Kayla: In this episode of Cult or just weird as well as the episode. In two weeks, we're going to be talking a lot about food, dieting, eating disorders, and related content. If you have an eating disorder, are in recovery, or know that diet related talk may be triggering for you, please consider skipping this episode. And if you need help, please visit the National association of anorexia Nervosa and associated Disorders, or anad@anad.org. Dot. That's an a D.org dot.
Chris: Okay, so when should I start recording?
Kayla: You've been recording.
Chris: No.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: That's. No. Oh, you know, but I learned from watching you dad. Yeah, you're my dad. Except my dad doesn't wear a nahi gao sweatshirt.
Kayla: You're just. You just.
Chris: I have to make fun of it. I'm sorry.
Kayla: You got it.
Chris: Our listeners have to know that you, right now, you are wearing an aha gao sweatshirt.
Kayla: Would you like to explain to our listeners what an ahegao sweatshirt is?
Chris: No. I think that they have Google and they can look it up. And I got it for you because you asked me for it, like, 18 times. And finally I was like, okay, I'll do it. It is a great sweatshirt.
Kayla: Yeah, I know it is. I know it is.
Chris: But it's also, like, the least comfortable thing that I have ever felt in my hand is the material in that sweatshirt. This is not ASMR nose. Oh, my God.
Kayla: It is not great material. Well, welcome to culture. Just weird.
Chris: I'm Chris.
Kayla: I'm Kayla.
Chris: And hopefully you guys are all doing well during this difficult time. We won't spend too much time on talking about the Rona because we don't want to.
Kayla: You can listen to episode one for that.
Chris: Yeah, listen to episode one or, you know, go to the news or whatever, but just want to say hopefully you guys are all staying as safe as you can and as sane as you can, and hopefully things are okay with you right now. And, yeah, we'll get through it.
Kayla: We'll get through it by talking about cults.
Chris: That's right. Well, I mean.
Kayla: Or just weirds.
Chris: Is there such thing as cult? Because I don't know if you listen to episode one.
Kayla: Actually, I do want to say to our listeners that after. After we did episode one, you and I have been doing a lot of thinking about, like, meta. Thinking about the podcast itself. Why do we use the word cult? Can we continue using the word cult? Are cults real? Is anything a cult?
Chris: Is anything real?
Kayla: Is anything real? Who knows?
Chris: Do days of the week exist anymore? Oh, wait, we said, we wouldn't talk about that.
Kayla: I just think that learning that cults and the quote unquote anti cult movement are both kind of groups that have cult like behaviors as we've defined them, it has been a little, you know, a little destabilizing for us, and it'll probably continue to be part of our journey as a podcast, grappling with those things that you brought up in episode one.
Chris: Yeah. As we learn more, we will share more with you guys. But, you know, as I mentioned in episode one, the anti cult movement is pretty broad. So, you know, there's some. Some groups and persons are better than others. You know, better being a very poorly defined term in that sentence. But, you know, it's a. It's a broad, diverse group of folks and institutions and. And. Yeah, some. Some good, some bad, some gray. Unfortunately, we're just in a world of so much gray right now.
Kayla: Nothing.
Chris: Everything's fucking gray.
Kayla: Nothing has any meaning.
Chris: And that's our show, guys.
Kayla: Bye. Yeah, I guess. Okay. Said my thing about season episode one. Let's get into the second episode of our second season, which I am now calling the quaranteesen.
Chris: I mean, for us, it's not that much different. We're just. We're still just kind of, like, holed up in our little. Tucked into our little soundproof cubbyhole here.
Kayla: Right. But it's the quarantine.
Chris: That's right.
Kayla: I'm gonna keep saying that.
Chris: And I'm excited for this show because I don't have to do anything, which is my favorite show. That's my favorite part, is when you do the stuff and I don't do things.
Kayla: That's actually my favorite part, too.
Chris: Mm. Yeah. Not doing stuff so good.
Kayla: Yeah. No, I mean, like, my favorite part is when I do the stuff and you don't.
Chris: Oh. Oh. Cause you have control problems, right?
Kayla: No, I just like you to be able to relax. Oh, that's so sweet.
Chris: Oh, and then I just insulted you. Oh, my God. Now I feel bad.
Kayla: You should. Don't worry. I'll say something later that'll make you not feel bad anymore.
Chris: Right. And then we'll have, like, a little mini argument that we'll cut out and, like, put it in the outtakes, and it'll be, like, hilarious. Like, why did you say that? God, you know what? Fine. I'll just.
Kayla: Well, that'll be your end. My end is usually like, okay, fine.
Chris: All right. I'm marriage fight the podcast anyway.
Kayla: Oh, didn't you. You said you wanted to talk about Patreon.
Chris: Oh, right. Yes. Well, so for our listeners, for the duration of this quarantine a thon that we all find ourselves in right now, our Patreon tiers are all completely free to the public.
Kayla: You don't even have to be a patron. Like, everything we're posting is public. Available. We would like to make sure.
Chris: You don't have to, like, go sign up.
Kayla: Yes, you don't have to sign up. We would love for you to sign up under one of our many tiers, but even if you do sign up, shit's free. And if you just want to, like, head on over, check it out, browse.
Chris: Yeah, and we're trying to do a little more than we normally do. Normally our Patreon is like some little snippets of bonus stuff and outtakes, but we're trying to do a little bit of heavier stuff. So, like, for example, if you go check out the bonus content we did for our first episode, we talk about actually the waco siege.
Kayla: We talked for like 25 minutes, guys.
Chris: Yeah. Because it was actually relevant to our topic of our first episode. And that's all I'm gonna say. Cause now you're, like, wondering what it is and you're all enticed.
Kayla: They're definitely enticed.
Chris: Whoa. Mysterious.
Kayla: Thank you for that.
Chris: You're welcome.
Kayla: Announcement.
Chris: So, yeah, so definitely go check out our Patreon. It's patreon.com cult or just weird onto my episode. Yes.
Kayla: I'm excited for this episode because I'm tackling a topic that I've kind of wanted to tackle for a while. I don't think I've been shy about it and, you know, this, that I've wanted to do something that relates to the concept of wellness for a while. I don't think I've been shy about talking about how I think various aspects of the health and wellness industries can be cult like and damaging. I mean, think about how we've already talked about herbalife and other mlms on the show. And herbalife isn't just bad because it's a pyramid scheme, it's bad because the products they're selling are bunk.
Chris: Yeah. They're sort of double dipping in the expected harm cultiness.
Kayla: Right? Yeah, a lot of mlms do that. Like all the essential oil stuff. Like it's all snake oil. And if I haven't said it already on the show, I will say it here. I strongly believe that the diet industry in particular is very cult like, if not a flat out cult. That's just a deep personal belief that I hold. Some of our listeners maybe checked out season two of the dream, which we loved and definitely influenced this episode. In the dream, season two, they tackled modern day wellness in just a really fascinating, enlightening, well rounded way.
Chris: Yep. The dream is always really good and exposes.
Kayla: Exposes shit.
Chris: We want to be them.
Kayla: Yes, we do. And this isn't to say that, like, anything that is related to the pursuit of health and wellness is bad. I'm just giving some background on my relationship to the topic, how I feel like it's the pursuit of health and wellness is not inherently a good or bad thing. It can be used for good or bad.
Chris: Yeah, I think individual pursuit of health and wellness is just fine. It's just the problem is there are systems and bad designs in place that know, lead to things that, again, if you want to listen to the dream, the whole industry is questionable at best. And that can harm people. And that's where it ticks off that expected harm box that makes it feel culty.
Kayla: And it's so difficult when, like, we're dealing with something that has such ill defined terms, because what is healthy? What is wellness? You know what I mean? Like those two words in particular. And healthy is such a. Like, it's such a word that gets thrown around that doesn't really have an agreed upon meaning.
Chris: Right? And marketing is. It's such a powerful marketing word, too.
Kayla: Right, right. And along with that, like, there's such a. There's such a morality that's been imbued into being healthy. Like, it's a moral obligation.
Chris: Right? Like, if you aren't posting your Instagram green smoothie, then what are you doing with your life?
Kayla: Well, it's like, how many times have you heard somebody say, I don't care if you do XYZ, just be healthy. Or like, when talking.
Chris: We said that at the beginning of the episode for the Rona, stay healthy from Rona.
Kayla: It's not that you can wish people to stay healthy, but when you're making these moral judgments on people's lives based on your perceived notion of their health, that it starts crossing lines. We see it a lot when talking about people of size or fat people, where it's couched in this. Like, I'm just concerned for your health, when really you're just concerned about the way that I look. You don't have any idea what my health status is by looking at me. You can't tell somebody's health status by looking at them, right? We talk about food and activity in terms of good and bad, I was so bad last night, I had fries instead of salad or, ugh, I haven't worked out in a week. I'm so bad. No dessert for me. I'm trying to be good.
Chris: This is so sinful, right? Literally, sinful.
Kayla: Food is not sinful, guys. It's not sinful. And not eating dessert doesn't make you good, and eating fries doesn't make you bad. And it extends further than this. Fat people, especially often receive shoddier and judgier medical care than nonfat people. Many times when people go to doctors for a symptom that's not weight related, doctors will kind of roll everything into that one thing of, like, well, if you just lose weight, your broken bone will be healed. And that has a real damaging effect on populations. And the reality is that today's best science says that a person's weight has very little to do with their overall health. It's only one factor amidst a slew of factors, and that fat shaming and body shaming is more harmful to our health than being a weight that doctors have deemed, quote unquote, too high.
Kayla: But we're not talking about weight necessarily in this episode. Just wanted to kind of, like, talk about. Start talking about the notion of morality that gets imbued with health. And then where does this morality of health fit in with people who have chronic illnesses or disabilities? If your body naturally doesn't meet the quote unquote standards of health, then what kind of messaging do we send when we moralize health to people who don't have the luxury of health? Like, if you're saying, gotta be healthy, get your 10,000 steps a day. Like, what? What are we saying about bodies that can't do those very narrow prescribed things that we say are health? I think the messaging is really important, and it's something for us to think about.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: It's also important to note that along with language like good and bad, when talking about health, there's also a lot of purity based language. Think about movements like clean eating. What does clean eating mean? Clean of. What does that mean that you're not eating toxins?
Chris: Don't eat dirt.
Kayla: I don't think that's what clean eating.
Chris: Oh, really? Oh. Cause I thought I was clean eating because I didn't eat dirt.
Kayla: No, and you're definitely eating dirt anyway. But, like, you know, with clean eating, things like toxins get thrown around. There's not toxins in our food. That's a fake buzzword. If were eating toxins, we would die. Like, that's right.
Chris: Toxins are toxic things which damage you.
Kayla: And so then, okay, what? Clean of bad ingredients? Again, you're moralizing. What is a bad ingredient? Does clean eating meaning you're not eating processed food? We live in a time where many of us believe that the general phrase processed or processing when it comes to food, automatically means that it's bad or worse for you or unhealthy, worse than natural. If you listen to the dream, you'll know that these words don't really have any actual meaning based in science. Like, there's not necessarily requirements for somebody to be able to call their product natural or clean or whatever. And what does processed even mean?
Chris: Well, what about something like trans fats, where it's like, we've discovered that actually does have some deleterious effect on our health and wellbeing? Or am I wrong in that assumption? Is that not correct?
Kayla: What do you mean?
Chris: Like, trans fats shouldn't consume too many trans fats because it's not good for your cholesterol and it's not good for your. Maybe I'm speaking out of turn because I'm not a doctor myself, but no.
Kayla: There'S absolutely, like, there are guidelines and there are certain nutritional things that we can be working on hitting, but that doesn't come from cutting out entire groups of food. It comes from having a well rounded diet.
Chris: Okay, so when you say.
Kayla: And also, trans fats has nothing to do with clean eating. Clean eating movement doesn't have to do with, like, don't eat trans fats.
Chris: I see.
Kayla: It's very narrow and, like, orthorexic. I see, in my opinion.
Chris: So it's about. So what you're saying is clean eating is less about don't eat proven harmful things or limit your consumption of proven harmful things. And it's more about, like, clean eating is. Are you having only kale?
Kayla: It's the notion of, like, you can. The things that we are generally eating on a day to day basis are bad and wrong and that we must eat a certain way in order to be free of toxins, to not eat processed food, not to be eating non gmo food, to be eating like, it's a. And the phrase clean eating doesn't have a definition. And that's, again, part of the issue here is that there's not, like, there's no scientific basis to the phrase clean eating.
Chris: Got it.
Kayla: And as far as I'm aware, we're actually finding that a lot of emphasis on clean eating does lead to things like developing orthorexia and other, like, disordered eating patterns and going back. Okay, going back to what? Is something, like, processed actually mean? Like, okay, if we're talking processed lunch meat, I get that the food has gone through mechanical and chemical processing to become the food that it is. And we're like, oh, no, that's bad. But, like, where does. And I'm legit asking you, like, where does that stop? Like, is bread a processed food? Is quinoa. Are quinoa and rice processed foods? Is cooking processing, like, these things? Like, if you cook something in oil, is that processing the food?
Chris: Yeah. I don't know. Like, I I mean, I feel like the sort of colloquial in my head definition of processed food would be that it's processed before I get to it, you know, versus, like, whole food. Just. Again, this is just in my head. If I'm the one doing the processing, then it's not processed. Right? That's. That's, I guess, is.
Kayla: So bread is a processed food?
Chris: I would say so, yeah.
Kayla: So bread.
Chris: Did I buy from the store?
Kayla: Buy chicken breasts. You're getting a processed food.
Chris: Chicken breasts are processed. Oh. Because they're. They're butchered.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: I guess. I don't know. Like, I I mean, I totally get your point that it's, like, ill defined.
Kayla: I'm just saying that if you. If you try to follow the letter of this logic down to its conclusion, like, we're all just gonna be raw vegans. You know what I mean?
Chris: Mm.
Kayla: With such an ill defined term, like processed, it starts to cut out the foods that are available to you because. Yeah, it's like, oh, is quinoa processed? It does have to go through a process before it gets put on my shelf.
Chris: Maybe it's chemicals, then. Maybe it's like, if, you know, like, hot dogs and where it's, like. Or maybe it's multiple different ingredients. I don't know. Like, I guess, like, salami would probably be considered processed because you have to grind it up, mix it with a bunch of, you know, salts and whatnot and let it age. But I don't know.
Kayla: Are tomatoes a processed food if they've gone through, like, being GMo or having pesticides applied or things like that?
Chris: I mean, I would say no, but I'm not really an expert. I feel like if I'm being asked to draw that line, then I would say that it involves some sort of mechanical plus some sort of chemical reconstitution of what the whole food is. So I would say like a can of tomatoes. It's like chopped up tomatoes. Seems like it's processed because it's been mechanically changed and maybe add some preservatives and things like that, but a whole food that has things applied to it prior to harvesting feels like it's not processed.
Kayla: Is cooking a mechanical process?
Chris: Yes. So I would say that if I'm going to a restaurant, I'm eating processed food. I mean, I would say I'm eating processed food no matter what. When I'm cooking it, the question is, like, is it pre processed before I get to it? I don't know. I think to me, it's, a lot of it has to do with just the uncertainty, right? Like, I think people, well, people do fear uncertainty, right? And if you're the one processing your food, there's less uncertainty about what you're getting, about what you're putting into it. I can put as much, if I'm curing my own meats, I can put as much salt of whatever kind I want into it. If I'm buying salami from the grocery store, I don't know what went into it.
Chris: So I think a lot of it is just the obfuscation that happens with the supply chain of food. What exactly goes into that? I think it's less about that than more than it is about not knowing what happened to that food.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And with the regulation, with the FDA, this is, again, something they talked about in the dream, but with the limited power that the FDA has, and they certainly have more power over food than they do over the health supplement industry. But we're putting a lot of trust and a lot of faith in the suppliers, the food chain suppliers that do the processing, that they're doing things right. And historically, that's sometimes been good, sometimes been not good. There's plenty of info out there about what, you know, when processed food first started becoming a thing, when processing food moved out of the household into the industrial sphere, and people started buying milk from the store and buying bread from the store, they put some nasty things to make milk and bread.
Chris: And I bring those two up specifically if you want to go listeners, if you want to go look that up. They put some manufacturers.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Put some really bad things into milk and bread specifically.
Kayla: So. But you're saying, so this is pre FDA.
Chris: Yes. This is like 18 hundreds.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: Yeah. So, but I'm bringing it up as more of like a, an example of, I think there's fear and trepidation around not knowing if the people that are making our food that are processing our food for us have our best interests in mind all the time. The things that they were doing with milk and bread was to extend their supplies. It was all about the bottom line. It was all about making. It was all about getting money instead of making money. So, to me, that feels like it's more about that fear of the unknown and the trust of the folks making our food than it is about the specific thing that goes into it.
Kayla: So then why aren't clean eating Instagram influencers telling us that we should all be having gardens and only growing our own food?
Chris: I don't know, because I don't follow any of those on Instagram. And also, I don't go on Instagram except for our podcast.
Kayla: Like, how. How we don't know how these individual people are defining clean eating. And that kind of allows us to try and figure that out on our own. And it's trying to figure out something that, like, doesn't really exist, in my opinion. I don't believe in something called clean eating. I think that you can eat a well rounded diet, but I think that trying to. Trying to eliminate any of your exposure to imaginary toxins and gmo stuff is not based in reality.
Chris: Do you think there's a version of it that is? Do you think there's, like a. If we don't call it clean eating and if, let's say there was, like, an actual registered dietitian that is, you know, science based that recommends things.
Kayla: I mean, most of what comes out of my mouth, and I'm talking about food, is directly translated from a registered dietitian that I've worked with that I think is very science based and keeps up on the developing science.
Chris: So if she went on Instagram and started making recommendations, you feel like that would be kosher?
Kayla: What do you mean?
Chris: Well, I'm just saying, like, we have these. You're saying there's these Instagram influencers that are promoting clean eating, whatever that means. Antitoxin, whatever. So you're saying it's more about the content than about the fact that they're doing that. It's what they're pushing, not the fact that they're pushing it. Like, if you're a registered dietitian, went and created an Instagram account and started making recommendations, it's kind of like asking.
Kayla: Me, do I think it's better? Like, do I think it's bad that non scientists are pushing scientific things? Well, yes, I do think that's bad.
Chris: Right? No, I'm not asking if you think it's bad. What I'm asking is, do you think it's bad that there's a. That the influencers exist at all, or is it just the content of what they're saying? That's.
Kayla: I think that those are two different things.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I think that non scientific, non scientists pushing facts that they believe are scientific fact and are not is a huge problem, even outside of food.
Chris: So are you saying that it's bad that there are people that are non experts that are using their.
Kayla: I.
Chris: Their individual experiences and not using empirical evidence?
Kayla: I mean, like, it even goes back.
Chris: To, are we just going to call this episode the experts part two?
Kayla: Like, thinking about, okay, I mentioned how it could be really easy to kind of fall down the rabbit hole of like, okay, I guess I can only eat raw. Well, like, science kind of has told us that cooking our food is, like, one of the most important things in human evolution. It's kind of what made us. What part of what made us what we are today.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: So I think it is very problematic when people who are not trained make claims about something as important as food and the way we eat it.
Chris: Okay, so these Instagram influences you're talking about are people that are not trained. There are people that are popular, what I'm assuming because they are physically, conventionally attractive.
Kayla: It's important to note, especially in California, and it varies state by state, but a lot of people can call them. Anybody can call themselves a nutritionist, anyone. You don't have to have any sort of licensing to be a nutritionist. Anyone can be a nutritionist. To talk.
Chris: Anyone can be a deprogrammer.
Kayla: Yeah. To talk to somebody that has actually gone through the training, you need to talk to a registered dietitian. Those are two different things.
Chris: That's actually good to know.
Kayla: Yes. I've done a lot of work with registered dietitians, and that's something that comes up over and over again, that because this is such a complicated topic that you can't just kind of, like, throw caution to the wind and be like, oh, I'll go with this nutritionist, because I like the cut of their jib.
Chris: Yeah, nutritionists tend to have good jib cuts.
Kayla: They do have good jib cuts, but.
Chris: Actually, our cuts of jib are those clean eating or.
Kayla: You tell me.
Chris: I don't know. I don't think you should eat jib cuts. It's not the best part of the ship.
Kayla: Okay, well, would it be shocking for you to learn that there are actually three different kinds of food processing? I know we just talked a whole bunch about, like, what does it mean to process your food is cooking process? Well, there's actually. I can. I can actually tell you what they are.
Chris: Okay, so I feel a little misled. Now, you let me talk about that whole, like, what I think it is.
Kayla: Well, I think it's important to have that discussion too, because this is not knowledge that we're all armed with. It's just kind of like, you turn on the tv and there's a commercial about, like, processed food is bad. And it's like, well, what is processed food? And then you can, like, google what is processed food? And then you get to some clean eating blog recipe and it's like, oh, no, what you're eating right now, your bread is processed food. And then you're like, oh, no, everything I'm eating is processed. I just can't eat. I'll go be a breatharian. That's how it works.
Chris: Is that the topic?
Kayla: No, it's not.
Chris: Breatharians.
Kayla: Oh, no. Sorry. One day let me just read you the definition of food processing just so we can have some actual science here. Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food or of one form of food into other forms. So this. It's as simple as that. So, like, food processing can literally mean grinding. Grinding up some grain to make flour. And then it also can be baking that flour into bread.
Chris: And when I want whole wheat bread, what I want is like, the actual grain. Like the grain that I just chop it straight from the plant and put it in an oven and then slather some butter on that, of course.
Kayla: Oh, yeah.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Butter's processed, God. Cause it's been through a process to become a food. So, like, okay, there's actually three different, like, levels of food processing. Okay, there's primary, there's secondary, and there's tertiary.
Chris: Tertiary?
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Oh, called it.
Kayla: I know. So, like, primary processing is generally necessary to make a food edible. So, like, grinding up the wheat into flour.
Chris: Oh, I see. So, like, literally you can't even do.
Kayla: Okay, and then secondary is like, taking the primarily processed food and making it into a familiar food. So it's like, is this like.
Chris: Bread making from said flour?
Kayla: Yeah, bread. Or like pasta. Or just taking a primarily processed foods that you can eat it and then turning it into a food. And then tertiary is kind of. Tertiary processing is the good stuff. Generally, what we're talking about, like, tertiary.
Chris: Processing is pink slime doritos.
Kayla: It's turning stuff into, like, tv dinners, in flight meals, convenience foods, and convenience foods. Are kind of like, you know, things that are ready to eat, things that are. You grab it off the shelf and it's good to go. It's a bag of cheetos. It's a Twinkie, it's a frozen pizza. Like, it's. It's. It's those kinds of things. And so tertiary food processing is kind of, what? Like doctors and food scientists and whoever the fuck else. That's what they're looking at when they're saying processed food is making us all fat. And it's. So they're specifically talking about tertiary generally.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: But, I mean, there's also clean eating advocates that will say, like, don't eat bread because it's processed, or don't eat dairy, don't eat gluten, don't eat this, don't eat that. It can really go down.
Chris: This wonder bread, like, white bread, is hella demonized these days.
Kayla: I know, and it shouldn't be. I don't really eat white bread, but, like, when you and I make bread, we're making white bread. When you and I make bread at home, it's white bread.
Chris: Excuse me, Kayla, but I'm making.
Kayla: Sourdough, which is a white bread. It's not. We're not making it with a colored white. We're not making a whole grain bread. We don't have whole grain. We have all purpose flour.
Chris: Okay. But it tastes way better than wonder bread.
Kayla: I'm not saying it doesn't. But also, you can't roll it up in a ball and use it as an eraser.
Chris: That's true.
Kayla: So, actually, I haven't tried.
Chris: I haven't tried that.
Kayla: Let's try. Well, but I also don't want to waste your bread because it's a good.
Chris: I know. Thanks to our Patreon subscriber, Paul, who is starting a bread baking empire. He taught me how to. He gave me the sourdough bread starter and taught me how to make bread. And this is a relevant part of our podcast.
Kayla: It is. Because social distancing. Socializing, that's basically what you guys were doing. And it's really.
Chris: That's true. We went. We did a Google chat, I believe, call, and did it that way.
Kayla: So. So, yeah, I just wanted to clarify that there are, like, scientific terms for what food processing.
Chris: Okay. Is okay. Because you were throwing a lot of, like, well, what is it? Is it this? Is it this? Who knows? I don't know. And then I had to, like, give my. I still think that my way of framing it feels. It's not a way of framing it.
Kayla: It's like, your definition for yourself.
Chris: It's less of a definition. And it's more just like, I think that the fear and trepidation about processed foods is less about how exactly we define it and more about the fact that we know so little and there's so much obfuscation about where our food comes from.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: Like, that's the issue. It's like, what's red dye number 40? What the hell is in my doritos? And why can't I stop eating them? Like, it's. It's that fear that leads us to say, like, processed foods are bad. To me. That's what it feels like.
Kayla: I like, my favorite one is, like, when it says natural flavorings. And the reason why it says natural is because it means it's, like, it's from something organic. And I don't mean, like, organic as an untouched by chemicals. I mean, like, it was animal or a plant. And, like, the reason why it says natural is because they don't want to say, like, we crushed up a bunch of red bugs to make this red.
Chris: Right, right.
Kayla: But, guys, you're eating red bugs. Sorry.
Chris: It's cool. We're all eating bugs.
Kayla: We're all eating things that we wouldn't eat if they were put whole on it. We would not eat them if they were a whole food sitting in front of us.
Chris: It was a really compelling YouTube video I watched by a really good content creator that had a really good case for eating more bugs.
Kayla: Oh, sure. We should be eating more bugs. They're really packed full of protein.
Chris: They're, like, very nutritionally dense. Yeah, nutritionally dense. They apparently convert calories and nutrients from the things that they eat into bioavailable things that we can eat from them.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Like, massively more efficiently than, say, like, a cow or a chicken. Cows or chickens are, like, it's like, 20%. And you can probably cut all this because I don't remember the exact percentages, but then crickets are, like, 90% or something. Like, 90% of what they eat becomes bioavailable to us versus, like, chickens and cows are, like, 20% or 30%.
Kayla: Damn. Go eat some bugs. Let me just end with little defining of food processing and pointing out that we did talk about lunch meat and salami and sausage and stuff like that.
Chris: I love me some sausage.
Kayla: I think you said that sausage was you considered a processed food sausage.
Chris: Hell, yeah.
Kayla: It's a sec. And that's a secondary process. It's not a tertiary, that makes sense.
Chris: Because it's just meat being ground up and putting into. Yeah, that makes sense.
Kayla: So again, I just want to clarify.
Chris: So it would be primary would be the butchery, and then the secondary would be the sausage processing, I guess. Interesting.
Kayla: And secondary processes include our cooking methods generally. And then I also just want to point out that we've talked about how food processing can be quote unquote good and quote unquote bad. I just think it's important that we don't lump everything all into one thing. Because then you're talking about, like, pasteurization is bad, right?
Chris: Well, it's a process. There's another cult, maybe doesn't.
Kayla: Oh, the anti pasteurization people.
Chris: Oh, the people that like to drink the raw milk or the raw water people. Yeah. There's too many cults.
Kayla: There's too many cults.
Chris: I'm interested to know what it's actually gonna be today, or. We'll get to that next episode.
Kayla: We'll get to that.
Chris: We'll get to that.
Kayla: Actually, let me ask you this. Is honey processed? Honey is processed. You wanna talk about processed food? Honey goes through to get honey.
Chris: Bee barf.
Kayla: It is bee barf. It is processed by the bees. So is honey clean?
Chris: I mean, it feels like it is to me, but it's processed here. I'm gonna go back to my same rubric as before. Is that.
Kayla: Is it chemical and mechanical processes?
Chris: No, but that wasn't my rubric. My rubric was, is there some black box that my food comes out of? And for honey, it feels like. No, especially if I'm harvesting it myself. But if I'm getting it off the shelf, then, yeah, I guess that, like, depending on the. The brand. Do I trust the brand? Maybe that's part of it.
Kayla: Did you know that it can be very dangerous to just get honey from your neighbor? No, that hasn't gone through, like, FDA approved processes.
Chris: So I had that backwards then.
Kayla: And I've bought honey from my neighbor, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't.
Chris: Wait, which neighbor has honey?
Kayla: When we lived in Long beach, okay, we got honey one time, and we used to get bread from that guy.
Chris: What guy?
Kayla: Remember we used to get bread from that guy? What, Bruce, the bread guy. He was just a guy that made bread.
Chris: The fuck you talk. Oh, yeah, yeah. The guy that lived down the street.
Kayla: That good bread.
Chris: Yeah, that's. That sounds safe. But see, we try. He's part of our food trust network.
Kayla: But he shouldn't. He was a guy found on Facebook.
Chris: Yeah. He should not have been part of.
Kayla: Our food anyway, because honey that you can get from your neighbor or that you can get from your own, like, beehive that hasn't been, like, cleaned or clarified, it can have bee parts in it. It can have stuff that, like, can cause really serious allergies in people.
Chris: Like, it's not trigger allergies or cause them.
Kayla: Like, if you're allergic to. Like, if a bee stings you and you're allergic to a bee stinging you.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: So you eat the honey that has, like, the bee parts in it or, like, hasn't been cleaned of the bee, whatever you can.
Chris: It can trigger your allergic reaction.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Got it.
Kayla: And again, that's not to say that it's better or worse. I'm just saying that you. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that you cannot 100% divorce yourself of any sort of risk when you are eating food.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: I know. Okay. And given all of that, given that getting honey locally can have dire ramifications, can also be great and delicious and put it on your toast in the morning. I don't want to do the thing where I'm not giving equal weight to both sides. Like, I don't want to say that the FDA is never wrong and food is always. Food on the shelf is always 100% safe and 100% what it says it is. No, everything sucks. I guess that's what I'm saying. Everything sucks.
Chris: It's hard to. My takeaway is that I'm too terrified to eat honey anymore. So thanks.
Kayla: Well, I'm going to terrify you more. I'm sorry. There have been and for almost a decade, there have been reports and rumors that, like, the honey that you get on the shelves is fake, is not actually honey from bees.
Chris: Yeah. There's a whole episode of rotten events.
Kayla: There's documentaries. Like, it's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. The honey being. The honey being potentially fake is, like, destroying the honey industry because it's artificially driving prices down. And so it's making it impossible for beekeepers to, like, keep up with the honey price point because if some manufacturer is saying, here's honey, and it's really just like, sugar water or whatever the fuck, right? And it costs $0.05, but, like, keeping bees costs ten cents. The honey, the actual honey farmers can't keep, can't compete with that. So it's putting. And, like, this is also coinciding with, like, the colony collapses that are happening and all the bees disappearing like we're destroying the honey industry by, like, I read a bunch of different competing articles where it was like, every single honey on the shelf is fake.
Kayla: And then there was other articles being like, no, come on, guys. We're npremenous. And it's definitely not fake. But then there's, like, a whole vice article from, I think, last year that I'll. I'm gonna definitely link to all of these. I don't want to get too much into the honey thing because we're already getting into all these little.
Chris: Good episode. I don't know.
Kayla: But I just. I just want to make it clear that, yes, there are. There are believable and verifiable and trustworthy news sources that say a lot of the honey that is on the shelf is not necessarily honey. It is something that's been processed weird.
Chris: Or is honey from the store?
Kayla: It might be.
Chris: It's not really honey. And if I get honey from a local beekeeper, it will kill me. Yeah, that second part can't be true. The second part, there has to be some way for me to, like, buy local honey and have it be trusted somehow. Like, why is it dangerous?
Kayla: Because it's. Because it has. It's kind of like buying. It's kind of like if you went and got milk straight out of a cow, probably not going to kill you, but it can. And that's why we have processes to, like, pasteurize it. It's like that. It's like how going to the farm and drinking milk out of a cow to eat probably fine, but it can have consequences.
Chris: Okay, so if there's, like, a local beekeeper that is able to, whatever pasteurization is to process their honey, then that would be safe?
Kayla: I think so.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I'm not an authority. I'm just here to say that there are upsides and downsides to all of it. And that's why having rules doesn't really fit here. Because if your rule is I never buy honey from the store, well, there's risks to that. And if your rule is I only buy, I never buy honey from beekeepers, well, there's risks to that.
Chris: So this goes back to being able.
Kayla: To eat both, is, you know, that's probably kind of where you have to settle in order to, like, live sanely in this world.
Chris: Well, I think it's very similar to the information trust network that we talk about, and that's also difficult.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: But food is sort of part of that in this modern society we've built, where it's hard to just make your own food, from soup to nuts, so to speak. There's hundreds and hundreds of people involved, from the farmers to the harvesting to the logistics of the food and the refrigeration. I mean, there's just so many pieces to it that I think, again, that's where it comes down to, is, like, how do you know who to trust? And then sometimes it can become difficult to trust or know who. And sometimes that causes people to somewhat give up on it, I think. I mean, that's where a lot of, like, denialism comes in, which is maybe tangential to this.
Chris: Not exactly this, but it comes from, like, when we talked about not to bring up the Rona again, but that guy that I, you know, who I read that said, like, you know, honestly, I'd have to get it to know, right? Or flat earthers that say, like, I don't trust anything that I don't see, and it looks like it's flat to me, and I'm gonna do my own totally bunk science by riding a plane with a, you know, with a level, which we'll talk about at some point. But anyway, it seems like that's maybe a similar situation. It's so hard to know because there's so much information, there's so much food, there's so many people involved in such a complex system that at some point, our brains. Some of our brains kind of just go like, you know what? I don't trust anything.
Chris: So I have to just do clean. Whatever seems clean. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna just pick this instagram influencer because, I don't know, she looks good and she's eating lettuce. I've heard greens are good.
Kayla: Taking on that, to me, it introduces a whole new set of, like, complications to your life.
Chris: And, yeah, I don't think that's a good place to end up, because then.
Kayla: You'Re like, oh, well, this is the way I must eat. And then every single time you sit down to eat a meal, you're thinking about these rules that you have placed on yourself. And so there's so much more stress generated by trying to eat in a certain way, rather than trying to eat in a well rounded way and trusting your body and trusting that if you eat a well rounded diethouse, you will support your health to a maximum level, because stress is also bad for your health.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: Cutting calories and cutting out entire food groups is bad for your health. Like, these. These are things that are bad for your health that don't necessarily have to do with the actual type or quality of food that you're bringing into your body.
Chris: Well, and we've also internalized health equals weight.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: And granted, and I don't know how comfortable I am saying that they're not correlated at all, because, again, I'm not a doctor, but on the other hand, I feel like a lot of us think that they are. That that Venn diagram is basically entirely over. It's a circle, right? And it's not. I mean, is there some overlap? Probably, but it's not the exact same thing. Right? So if you're equating that, if you're equating health to weight, then the only thing that makes you healthier is to lose weight, which means that anything you do in service of that is good. When that may not be the case.
Kayla: That line of thinking is very wrong. Even if health and weight are correlated, which from my understanding, and I follow, I mostly subscribe to the health at every size way of thinking about this, because from what I have read, they seem to be the most up on the actual science to the point where they like health at every size. Food scientists and scientists are. I was reading a book recently called Body Respect, and it's written by Linda Bacon, who I believe now goes by Lindo Bacon. I think that they no longer identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. So Doctor Bacon, PhD, and Lucy Aframore, who is a registered dietitian. And they're kind of like the cutting edge scientists on the health at every size movement.
Kayla: And, like, in reading this book, it was just shocking the amount of good science that often goes unnoticed or gets thrown into the trash by mainstream science, quote, unquote, because it doesn't fit that framework of size, of, like, weight and health overlapping in that way. Like, even to the point where when studies come out that say, oh, this is not correlated in the way that we thought, government officials will go, like, surgeon general type, government officials will go, okay, but also, like, here's the science for publishing it. But also, you should kind of ignore it because health and weight are correlated. It's just kind of like we as a society are really dug into this idea that weight and health are direct correlation, even when our best science doesn't necessarily hold up that correlation is so strong.
Kayla: Sure, there's overlap, but there's also overlap in, like, activity and health. Like, if somebody is of an acceptable, quote unquote BMI, we can get into how BMI is complete bunk and never exercises and only eats, you know, processed Cheetos. They're not necessarily healthier than a fat person who goes for a run twice a week. You know what I mean?
Chris: Right. So are they saying. And I don't want to, like, I know this is potentially, like, a ten hour topic, but are they saying that there is no correlation or there is some. No, it's not as clear as it's been.
Kayla: It's a factor. It's not.
Chris: Yeah. So, yeah. And that, I mean, anecdotally for me, is, like, not a doctor, not a scientist. It feels like it makes sense that it would be a factor, but it also feels like that it's. So often it's the only thing.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Or it's the only underlying thing, or it's the most important thing. Well.
Kayla: And shitty weight loss products get pushed all the time under the guise of health, like Jenny Craig and Weight watchers. And all this shit is about being your healthiest. You. Even when I don't know what these programs are saying now, but in the past, these programs have been very wrong in their approach to weight loss and healthy eating.
Chris: Right. And you're always congratulated by your friends, your coworkers, your family if you lose weight, and it doesn't matter why you lost it. Like, you could be, like, you know, people lose weight for a lot of different reasons. I mean, I could be going through chemo. You could have anorexia. There's plenty of reasons to not congratulate someone on losing weight. And also, conversely, you know, gaining weight can be very healthy. If you are maybe coming back from chemo or coming back from anorexia, like, it's. Then gaining weight is actually really good.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: So I definitely think that, yeah, there's some. There's a lot of, like, cultural attachment to that, too.
Kayla: And it kind of makes us ignore the science, which, as we've talked many times, that's where, you know, you get into some danger. And then, for me, I think the, like, the purity aspect of all of this bothers me the most. And you see it in how food is advertised, like, down to choice of colors and fonts used on packages. The way that Instagram influencers talk about things. Green smoothies and acai bowls showcased on white linen tables with billowing clouds and words like light and natural and non gmo and good all kind of play into this, where it's like, these foods are good and will help you ascend. And it almost gets spiritual in that way, where it's like, if you eat.
Chris: This, you'll be light enough that you can levitate into the clouds.
Kayla: I mean, we'll get there.
Chris: Is this. Oh, my God. Are we.
Kayla: No, no, it's not what you're thinking. We'll get there.
Chris: We're not doing breath arianism.
Kayla: We'll get there. We'll get to it.
Chris: We'll get to that.
Kayla: We'll get to that.
Chris: We'll get to that. We've trademarked it now. We've totally done that and everything.
Kayla: We'll get to that. Full disclosure, I am someone who's been in eating disorder recovery for more than a decade. So in case you can't tell, I take this shit pretty personally. And when you develop and recover from an eating disorder, you are forced to come face to face with how deep and pervasive and damaging these cultural feelings around food and health can really get. Like, you start, you slowly start to see how slippery of a slope it is from eating healthy to going on a diet to an eating disorder.
Chris: Is it slippery because there's extra virgin olive oil that's clean eating that you slip on? Is that. Is that why it's slippery?
Kayla: I slip you?
Chris: Does that mean anything?
Kayla: No, it doesn't. I've read this statistic multiple times. I'll be sure to link to it. It shocks me every single time. But it's believed that around 25% of people who attempt diets will go on to develop an eating disorder or disordered eating.
Chris: Shit. Okay, I was gonna ask if it's like, is that classical anorexia, bulimia?
Kayla: Well, I mean, we can even get into how the term eating disorder is, what that means, and the terms anorexia and bulimia, what those mean. And when you start to zoom in on that coastline, the lines between things really start to, you know, I'm going to talk about it, so hold that thought. So when you have an eating disorder, you start to see how so many people, and it feels like the vast majority have disordered or unhealthy or unsatisfactory relationships with food. Even if you don't necessarily have an unhealthy relationship where you're like, you know, restricting your calories or doing unhealthy behaviors to not have food in your body, most people, it seems, have an unsatisfying relationship with food. It's adversarial.
Kayla: It's that thing you said where it's like, with this guilt inducing guilt, it's not just like a part of life, it's this, like, stressor. And like, when you have eating disorder, food is the biggest stressor in your life. So it's like, you see how those scale. Like, it kind of. You slide down that virgin olive oil from one.
Chris: You know, you didn't like it at first, but. But now you're using it. So you're welcome for that little medical.
Kayla: Thank you. Thank you.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: You start to see how your insane food rules stemmed from already existing notions in society. Like, generally, we can all agree that eating 400 calories a day is unhealthy, but when most diets encourage calorie counting or even, like, intense caloric restriction, you start to see that connection. Okay, well, okay, 400 is bad. Well, what about 800? Okay, what about 1200?
Chris: What about 799?
Kayla: Like, and that purity mentality, why did you say that? What does that mean?
Chris: Because you said 800. So I'm like, if that's not good, then what about 799?
Kayla: 800 calories is considered a starvation diet. Just so we're clear.
Chris: Oh, so we should go. Okay, well, what about 801, then maybe I should have gone the other way.
Kayla: I don't know. Calories are also fake.
Chris: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean fake? I thought calories were a measure of. That's like a physics measure or a chemistry measure.
Kayla: Yeah, but it also, like, the interaction between individuals and calories is not a one to one.
Chris: So you're saying that the food is telling me what would happen if I essentially. If I burned the food under a pot of water? And that's how much. Because the calorie is just the. And I actually had to look this up because I didn't remember this from physics, but. But it's the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water to one degree celsius. And actually, now it's defined in terms of joules, which. Joules is a measure of energy, not of temperature. But in any case, it's very well defined in physics. So are you saying that it's.
Kayla: I'm saying in food it is not so well defined because in food, it's a little more complicated because the way we understand calories, the way we know, you know, this piece of cheese has this many calories is because a number is printed on a label. And those are not an exact science. And there are. I mean, there's even ways for food companies to kind of manipulate the amount of calories that they put on something. Like a lot of things that are advertised as zero calorie aren't actually zero calorie. They just have few enough calories in them to be called.
Chris: To legally be called.
Kayla: Yes. Like, okay, you know that, like, I can't believe it's. Not butter spray that I love and nobody should eat because it's terrible.
Chris: It terrifies me.
Kayla: Yes, it's, I mean, it's. The ingredients in it are not, it's not, you know, yellow chemicals.
Chris: It is just, it's not cancer spray.
Kayla: It's just like butter salt. It's like a small amount of butter and salt mixed with, like, water. That's basically what it is.
Chris: Oh, you can wait.
Kayla: So it's not a chemical, but it.
Chris: Says, I can't believe it's not butter.
Kayla: It's not butter. It's like milk solids. You know what I mean?
Chris: It's butter extract or something. Okay.
Kayla: But so they're like, this is no calorie for every spray. Well, actually, no, it's like ten. But it's just because it's low enough and different bodies interact differently with these things. Calories on nutrition labels sometimes are more estimates, and then even it goes the other way too. When you're, like, riding a bike at the gym, the amount of calories it's telling you that you're burning isn't necessarily accurate.
Chris: Yeah, I'm sure it's based on some, like, average person that's probably completely different depending on, like, how big your muscles are and how your metabolism works. Incredibly different.
Kayla: Yeah, they're different. So.
Chris: And by the way, the stuff about the calories you're saying kind of makes me feel like, it kind of reminds me what I was saying, you know, ten minutes ago about, can we trust the people that are like, that's what feels like it's shitty in my head about processed food. It's not what happens to the food. It's, can I trust what you're telling me about it?
Kayla: I think what I would argue, and we're not really going to get into this in this episode, and, you know, maybe we can do some bonus content on it, but I, what I would argue is that what you can't, you cannot control what other people are doing, including the people that are making your food, including. You can only control so much. You can control, like, where you buy it, you can control, like, how much food you eat out of your garden or from the farmers market, you can control those things. But what you really want to try and develop a relationship with is being able to trust your body's internal signals.
Kayla: And when you can actually tune into those things and kind of push away everything that we've learned about, like, what is healthy eating, how much should I eat, how many calories should I have? And really just go back to the basics of, like, am I hungry? Am I full? Do I feel like I've had enough vegetables? Do I feel like I'm craving fat? Do I feel like I'm craving carrots?
Chris: Do I feel like I'm craving colloidal silver?
Kayla: Yeah, don't talk to me about it. Well.
Chris: Cause, I mean, my skin is not blue yet, so I'm just. I'm reacting to my body's signal of not having blue skin.
Kayla: No.
Chris: And I would like to eat some colloidal silver to rectify that.
Kayla: No, I would say that the best thing that we can do, our best defense, and our best way to utilize food in a healthy manner is to learn to trust our intuitive eating signals.
Chris: Okay. Because is there any room in there for expertise, though? Also, like. Also, like, could we also say that it's. We should trust science based dietitians, which.
Kayla: If, in my opinion, any dietitian worth their salt will be moving their clients towards an intuitive eating model?
Chris: Iodized salt. Because you need your iodine.
Kayla: Get away. And I do want to point out that this is coming from also a very privileged position. There are people with, you know, that do have to take into account allergies or do have to take into account gluten intolerance and do have to take certain things into account. And also, you can have those. Those real food restrictions and move towards a more intuitive eating model, because if you have those food restrictions, you can start figuring out how to meet your body's needs. You meet your body where it is.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: And, you know, the whole thing behind intuitive eating is that if you are, if you take away all of your restrictions and you actually allow yourself to eat what you want, what your body wants, you will naturally move into the space of a healthy, well rounded diet.
Chris: It seems like a lot of it is just the whole. We're not saying don't listen to experts, but we are saying that bodies are very not one size fits all. Reminds me of that 99% invisible up. Because all we do on this show, by the way, is just talk about other podcasts, basically. Also, I love hardcore history. I'm just gonna throw that in there, because I do.
Kayla: Why not?
Chris: Anyway, there was a 99 PI episode about measuring folks as being average and building. 99 PI is about our built environment, essentially, and the design thereof. And there was a whole episode about the built environments taking into account, like, the average person, and this whole anecdote about how, like, your. Your car seat is built for the average person. And it actually took a long time before car seats were even adjustable the way they are now. And there was. And part of that anecdote was about how like, it was either Navy or air force cockpits, but they were built similarly where there was just one size fits all.
Chris: And when they moved to a model that was more of like adjustable seat and adjustable, you know, throttle and whatever the hell else pilots need, there was like this person that became just like an ace pilot that was this super short lady that never would have been able to fit in an average person cockpit.
Kayla: Because the average person is just an average of all of the persons.
Chris: The average person doesn't exist. And so literally, if you make it for the average person, you are actually making it for nobody. Which was thesis of this episode, right. Is that no matter who sits in the average person's seat, they're going to be uncomfortable in some way, right? So the important thing is not to make an average seat. The important thing is to make a seat that is flexible. The important thing is to make the built environment as much as we can flex to the individuals that exist within it. And when you do that, you enable excellence in areas that may not have been able to access it before. Like if. If the average seat of the cockpit was still how the Navy or air force, sorry, I forget, did things, then this person would be bagging groceries.
Chris: Who knows what she would be doing? But instead, now they got access to this person who apparently had this knack for being a pilot. Anyway, it just reminds me about that because it feels like what you're kind of saying is that particularly for bodies, that there's one. Size doesn't fit all. And, I mean, I was just talking about size. When we get into things like we're talking about today, there's also body chemistry and all kinds of other things.
Kayla: People have different levels widely. Cholesterol. People have different levels of.
Chris: People are born, like, without certain organs. I mean, like, it's just there's such a wide variety of people's bodies and how they process things chemically, physically, how they're set up, how big they are.
Kayla: And I'm not trying to say here that, like, listen to yourself. Don't listen to experts. I'm saying, listen to experts that you know, that you can trust and don't operate on an outdated paradigm of weight and health or direct correlation. One size fits all treatments for everybody. Losing weight is the only thing that we can talk about when we're talking about health. Like find the experts that are actually experts that are up on the current science and that can update their beliefs and viewpoints and that if it smells fishy, it's probably fishy. Like.
Chris: Mm. It's like the fish oil supplement I take, actually, that doesn't smell fishy until I burp. Like, it's fine when I'm taking fishy.
Kayla: When it comes back up, but then.
Chris: Like, a few minutes later, I'll burp and I'll be like, oh, God. Oh, that's some nasty ass fish.
Kayla: And, like, when I talk about intuitive eating and, like, we just lost a.
Chris: Bunch of listeners there, and I talk.
Kayla: About intuitive eating and eating what you want, that doesn't mean, like, it's totally great for your health if you eat cheetos and ice cream every single day, which maybe it is. I don't know.
Chris: Hold on. Cheetos on ice cream?
Kayla: Yeah. Together.
Chris: Together. Because I haven't tried that. And can we pause it so I can go do that?
Kayla: Don't go to the store right now.
Chris: Oh, my God.
Kayla: Social distancing quarantine has another casualty.
Chris: God damn it.
Kayla: I'm saying that a well rounded diet can accommodate some fun foods or trans fats every once in a while. Don't eat trans fats. But you know what I mean? Like, if you eat one thing of trans fat once a year, I try to do that.
Chris: I try to. I try to eat, like, a little cube of just plain old trans fat.
Kayla: That's not going to really have an effect on your health.
Chris: Right?
Kayla: If you have a well rounded diet that supports your health, then you have room to be able to eat a cookie when you want a cookie or a whatever.
Chris: When you're eating the cookie, focus on why you're eating the cookie. I'm eating a cookie because it's fun to eat a cookie, and I'm gonna enjoy this goddamn cookie.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: Don't think, like, oh, my God, I'm gonna eat this cookie and go to my hips.
Kayla: That actually.
Chris: Not to make fun of people.
Kayla: No. We know why we live in a society where a lot of us feel guilty about eating certain things. But the dirty little secret is that having that guilt about food, the science says that guilt actually makes you end up eating more, because if you are, the whole time you're eating a cookie, you're thinking about how bad it is and how guilty you are and feeling so bad about yourself. A, you're missing out on the experience of physically eating the cookie to the point where it's like you didn't even fucking eat a cookie because you weren't present for it. And then also, you have all of these bad feelings that you're going to then need to soothe, which we often do with food.
Kayla: And then also, you're doing the self defeating thing of, like, I'm just terrible, and I'm just gonna eat 100 cookies forever. And, well, then you're going to do what your brain is telling you to do, which is you're saying, I'm eating 100 cookies. So then you're going to eat 100 cookies.
Chris: Right. And then depending on the cookie, it may be engineered. I mean, that's a whole other thing that we could talk about is food engineering.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And that dovetails into the whole process thing. But I don't know if I want to do that. Cause I actually wanted to ask you a question. Are we talking about a cult today?
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: We'll get there, because I'm just. We'll get to it as the designated recorder today.
Kayla: Oh, my God. We've been going for an hour. Maybe this will be two episodes.
Chris: This will definitely be two episodes. So, yeah, like, what are we talking about?
Kayla: Okay, we'll get to that. So when you're eating a cookie, try to enjoy the fact that you're eating the cookie and really connect to it, and then you'll probably not eat 100 cookies.
Chris: Oh, sorry. One exception to that. Oatmeal raisin cookies. Don't enjoy oatmeal raisin cookies because they're evil. You know why they're evil?
Kayla: Because they're masquerading as a chocolate chip cookie.
Chris: They're masquerading as a chocolate chip cookie. So you like, oh, there's chocolate chip cookies. And then you go to eat one, and you're, like, you're expecting that delicious, like, chocolate chip cookie dough, that smooth dough with the little bits of chocolate, and then you wind up with this, like, rough oatmeal. Mealy, mealy raisin. And, you know, like, if they weren't masquerading as chocolate chip cookies, it would be fine, even if they're an okay cookie.
Kayla: Oatmeal cookie or an oatmeal chocolate. I'm down. I'm deliciously down for this.
Chris: Yeah. It's just that it's. It's. It's a stealth thing. It's. You know what it is? It's exactly like what I was talking about. You can't trust it.
Kayla: You can't trust it.
Chris: You can't trust.
Kayla: Be who you are cookie.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. You should be, like, green or something so I can determine that you're not a chocolate chip cookie.
Kayla: Well, going back to our topic, I guess.
Chris: Oh, that wasn't the topic.
Kayla: No.
Chris: Oh.
Kayla: So were talking about the purity mentality. That kind of goes along with a lot of how we talk about food and health. And that purity mentality, it pervades even in eating disorder and eating disorder treatment. In my experience and the experience of others that I know well, there are very few people with eating disorders who only engage in one type of behavior. So this is kind of going back to what you were talking about with, like, anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is generally defined as, like, it's not defined as, but anorexia is generally associated with, like, you restrict your calories over exercise, and bulimia is often associated with, you purge the food that you eat in some way after a period of binging. And very few people diagnosed with one of those diagnoses only engage in one set of behaviors.
Kayla: Like that is, people with anorexia often also include purging and binging along with their restriction and over exercising. And people with bulimia often include restriction and over exercising in their behaviors. Even with all of this, a strange type of hierarchy emerges among the diagnoses. It's kind of like this unspoken thing, but people who only restrict and never include binging or purging, but mostly the binging in their behaviors, are somehow more pure or better than patients who do binge and purge. It's like this weird hierarchy purity thing where it's like, oh, if you're able to just abstain from food entirely, you're like, magical. Whereas if you're someone, you're like a monk. Yeah, you're like a monk. You're, like, ascetic. It takes, again, that, like, weird purity spirituality thing.
Kayla: Whereas if you're somebody who still does eat food and ends up getting rid of it's not as good, quote unquote. It's like you're doing something that's worse than only restricting, again, purity thing. I'll do a full episode on that culture, but for now, I just wanted touch on it, give some background.
Chris: Yeah, we're toasting. We're touching on it, and it's minute 56 of the recording.
Kayla: We're almost getting to what the topic is. So given all of this, I do want to say that pursuing a healthy lifestyle isn't a pointless or villainous goal. I know that I feel my best when I'm getting a balanced, well rounded diet that includes food eaten for nutrition as well as food eaten for fun and incorporating exercise and movement that I truly enjoy most days of the week and getting enough sleep and incorporating meditation, et cetera, et cetera. That makes my life better.
Chris: Personally, I try to. When I think I don't like to use the word exercise with myself anymore, like, I like to use training when I'm doing something like lifting heavy weights because it feels more like exercise to me. Just has this like, weird sort of connotation now, you know, where it's like, you gotta exercise, exercise, right? Whereas training feels more purposeful, goal oriented.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: I like to do, like, for me, a big motivator for that is progression in, you know, when you lift weights, like a lot of it is about like, oh, I lifted more today than I did yesterday. And I'm getting to this goal and it just feels better, it feels more natural. And then when it's not something weightlifting oriented, I like to just use like, activity or something because I'm like, oh, go play basketball. Like, that's not because I want to exercise, it's because moving is good for my internal well being.
Kayla: Oh, I know for me that once I stopped and, like, trying to exercise in a way that was like related to weight loss or changing the way my body looked, I exercise so much more now that I exercise to do things that I enjoy. Like, I mostly just take dance classes now, and not because I want to be a better dancer or want to lose weight or want to change my body, but because I like to move my body in that way and it feels good and I exercise. So, like, at this point in my life, I exercise. So I put I have activity in my life so much more than I think I ever have. That maybe when I was like a kid and actually, like, actually a dancer, right?
Chris: Yeah, same, except for when I was in college and had time to go to the gym and play basketball for like 8 hours a day.
Kayla: Right? Different, different lifestyles. College make different things happen. So I'm not saying that the pursuit of health or a healthy lifestyle is pointless or bad. I'm just saying that pursuit isn't as cut and dried as we want to believe, and there's no single path to it, which we know, because humans have been trying to achieve wellness for basically as long as we've existed as a thing. And given that there's no single path, that we have an obsession with this pursuit and that the pursuit gets tied up in morality. A lot of different methods have been developed to help people achieve wellness. Some of these methods, great, backed by science, work for people. Awesome. Some of them don't like think about, like, fucking, I guess. No, the leeches thing does work, but, like, bloodletting, for certain. No bloodletting.
Chris: Is that okay? But again, there's certain. Some things it works for, some things it doesn't.
Kayla: Right, right. Putting maggots on you, that works. Colloidal silver doesn't work bad for you. Whatever. There's different methods that have been.
Chris: Turns you blue.
Kayla: Turns you blue. If you want. If you like that, go ahead. So a lot of methods have been created to help people achieve wellness. Some methods have been around for a few hundred years. You know, dieting, western medicine. Some have been around for thousands. Traditional chinese medicine, meditation. Some methods seem to come and go as cyclical fads. Like, think about how Atkins was a huge thing, and then that kind of fell out, and now keto is a huge thing, and they're very similar.
Chris: Yeah, like, come on, man. The keto thing, when that first started becoming a thing, I was like, wait, you guys are just talking about Atkins?
Kayla: It is a completely different thing. It is a completely different thing.
Chris: Isn't it? Just, like, no carbs. Like, don't eat carbs. I remember them talking about going into ketosis as part of the Atkins diet thing. That was.
Kayla: It's different in the way that I. That they were developed. The keto diet was developed specifically to help children who had epilepsy.
Chris: Oh.
Kayla: I think.
Chris: Does it help them?
Kayla: Let me. I'm actually not sure how efficacious it is. I think that it can be. And then it also can't be. I'm not. I'm not a.
Chris: For epilepsy.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Yeah, I'm not a doctor. Not a doctor.
Chris: So.
Kayla: Yeah, so, like, we can see how sometimes they're cyclical. Some things claim to be based on ancient science when they really aren't. Including, like, the Paleo diet. Not knocking the Paleo diet. I'm just saying that the way we do paleo is. Does not reflect the way our ancestors, our caveman ancestors ate.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: And some things seem to keep coming back over and over in different packages each time and float effortlessly between hard, real science and woo. And I want to focus one of those effortless floaters today, because today I want to talk about fasting.
Chris: Wait, fasting itself as a cult?
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Isn't that just, like, a thing to do?
Kayla: We'll get to that.
Chris: Wait, so was there, like, a charismatic leader to fasting? Like. Like a fasting.
Kayla: I picked this topic before I did any research, so we'll find out together. But, yeah, today I want to talk about fasting. And given that our last episode was, like, all about experts and we talked about doing more interviews and stuff, I wanted to make sure to get someone on today that we can interview about this topic.
Chris: Ooh.
Kayla: And luckily, we don't have to look any further than our very own co host, Chris.
Chris: Wait, what?
Kayla: I'm gonna interview you.
Chris: Me? Yeah, about fasting.
Kayla: I'm gonna interview you for the podcast.
Chris: Oh, is it? Cause I do intermittent fasting?
Kayla: Yes. Is that okay? Are you okay to talk about it?
Chris: Sure.
Kayla: Are you okay to be interviewed about it?
Chris: Yeah. Well, yeah, for our listeners, I frequently engage intermittent fasting.
Kayla: You don't have to explain it now.
Chris: I won't explain it. Cause you're gonna interview me.
Kayla: We'll get to that.
Chris: We will get to that. So I. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I am more than happy to answer questions. I have no idea what you're gonna ask me. I don't wanna, like, preempt it by talking about my experience with it just yet because I'm assuming you'll be asking me these questions.
Kayla: Oh, I have questions.
Chris: All right.
Kayla: And we're actually gonna get to that.
Chris: A next time on the next episode of Cult. Or just weird.
Kayla: So this was kind of, like all preamble, all set up, all introducing the topic and our expert witness. You're not actually an expert. You're not actually an expert. Chris is not actually an expert.
Chris: But I'm a witness.
Kayla: You are a witness. And you are somebody who actively utilizes fasting in your day to day. And so I really wanna talk about it with you. So, for our listeners, that's where we're gonna. That's where we're gonna end this today. But you definitely wanna check out the next episode. We're gonna talk about the different kinds of fasting that there are. We're gonna get into our interview with Chris.
Chris: Yeah, the interview is really the catch there. That's, like, what you're really here for. The rest of it is just whatever.
Kayla: And then we'll talk about some history, and then we'll talk about some crazy stories.
Chris: So, yeah, mainly it's all about me.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Oh, I like this episode.
Kayla: Me too. So thanks for being a guinea pig for our first ever host interview.
Chris: Shit. Now I feel like I need to interview you about something.
Kayla: I'm in a lot of cults, so you probably have something.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. You occasionally step into that little pile of mess sometimes.
Kayla: Often.
Chris: I guess I'll just interview you about your Ahagao sweatshirt.
Kayla: Perfect.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Is that a call?
Chris: I wanted to call back to the start of the episode.
Kayla: He wants to just make fun of me as much as he can.
Chris: I love callbacks.
Kayla: You do? Well, anyways, listeners, we are excited to bring you the rest of this topic, but in the meantime, get in touch with us if you need anything in these crazy times. Cultured justwordmail.com dot.
Chris: Wait. If you need anything. Yeah, like, anything at all.
Kayla: Yeah, I mean, we'll see what we can do.
Chris: Well, yeah, now I'm interested to see. Are they gonna ask us for a million dollars? I don't know.
Kayla: Can't do that. But, like, I don't know if you need some groceries or if you need, like, ear. If you need somebody to, like, you.
Chris: Know, we have listeners literally across the globe.
Kayla: Well, if you need something, like, shoot us an email.
Chris: And somebody in Tanzania is gonna be like, I need help with groceries. And we're gonna be like.
Kayla: And then we go on the podcast, and we say, dear listeners, across the globe, we have somebody in Tanzania who needs help.
Chris: All right.
Kayla: Help us if you can.
Chris: That's fair.
Kayla: We have a little platform here we can use. Do some good with it.
Chris: Tiny little platform.
Kayla: Teensy tiny. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and whatever the fuck else. I don't know.
Chris: Rate us. Subscribe to anything or something. We have subs. You can subscribe to podcasts, right? That's a thing?
Kayla: Podcasts?
Chris: Yeah, yeah. Like, share, subscribe. Something like that.
Kayla: Something like that. Anyway, I'm. Hi, I'm Kayla.
Chris: And I'm Chris.
Kayla: And this has been cult or just weird. Hey, listeners, this is just a quick note to let you know that after we recorded this episode, Chris and I decided to do a little bit more research into the topic of clean eating to make sure were presenting the most accurate information. We ended up talking about it for a lot longer than we expected. So instead of turning this episode into a six hour marathon, we actually took our conversation about clean eating over to our Patreon as bonus content. And as you know, during the pandemic, our Patreon content is free. So head over to patreon.com culture. Just weird. If you want to learn more about clean eating, thanks.