barbecue or a party or something and you ate a little something and now you're kind of wondering, "Oh, man. Maybe that chip dip was out a little too long." You're worried that you're going to get food poisoning. How long is it going to take until you actually know whether or not you did?

Dr. Troy Madsen is an emergency room physician at University of Utah Health. Food poisoning. How long after you eat something will it take to affect you?

Dr. Madsen: So food poisoning's going to take about six hours to hit you. And when I tell you this, I'm speaking from personal experience because I had some really bad potato salad once, that I knew was bad, and I still ate it and six hours later, I was as sick as I've ever been.

Interviewer: And what are those symptoms?

Dr. Madsen: So, typically, you're going to get some nausea, vomiting, maybe you get some diarrhea as well. Abdominal cramping, you might hurt all over, you might have a headache with it as well, but, typically, it's going to be those stomach, those GI symptoms. Just lots and lots of vomiting as your body is reacting to that bacteria that are in the food that made you sick.

Interviewer: So about six hours, normally. Does it vary from bacteria to bacteria?

Dr. Madsen: It does, but the most common one we see is Staph aureus, which affects thing like potato salad, mayonnaise-based sorts of foods. And that's usually what we're seeing, where you're at a barbecue, you're at a dinner, these things are left out too long, someone brought it from home and forgot it in their car and then goes out and gets it, you know. All these kinds of bad scenarios that are setting it up to really start to grow bacteria in there. And so, most of the time, it's six hours.

Interviewer: All right and how . . . does it automatically cause symptoms if you eat something that could be potentially bad, or do some people just react differently?

Dr. Madsen: I think some people it just depends, maybe . . . I don't know. You know, like I said, I had a personal experience with it and I knew this was not great potato salad, but I'm like, "I've got a strong stomach."

Interviewer: I guess you didn't, huh?

Dr. Madsen: I guess not. So I don't know if there's just, like, a certain threshold where if you eat X amount, you will get sick. If you eat less than that, you won't get sick. It's either really bad or it's not bad at all. Seems like most cases we see are people who come in who are feeling really sick from this.

Interviewer: Sure, which would make sense if they're coming into the emergency room, I suppose. So if some sort of food poisoning, or something I believe to be food poisoning, hits, you know, it's the six hours later after I ate something, maybe it was even at a restaurant, should I automatically be worried, or will my body kind of take care of it?

Dr. Madsen: Your body should take care of it. You know, if you've got other illnesses like kidney disease, heart problems, issues with dehydration, then I'd be more concerned because you're going to lose a lot of fluid. But if you're otherwise healthy and you think you can get through it, it's probably going to last six to 12 hours, and then you should feel better. You may want to go to the ER if you need to get some fluids, need to get some medication for nausea and vomiting, just to get through it. But the reality is most people are going to get through it okay. They're going to feel pretty crummy, but come out of it feeling weak, but feeling all right after 12 hours.

Interviewer: Would an urgent care be able to help you with those things, an IV and medication?

Dr. Madsen: They might be able to. The problem is if you go in an urgent care and you're just vomiting a lot, they might just get concerned enough, they might just send you straight to the ER. So it's kind of a tough call. Your doctor also might be able to call in a medication for you, some nausea medication, and maybe someone could pick it up for you. Because if you could just get that stuff in your system, you should be able to get through it okay.

Interviewer: Got you. And other than my own personal health, could it be something else that's more insidious than just food poisoning that would cause concern? I suppose if it doesn't stop in 12 hours, that's when . . .

Dr. Madsen: Yeah. It absolutely could, and that's the tough thing with food poisoning. We have people come in all the time that say, "I've got food poisoning," and honestly, I have no way to know unless they tell me, "Yeah, this other person was there and they got sick too and ate the same thing." Could be a virus, could be appendicitis, could be a bowel obstruction. There are lots of things that go through my mind so, definitely, if you're not feeling better after even six hours, you may consider getting checked out. And if you're having lots of abdominal pain, bloating in your abdomen, like your abdomen just feels like it's really distended, like it's sticking out, or you're really tender in the right, lower side of your abdomen, those are all things that might suggest something else going on.

updated: December 26, 2022
originally published: February 3, 2017

Dr. Gellner: Old wives' tales about food and drinks, we've heard them all. I'll clear up which ones are true and which ones are not on today's Scope. I'm Dr. Cindy Gellner.

Announcer: Keep your kids healthy and happy. You are now entering The Healthy Kids Zone with Dr. Cindy Gellner on the Scope.

Dr. Gellner: Number one, feed a cold and starve a fever. False. Both high fever and colds can cause fluid loss, and drinking plenty of fluids can help prevent dehydration. And with both fevers and colds it's fine for your child to eat whenever they want and whatever they want. But don't be surprised if your kid doesn't want to eat at all. As a parent, you don't eat either when you're sick. They'll eat when they're ready. Hydration is more important.

Next, wait an hour after eating before going swimming. No. According to the American Red Cross, it's not necessary for anyone to wait an hour after eating before going in the water. However, if your child had a big fatty meal and they're on a swim team and have a meet, it might be a good idea to let their food digest some. No one wants puke in the middle of the pool. The Red Cross also advises against chewing gum or eating while in the water. Your child could choke.

Next, coffee stunts your growth. That's false. In that coffee won't affect your child's growth, but too much caffeine doesn't belong in a child's diet anyways. Not to mention the acid in coffee and what it does to their sensitive stomachs. Coffee and caffeine can prevent the absorption of calcium and vitamins as well. So don't just give it to them.

Fish is brain food. This one is true. Fish is a good source of Omega 3 fatty acids and it's been found to be very important in brain function. Certain fish like tuna however, have significant levels of mercury, which isn't good for kids either. So keep those fish down to once a week.

One we've all heard, chocolate causes acne. Thank goodness this one's false. Although eating too many sugary high fat foods is not a good idea for anyone, studies show that no specific food has been proven to cause acne.

Spicy food can cause ulcers. Yes and no. Spicy foods may aggravate ulcer symptoms in some people but in kids they're more likely to cause indigestion.

While these are old wives' tales, remember, eating a healthy diet is never old advice.

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