Ever wondered why your cravings seem unstoppable despite your best efforts? At BariNation, we’re peeling back the layers on ultra-processed foods to help our bariatric community make informed choices for gut health and lasting wellness.

We’re joined by Dr. Eric Smith of the Kentucky Bariatric Institute, who breaks down the science behind food addiction, the deceptive allure of hyper-palatable products, and why whole foods are key to silencing food noise. Discover actionable steps and resources like Food Fight USA to transform your approach to obesity treatment.

Tune in, and don’t forget to join the BariNation Community to attend community meetups, watch exclusive bonus content and support the podcast for as little as $5 per month!  You can also contribute to BariNation and become a Drive To Thrive Supporter with a one-time donation.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• (02:20) Dr. Smith advocates for whole foods and how ultra-processed foods derail patients' efforts
• (06:56) Big Tobacco’s strategies influenced hyper-palatable food production, creating food addiction through ultra-processed foods
• (14:30) Example of a grilled chicken patty with 47 ingredients illustrates the hidden complexity of ultra-processed foods
• (21:00) Discussion of the Blue Zone and discussion of food noise and chemical noise
• (38:15) Dr. Smith gives an example of an addictive drink and how to overcome it
• (44:42) Discussion on balancing protein goals with whole foods to reduce obsession with macronutrients 
• (51:15) Critique of SNAP programs providing non-nutritional items like soda, which lack nutritional value 
• (54:25) Trying a diet of 80% whole foods for a month to assess improvements in gut health

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Ultra-processed foods contribute significantly to food addiction and food noise, making it harder for individuals, especially in the bariatric community, to maintain a healthy diet, as they are designed to be hyperpalatable and trigger cravings.
• Focusing on whole foods with single ingredients is a sustainable approach to achieving nutritional value and supporting long-term gut health. 
• Educating oneself about food sources, as advocated by Food Fight USA, empowers individuals to make informed choices, reducing reliance on artificial sweeteners and addressing systemic issues like the Farm Bill to combat obesity treatment challenges.

RESOURCES:

•  BariNation Website
• Tune in, and don’t forget to join the BariNation Community to attend community meetups, watch exclusive bonus content and support the podcast for as little as $5 per month! You can also contribute to BariNation and become a Drive To Thrive Supporter with a one-time donation.
• BariNation - Email

GUEST RESOURCES:  

Kentucky Bariatric Institute

Dr. Eric Smith - Instagram

Food Fight USA - Website

BIOGRAPHY:

Eric F. Smith, DO, FASMBS, CAQ-MBS

Dr. Eric Smith is a board-certified general and bariatric surgeon who has been in practice since 2006. He is the Medical Director for the Kentucky Bariatric Institute, a SRC Center of Excellence in Robotic Surgery, a national proctor, speaker, and teacher for Intuitive Surgical in the specialty of robotic bariatric surgery. He is board certified in bariatric and robotic surgery, member of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgeons. He is an engaged, caring and dedicated physician who has completed thousands of bariatric surgeries.

ABOUT:

If the BariNation podcast helps power your bariatric journey, become a monthly podcast supporter and help us produce the show! Visit www.barinationpodcast.com and help us support people treating the disease of obesity with humor, humility, and honesty.

We need your help to keep the BariNation Podcast in production. Your one-time or recurring donations help us ensure this free support remains open to everyone. Click Drive To Thrive - Donation to learn more and give. THANK YOU for your support!  

Jason Smith: [00:00:00] Hi. Welcome to BariNation, where we support the bariatric community with humor, humility, and honesty.

Natalie Tierney: Our goal is you leave us today feeling hopeful, inspired, and ready to live your best bariatric life.

Dr. Eric Smith: how are you guys?

It is in the news, and we just spent about three weeks in the Berry Nation membership community, really deep diving into ultra process. Foods and gut health. Yeah. We know that you are a huge, [00:01:00] uh, advocate for this. You want people to become more educated about what is in our food and what those things could be doing, uh, in our bodies in a longer bariatric journey.

Dr. Eric Smith: Yeah. I. It's, it's something very near and dear to my heart. Um, and I think it's something that needs more awareness right now. It probably has as much awareness as [00:01:30] it's ever had.

So I do think that regardless of who's saying it, we need to talk about, we. The, the subject matter, because it matters, it [00:02:00] really, really matters.

April Williams: Mm-hmm. And maybe that's a, a good place to start. I know Natalie and Jason and myself, we have really made a, a, a, a pivot or a shift to be more whole food inclusive in our diets.

Dr. Eric Smith: I'll try to be concise in this story, but I think the story's important. That really got my wheels turning. I think for years, you know, as a bariatric [00:02:30] surgeon, people are just so confused on how to eat. I. You know, and I think that for years what happens is, is when you have a patient who comes in and they, and they even admit that they're struggling with their diet or they're not always compliant with their diet.

Jason Smith: Mm-hmm.

Don't you have a, don't you have your top diet plan? These other doctors, they sell their diet plan. I'm like, no, there is not a top diet plan. Number one. I think you have to [00:03:15] find something you can be compliant with. You know, and everything works differently for people. But I also started noticing that, you know, you would see somebody who eats vegan and they're doing great.

I was introduced to a guy by the name of, um, Todd Wagner. Um, good friend of mine who works with Todd. Um, it was at a, at a [00:04:00] Kentucky football game. And, and my friend Alan said, I want you to meet Todd. He wants to meet you. I've told him what you do. I. And I think you're gonna be really interested to hear what his passion is.

You know, now you can stream anything, right. They were the really the first streaming service. And so the last thing I thought of talking to Todd, which gonna be something connected with me, and I was sitting there talking to Todd and he's looked at me and he said, do you ever feel [00:04:45] like your patients don't have a fighting chance?

I could eat all the pizza I wanted. I could eat pasta, I could drink the wine over there, and I had no migraines. And I, [00:05:15] and I started here as a, a production company as well, Magnolia Pictures, and I. Not to throw a, a name out there. And he literally apologized. He said, I hope you don't think I'm name throwing a name around, but he said, I was actually staying with George Clooney.

Why are we allowed to put things in our food here and, and we don't? And why are we eating the same food here? But it's made completely different than it is in other countries as well. He kind of went down this rabbit [00:06:00] hole. And long story short, he just says, you know, I've done a lot of great things in my life.

It's just derailing them. Mm-hmm. So [00:06:30] I started doing a lot of research myself on this whole initiative. I'd al, I was always curious about it, but it really kind of got my wheels turning and I was just shocked at so many things. I don't even know where to start if some of the statistics, [00:06:45] but the moral of the story is as I started digging, and you all have probably heard this by now because there's so much attention to it, years and years ago when Big Tobacco got blown up.

Instead of calling things addictive like they did on the tobacco side, they just call things hyper palatable. Look it up. You can chat GPT, you can Google it. It's a strategy that they do [00:07:30] and I think what we have to be aware of is anytime we, we are buying food, it's a business. And so, you know, I don't blame somebody for having a business, but there's full intent [00:07:45] behind most of these large food companies to create foods that sell.

Things that they used to eat with things that are marketed to them to be high protein, low calorie, low fat, and all it's doing is derailing them further.

Dr. Eric Smith: right

Natalie Tierney: and you'll lose weight and.

I'm just gonna lose all this weight. No. Well, okay. Yeah, but like you ate all of them in one day. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, but that's what it makes me think of. [00:09:15] It makes me think of, uh, protein bars or, you know, those things that we really do think, oh, this is gonna be the thing that helps me. When in reality it's like we, we say it all the time in variation on the podcast, in [00:09:30] the community.

Dr. Eric Smith: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And you know, I think the, where we have to start is, is we, we have to educate ourselves about what we put in our body.[00:10:00]

Yep. The place that we live is our second environment. Yeah. And, and people want to negate that. And Yes, as a bariatric surgeon, as a bariatric specialist, it is ultimately calories [00:10:30] in, calories out. You physically can't so-called gain weight. On a short term scale, if you're not exceeding the calories your body requires, but the problem is, is if we just create a calorie deficit, we, [00:10:45] number one, know what happens if we don't.

Long term diets aren't short term. A diet isn't a short term thing to help you lose weight. A diet is a way of life of how you feed your body, and so [00:11:15] can you sustain? Eating a calorie deficit for the rest of your life with a ton of artificial sweeteners and ultra processed foods and fillers and things like that.

April Williams: Yeah. And as bariatric patients, right, we are told. From the, from every, everybody, right? Like, these are products that are going to help you. Right? These are products that, [00:11:45] that you need, which is true, but usually for a very short amount of time as your body's recovering from surgery.

But that's not really good for [00:12:15] us in the long run. And what our body does with those calories that have come from ultra processed foods might be different than what our body's gonna do from calories that come to us from whole food.

Yeah. You theoretically could eat Whole Foods. You would just need to change the consistency of the food. Oh. You know, in order to get it through your. New staple line, your new suture line. Yeah. Or anything like that. [00:12:45] Whole foods will never, ever, ever be bad for anybody. But yes, eating solid meat three weeks after surgery could be dangerous.

April Williams: Yeah. But,

Mm-hmm. And how do you know if it's whole food? It should have one ingredient in it. Yeah. Now, it doesn't mean you can't make a meal that has. Five ingredients in it. 'cause you combine five whole foods. Right. But you know, so many times people scare, especially weight [00:13:45] loss surgery patients or just people trying to lose weight in general fruits.

They don't play by the rules. The, the rules are so lax. And so, you know, an egg has egg in it. Beef has beef in it. You know, we could go on and on. And I used the example in the post that, well, what if you want to [00:14:15] go through Chick-fil-A and you want to grab a grilled chicken sandwich, ditch the bread and eat the piece of grilled chicken?

It's not what you think it is. Yeah. And then the big question becomes, well, what is it doing to me? If it's not high in calorie, then how's it hurting me, right? Mm-hmm.

Um. It's not that it's bad, right? I just wanna put that out here. Absolutely. Like this conversation is not, if you're listening and [00:15:15] you're like, well, I do that. Right. I, you know, no one here is saying, I mean, I went to McDonald's yesterday. You know, it just, it happens. Yeah. But I think it's the literacy that we're really talking about is understanding and not letting [00:15:30] social media marketing like all of that get in the way.

But that has forced me into. Being literate with what I'm eating. Okay. Am I actually getting a whole food or is this [00:16:15] 47 ingredients in a chicken patty? You know? Exactly.

Dr. Eric Smith: Exactly. And you know, the one thing that I always loved about when I met Todd, and what they've always said is he, he's like, look, I'm not trying to take the freedoms away from people.

And here's the thing, and he uses this example all the time. If you, if all three of us. Decide that we're gonna hang out for the weekend and we're gonna smoke five cigarettes. We are not getting lung cancer. I. I'm here to tell you, I'm not telling you to go [00:17:00] smoke, but if you wanna smoke five cigarettes and that's the only cigarettes you smoke, you're not getting lung cancer from that.

And it's in a small amount. No one has studied the compounding [00:17:30] effects of that over and over and over again. And when you're eating foods that have these products in them. Are you keeping tally of it? Are you writing down every time you do it? Mm-hmm. Five cigarettes won't give you lung cancer, but cigarettes [00:17:45] consistently over a period of time absolutely will.

Um, and that was a loophole years ago when things went like, um, [00:18:15] vinegar and things like that came out and they really were try baking soda and they were trying to just say, okay, these things aren't harmful. There has, it has been a loophole that they have gotten around to be able to say, we believe it's [00:18:30] safe.

April Williams: I'm sorry, I'm just gonna need to repeat this out loud to myself so my brain understands it. You're telling me that the companies that manufacture food are allowed to say if something is safe or not, [00:19:00] regardless of whether or not it is correct.

So it's like because I say so. So it shall be written so it shall be done type of situation. If it's not

No one's gonna run that study. Right. You know, if someone says, I'm just gonna pull something outta thin air, I'm gonna intentionally not use science [00:19:45] behind it. Magnesium is good for this. Who's gonna benefit from that? Whoever makes magnesium and anybody does. Right? It's no one has a proprietary, um, yeah.

But if it's pennies on the dollar and [00:20:15] you understand the risk, why would you not maybe give that a try? Right? Mm-hmm. So for if, if we flip it around and say, well, I'm waiting for a study to say this is harmful. Mm-hmm. Who's motivated to run that study? There's no money to [00:20:30] be made from it. Only the people that are against big food.

April Williams: What is, I guess, just so. Mind boggling to me, and, and, and we've been talking about this the entire time. Food and eating is not complicated.[00:21:00]

They have the highest quality of life for the longest amount of years. Right? Right. So these are people that are a hundred, but they're volunteering their time at a hundred. They're walking, they're right, like you're [00:21:30] living life at a hundred. And you look at the people who live in these blue zones, what are they doing?

So it, it's a avocado or it's a shrimp, or it's a carrot, or it's a [00:22:00] chocolate, whatever, you know, piece of whatever it is. But we, ourselves and society and marketing and all these things, they want to keep it complicated. They want to keep us guessing. They want us to keep thinking that we are doing it wrong and that [00:22:15] they have the solution for us, and the solution has been.

Dr. Eric Smith: Right? It's, it's a, it's a multifactorial problem and there's a lot of different components and so let me give you an example.

Watermelon. If you grow strawberries, if you grow fruits or vegetables and you have a bad season, a bad crop, [00:23:15] uh, a fan, uh, a, you know, a drought, whatever that may be, you, if you have no product to sell, you don't make any money. If you don't make any money, you don't pay the bills, right? But the farm in the farm [00:23:30] bill, farmers are incentivized to grow.

The rest, it's all for ultra processed foods. So if you're a farmer and you say, Hey, I need you, the government has asked you to grow corn. But the good news is if things go bad, you are always going to get [00:24:15] paid. Yeah. Well, what are you gonna do? You're gonna protect your family, right? Mm-hmm. So why is it.

Compared to Whole Foods as well. Now, that doesn't fix the problem immediately for price, and I'll be honest with you, I will argue with anybody anymore that you can eat fast, fast food, cheaper. The way prices are right now. You can't eat fast [00:25:00] food cheaper for the most part. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's easier.

How would you all perceive it, like number one, priority. Fueling my body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think we would all agree that that's the primary role. It doesn't mean we can't get enjoyment from food, and please don't take it that way. But the number one [00:25:45] thing is to fuel our body. So I think the first place we have to start is flip that package over.

There's reasons behind why that stuff is in there. Yeah. [00:26:15] There's a strategy or else why would they waste the money and the resources and the time to put it in there. Mm-hmm. And that doesn't mean that it gets banned, but it now puts the decision in the consumer's hands to say, what are they trying to get out of [00:26:30] this?

And I know Nat, you and I have done a lot of work to make that transition from. Food is nutrition food fuels [00:27:00] me because before surgery it, our answer would've been very different. Right. And I think as, as you start to have a conversation with yourself and with your care team and with who you want to be as a human, this conversation does have to [00:27:15] come up because food does connect us to family.

What is really going to, to fuel it? What is gonna [00:27:45] make it feel good? How am I gonna get to that place of longevity? Then you do start wondering, is what I'm eating having an impact on how, what I'm feeling and, and the success that I'm having, but. You also have to wrestle with that question [00:28:00] of why am I consuming this piece of food?

There's plenty of times that I'll pick up something Cadbury egg, and I'm like, I'm not consuming this because it's healthy for me. I'm consuming this because you fill in the blank. Right? But that's the work.

It plays a role for some. Absolutely. But here's the thing, um, you [00:28:30] know what's so hard? We've talked about this before, I think, but what's so hard is, you know, if you have an addiction to alcohol or drugs, you can stop. I mean, it may not be easy, but it's not something you have to have to survive. The tricky thing with food is food is something you have to set survive.[00:28:45]

Yeah, but what if we take something like an Oreo that's not food. I, I'm, it's a, it's a bundle of chemicals, is all it is. [00:29:15] It is ultra processed. There's nothing natural about that. And we call that, okay, that's not food, but food in the form of, um, na even let's go to sweets, natural dark chocolate [00:29:30] with no added sugars or anything like that.

I'm here to tell you of 19 years of doing this. I have yet to meet a person who can honestly say I struggle with an addiction to Whole Foods. And that doesn't mean you may not crave things [00:30:15] that are whole foods, but you know, and, and that, that takes us to that term that, I'll be honest with you, makes my head spin.

Okay. And every online, um, compound. [00:30:45] Weight loss drug company has taken it and run with it and talked about quieting the food noise. We hear patients talk about it all the time. Here's the question I always, I always ask is very rarely do people say they eat a [00:31:00] steak and say, I want another one. I mean, I might want one at my favorite steak place 'cause it tastes good, right?

We want more cereal. Man, when I was in college, I could've eaten a box of cereal. Probably [00:31:30] did, right? Even if it was supposed to be healthy. So I don't believe there's food noise. I believe there's chemical noise. We have to remove the precipitating factor to quiet [00:31:45] the noise. And my question is, is if we had a good friend who was addicted to cocaine, do we think it would be a good solution to say, you know what, John?

But you have to take away the thing that you are craving that turns on those signals, and so. I'm not saying that we can't have things in moderation, but I'm here to tell you, I believe there [00:32:30] are some people that at this point in their life, can't have certain things in moderation. If they want that noise to quiet and it's not a shot to the meds, but if someone, when I hear someone say, I wanna take the med 'cause it quietens my noise, the first [00:32:45] question I ask is noise.

Natalie Tierney: And I'm so glad you brought this up 'cause this is something that I've been thinking for a long time.

Yeah. Hardcore. That is where my, my food noise or my, [00:33:45] my brain just instantly goes to, I need more. And when I'm really focused on the whole foods, right, like. I would say 80 to 90% of the time because of my chronic [00:34:00] illness, I just don't really eat. Um, and I'm talking chronic illness on top of obesity because is also a chronic disease, right?

[00:34:30] Yeah. And so just listening to you talk about it's, you know, I, I still think that, you know, part of it is a food noise because of how long, right. That we have had this disease messing with our brains. I [00:34:45] think also at the same time, it is the foods that we're consuming, whether or not they're marketed to be high protein or to help us on our health journeys.

Um, it affects me for sure.

I'm [00:35:15] sorry. That doesn't make any sense. And listen, I, I hope, I believe you all know, at least you all know, maybe some of your listeners may not believe this after this statement. There's nobody that has, is more of an more advocate for people who battle with obesity than myself. Self [00:35:30] who has more empathy for people who battle with this than myself, but, but being honest, that doesn't mean that we don't, are not an advocate or we don't have empathy.

That is [00:36:00] insanity to me. It really, really is. And you know, I did a, I did a interview for Newsweek Magazine some time ago when the old, the last administration started talking about covering the GLP medications, you know, with, um, [00:36:15] uh, with, you know, for Medicare, you know, the government covering these. And I said, look, I'm all for everybody getting access to this.

We're not gonna impact how it starts or what's precipitating the problem, but we're just gonna continue to get stronger and thicker and more therapeutic. Band-aids [00:37:00] and obesity is a complex disease, there's no doubt about it, but we, big pharma wants this to stay a chronic disease. That's how they make their money.

But eventually the mom would get frustrated and they, she'd go to somebody else to get the antibiotic 'cause she thought that's what would fix the problem. And then they end up giving in like, well, I'm losing patients. I gotta, I gotta stay busy, so I'm gonna give the consumer what they want. I think we gotta be really careful about [00:37:45] that our bodies are nourished or harmed by what we put in them.

April Williams: If you guys could hear the conversation that I'm having with myself up here, you would, you would think that [00:38:15] I'm crazy and, and

Dr. Eric Smith: I did a little experiment with myself, I'll be honest with you.

But I, I haven't had an issue with sweet tea forever. But now you put me, I go to a nice restaurant, my drink a choice is unsweet tea. And I'd put artificial sweetener in it [00:38:45] and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna try something. Because throughout the course of a meal. I'd go through six glasses probably, because you know, they constantly fill it up.

Mm-hmm. Because unsweet tea, there's, that is not an ultra processed food. Right. It has no artificial sweeteners in it. [00:39:15] Lemon, some unsweet tea and some ice. Since I've done that, and it took me a couple weeks to get used to it since I've done that. I had dinner yesterday with my parents for, for Easter. We went to a nice steak, uh, [00:39:30] restaurant.

Mm-hmm. They know the reaction from it. And again, I'm not telling people that [00:40:00] artificial sweeteners cause weight gain directly. I. Because there's no calories in them, but if it causes me to also get dessert, if it causes me to eat something later that evening because I'm drinking and drinking and I'm craving these things, mm-hmm.

April Williams: I always think in my brain when, when I hear something like that, I'll say, okay, it might not have any calories in it, whatever, but is, is that additive going to cause you to be inflamed and is your inflammation gonna make you not feel great? And then [00:41:00] are you not gonna want to move and then you gonna feel bad that you're not moving?

Dr. Eric Smith: Yeah.

But I can also say to myself, well, if there's no evidence of this, then I'm not [00:41:45] doing it. That it's not really proven yet. Right? Because I mean, absolutely

Dr. Eric Smith: you can find a study to support or go against anything that you want to be the truth.

So the question that I have been asking myself once I realize I'm doing this is okay, but what if it helps a little? What if it makes a little bit of a difference? Or what if you [00:42:15] try it? What if I just try it for a day, a week, a month, whatever, and just see what the hell happens? Right? There is nothing wrong with that, and the older that I get and the more health things that I encounter and the more [00:42:30] frustrating my disease of obesity has become, I really have started asking myself these questions and I'm looking at, at my.

Mm-hmm. It's just true. Right. And while that's not the, all the, the a hundred percent picture of how they all got to 99, I think it's a part of it. And so when I step back, right? And it's like, why would I deny myself [00:43:15] the, the ability to have a chance at having such a long life like them, when I actually am in control of this, I can make the decision about what I'm choosing to consume, how I move my body, what I'm thinking, how I interact.

Dr. Eric Smith: and why would we be willing. To, and again, I wanna be very careful, and I wanna say this before I make this next statement. We [00:43:45] give anti-obesity medications to patients when the indication is there.

In their diet that may have prevented them from needing that. And that's not saying diet and exercise. Diet and exercise. My goodness, we've talked about that [00:44:30] forever. I'm talking about the sources of your nutrition. Mm-hmm. Giving up those crutches that you really think that I, you know what? I'm just gonna have to try to do that.

You absolutely do. And protein's not a weight loss, drug [00:45:00] protein is so you maintain your muscle mass and maintaining your muscle mass. It allows your metabolism to run higher and that keeps you that, that number, that is your breaking point from getting too low to where it's almost impossible to create a deficit or stay even too.

I promise you not obsessing over those macronutrients except for hitting your protein goals in Whole Foods. I. The longevity of that, number one, it's a lot easier to be compliant with that. [00:46:00] Um, and number two, I believe that that, that, that will end up proving much more productive than the alternative.

Like what is protein, carbs, fat? And I said, I don't count calories. And I just make sure I hit my protein and. That's it. You, and you know what, and [00:46:45] Natalie, if you feel like you're not

Dr. Eric Smith: accomplishing what you wanna accomplish and you're not seeing the progress, then you can stop and say, okay, right, maybe I'm getting my protein, but I'm not getting it in the best sources.

Mm-hmm. And ideally, um, I would much rather them get it from whole food sources. Yeah. You know? Um. Especially people who are more susceptible to those cravings or to the noise. Mm-hmm. [00:47:45] And it's, it's alarming to me. That some, what many would call very well-respected obesity specialists who are on social media, who are just against this whole, you know, idea they want to talk about.

Because we're not gonna have that data. There's no one Right. That is financially motivated to publish that data. [00:48:30] Right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. I mean, it, it just doesn't make sense. And, and food, food fight, USA and Todd, his favorite statement, it's so true. He says It's not you, it's the food. Mm-hmm. Which

Dr. Eric Smith: Yeah, and you know, I think unfortunately, and we're not, we're not gonna get political on here, but I think unfortunately people are getting very, um, their, their views change because of whose mouth it comes out of it. This is a, [00:49:00] this is a nonpartisan issue. I'm sorry. Yeah, this is, this is not red or blue.

April Williams: This topic has been in public discourse for a very long time. Mm-hmm. A very long time. Right. So I, I, this isn't surprising to me. This [00:49:30] isn't necessarily new information.

Obesity. More people are actively seeking out treatment for obesity. And that kind of naturally leads people to go, well, why am I struggling with [00:50:00] this in the first place? And it's multifactorial. It's all of this, it's all the things that we've talked about. But when you do step back and you look at how has life changed, how has the world changed, how has, you know, our modern way of living, um.[00:50:15]

Nobody wants to have the disease of obesity. Nobody wants to be living this way. Nobody wants to be thinking about [00:50:45] food constantly. Nobody wants to be limited in what they can do with their kids. Right. And the solution is going to be multifactorial just like the diseases, right? But if this one piece of the puzzle could [00:51:00] help you treat the disease and be better holistically, that is a puzzle piece that you should spend some time on because you are in control of it.

We could go on and on and on. There's a lot of conversation in the public eye about the SNAP programs, you know, or the food stamp programs. Oh, mm-hmm. You know, in, in, in the [00:51:45] soda companies. And it being, you know, this is not saying that someone who's on a SNAP program shouldn't be allowed to drink soda. I think it's a travesty that we're supposed to be providing a program to people who are struggling to afford.

Why would [00:52:30] we be allowed to give them something that's not giving? Giving them the thing that it's supposed to be providing, which is nutrition. Yeah. Those, those people can still choose to buy. They don't buy all their food that [00:52:45] way. They can choose to buy that if they want to. It's, it's their right if they want to do that.

But we need to call a spade a spade. Mm-hmm. And I think that we're doing a disservice [00:53:15] to the most vulnerable population who are already struggling with chronic disease and struggling with their financial, um. As well, and now we're giving, we're giving them something that has no nutrition at all. [00:53:30]

April Williams: It seems ironic, just as what you're saying, right, that the nutritional program is providing people with food that might not be so nutritional

Dr. Eric Smith: and maybe make them want more

April Williams: and maybe make them want more.

Uh, but Dr. Smith, what. I guess two questions to kind of wrap us up. What, what are you hoping people are leaving, leaving this conversation with and what resources would you like to point them to to learn more?

It is so vital that you understand what you're [00:54:30] putting in your body and the, and the impact it's gonna have on your body. And I would also say you, when you're, the way you eat in your forties is how you will be in your eighties. The way you exercise in your forties is how you will function in your seventies and [00:54:45] eighties.

I think our connection to food psychologically, mentally, and even [00:55:15] physically, is directly related to what is in our food, and I think we need to start being honest with ourselves and deciding what is really food. What is, is not food. Mm-hmm. And I think it's to wrap your head around that. [00:55:30] Just give it a try.

April Williams: Awesome. If people wanna learn more, where? Where

Here's what I would challenge you. Res, find it [00:56:30] interesting research for yourself. Get lots of information. There's a lot of people out there that kind of scare people away because they, they say this person disagrees with them and don't listen to them. Don't take my word for it. Don't take Natalie or April's word [00:56:45] for it.

Learn for yourself. Mm-hmm. What harm can it do for you to learn a little bit about it and base your nutrition on Whole Foods, but Food Fight USA is a great place to start and I encourage everybody to go check out that website.

Kind of, uh, self-guided mini course on ultra processed foods and gut health, what they are, uh, how our body utilizes them and how they could impact [00:57:15] our, our health and our gut health. So if that's something you're interested in, that's available for you in the community if, if you are a member there. But we'll make sure that all of these resources, you guys are linked in the show notes.

So if you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening. Drop [00:57:45] us that comment or send us an email because we wanna know what questions you have about this topic so that we can dive a little bit deeper with you and continue to learn about this topic that is forefront of our mind for, for really good reasons.

Dr. Eric Smith: Yep, my pleasure.[00:58:15]

Natalie Tierney: Join us barination.mn.co.

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