A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Is the Food Pyramid a Scam?

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Today, Josh and Nicole breakdown the food pyramid, MyPlate, MyPyramid, all the ways we're told to eat a balanced diet – and get down to whether there's any merit, or if it's just a scam. Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: http://youtube.com/@mythicalkitchen To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is mythical. At Starbucks, we serve cold coffee just the way you like it. That refreshing chill of ice, that rich, smooth taste you crave, that handcrafted care every time. Your summer ritual is ready at Starbucks. The food pyramid is such a scam. I know. Everyone knows the aliens built them.

Josh, those are the Egyptian pyramids, not food. Aliens said I need two cups of pudding a day to be a healthy boy. This is a hot dog is a sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. Hot dog is a sandwich.

A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Scherr. And I'm your host, Nicole Inaidi. And welcome. If you've made it this far, you're at the official Ancient Aliens episode of A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich. Ancient Aliens? Isn't that what the show is called?

I thought it was ATL Aliens. Was that an album? No. I don't want to get sued by OutKast, but yeah, it is. Yeah, ATL aliens is also a great dubstep producer. But that is not what we're talking about today. We are talking about... I had to take a deep breath before this, because this is gonna get so deep in the weeds. I have to take a deep breath all the time.

That's because you're pergin' at. Yeah. Um... But we are talking all about the food pyramid today. Right. And answering the question, is it a scam? Which like, we all kind of know, yeah. It has been debunked and it is, if something is debunked, does that mean it was a scam?

It also depends what you mean by scam and whom was trying to scam. Because I feel like most people that I talk to about the food pyramid, and this actually happened recently at a dinner. You talked about the food pyramid recently at a dinner? I really did yeah with a bunch of other YouTube creators that you're talking about the food pyramid but all of them it actually ended up a little bit of a contentious conversation because all of them believed it was a scam in the sense that the food pyramid was influencing you to eat, quote, too many carbs and not enough meat. Which, if you actually look at the government lobbying efforts,

it's the opposite. The government lobbying efforts in everything I'm saying today is basically paraphrased from Marian Nestle's fantastic book, Food Politics. Yes, you talk about that book quite a bit. It's a really informative book. Check out the work of Marian Nestle. Food Politics, it's quite dense. It's not like an easy, breezy beach read. I did read it

on the beach recently. But she really gets into the weeds and it's really important to understand how this stuff functions. But the main lobbying efforts in the food pyramid were to get you to eat more meat and actually eat more dairy. It was the dairy and the meat lobby, specifically the cattleman's association, the meat lobby, specifically the Cattlemen's Association, the beef lobby, to get the food pyramid to advise you to eat more meat. What is your impression of the food pyramid and what was wrong with it?

Now? Sure, yeah, yeah, now. I agree with those food tubers that you were talking to. I mean, the fact that the grains is at the bottom, which is like the foundational part of the pyramid, it's six to 11 servings is what I'm looking at right now. Yes. The thought of consuming 11 servings of carbs now.

What's a serving? Exactly. Well, that's one of the big problems with the messaging is like, what the hell is a serving? I remember that meat poultry fish was always the size of a deck of cards. That's something that I always learned. Anywhere from six to eight ounces was a serving of meat. That is not a serving meat, six to eight ounces.

So the original recommendation of a serving of meat was supposed to be four to six ounces. And then through the lobbying efforts of the Cattlemen's Association, they changed it to five to seven. And again, like changing that took years. No way. Yeah. Okay, and what's a serving of grains? God, well this gets funky.

A serving of grains, of which one, six to 11 should immediately raise some red flags. I mean, yeah, obviously. Cause it's like, you could have six or you could have completely double that. Whatever, that works. That's kind of crazy. So, a serving of grains is, when it comes to bread, quote unquote, a slice of bread.

If you have ever seen a bread, slices can be different sized. Of course. So these are all sort of guidelines. Texas toast equals two slices of bread. But not even Texas toast, right? We have, we keep sandwich items stocked in the Mythical offices. There's one brand called, like, Nature's Own or something.

It's that, like, thick, pillowy white bread. It's not Texas toast. It's like a normal loaf of bread. Right. But one of those slices of bread has something like 60% more calories... Are you kidding? ...than another one because you just don't notice, but it's like a little bit wider, it's a little bit thicker, it's a little bit less fluffy.

Fine. And so that slice of bread is going to be different. And then bread aside, if you're getting like a nice whole grain loaf and you slice it yourself, what are you supposed to measure, right? Yeah. Very difficult. But in that 6 to 11 servings like idea if you were to take normal sandwich bread Right and have three sandwiches throughout the day. It's like not that many carbs. That's a lot of sandwiches three sandwich But that's you know three meals like three sandwiches A day if you were to eat six slices of that bread a day each of those slices of bread is probably like

90 calories sure that's not very many calories I agree You know what I mean? Like that's pretty reasonable. But people see six to 11 servings and they think, oh, I'm supposed to be eating 11 bowls of pasta. No, no, no. If you took like the average serving size, God, it's what is it? A half cup of cooked pasta is a serving size. Which one measuring a cup of orzo versus a cup of rigatoni, that cup of orzo is going to have four times the amount of calories because there's less air.

Exactly. And so none of it makes sense. None of it is like weighed in, well, actually some of the servings are weighed in ounces and then some are volumetric measurements, which makes no sense. And then even a half cup of cooked rice. If you were to take a half cup of steamed rice versus a half cup of rice Congee or even a half cup of rice that is cooked Persian style where there's more air in between the grains because you fluff it Those are all gonna read completely differently fair. Okay. Yes, but like so it's a guideline

It's not it's a guideline And for people that haven't seen maybe the USDA food pyramid Maybe it'd be helpful if we kind of broke it down Well the USDA food pyramid as as we are talking about it's the one that we grew up on that's what we're talking about I think the one that most of you knew it new and right right so it was fats oils and sweets at the tip top Of the pyramid which means you sparingly the top of the pyramid the most important I mean, it's not a pyramid unless it has the tip, right? No, I know, but I'm saying that was even...

What shape would it be? A quadrilateral? Ugh! Well, the shape... So there was a world in which the pyramid shape never existed. But describe the pyramid to them. I'll tell you all about it. What are you talking about? I'll tell you about it. Mary Nezel, dude, she's awesome. We love you. Come on the show. And then we have meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dry beans and nuts, two to three servings in the top center of the pyramid.

Milk, yogurt and cheese, two to three servings in the top center of the pyramid. Milk, yogurt and cheese, two to three servings also at the top of the pyramid. Um, and then towards the middle bottom, you have fruits, two to four servings, vegetables, three to five servings. And then at the bottom, the foundational part that I was talking about, the base, if you will, is bread, cereal, rice pasta, six to 11 servings.

And that's what we were raised on. And still to this day, even though we've had iterations with the other pyramids, which we'll talk about in the My Plates, it's this still kind of rings true. This isn't necessarily my diet right now, because my diet's a little bit different than my typical diet, because I had to reintroduce carbs into my body.

Carbs are good for your brain and for development for the child, which I found out. Carbs are good for you flat out. Period. Carbs is food. you flat out. Period. Period. The history, carbs is food. Your body breaks everything down to glucose. Exactly. Yes, yes, yes. And also when I'm looking at this, like the fruits and the vegetables that they have listed in this photo, they have things like bananas and corn, which your body kind of metabolizes

into carbs, like sugar and carbs anyways, right? Your body, I cannot stress this enough, your body metabolizes everything Not everything! Unless you are into- in ketosis Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, fair, fair Which was meant to help epileptic children Correct Go on Correct

But yeah, like all of these things like, become carbs anyways, which is like, important Yeah, your body literally runs off of carbs Unless you're in ketosis Unless you're in ketosis Um, the history of the world is just that of grain. Right now, every single era that has kind of ever existed, at least let's say like since World War II, but even before that, there have always been weird dietary fads. Sure. The food pyramid happened to come out during a time, and these dietary fads are always

somewhat based on data, right? Some, yeah. There's some data and nutritional data has got so hard because you can't isolate variables. You can't just like follow people's exact diets that you are observing perfectly. Anybody who takes part in a nutritional study just lies about what they eat. It's just human nature. And even if you were to do directly observed studies, you like can't do them for more than like two weeks because you can't do them for more than two weeks, because you can't just hold somebody in a room

with a camera on them for 20 years. Yeah, but you can like, there's like, you can take photos of the food, tell them to take photos of the food, maybe have a chaperone. Sure. Why not? But even then, you are getting somewhat skewed results. And even if it's good data that is usable,

how that gets interpreted ends up getting a little bit fudgy Okay, and so this the food pyramid that we know and love the USDA food food guide pyramid. They called it came out in 1992 it was started in 1980 and it took 12 years of intragovernmental bickering and research and data to eventually get there. That coincides with the low-fat diet craze. Right? Which coincided with data of like, hey, increasing animal fats really leads to heart disease. Which is true, but then we knew more about saturated fats and non-saturated fats. And so you end up with like, red meat, like, you know, fats, oils and sweets,

used sparingly, that's the phrase we all grew up on, that doesn't differentiate between like Crisco and like extra virgin olive oil. Yeah, because when I see this, it's like if I were me, if I was 32 years old in 1992, gosh, what an image that is. Like the milk, yogurt and cheese, I would automatically purchase fat free items. Yeah, 100%. Automatically. And then my meat, poultry, and fish would all be like boneless, skinless chicken breast.

And like a very, very lean piece of steak. But then if you look at the bread, cereal, rice, and pasta, one, the fact that it says cereal, they mean cereal like cereal grains, right? And even looking at a cereal like puffed rice, where the only ingredient is puffed rice. Right? That's one thing. But then you see cereal and you think cinnamon toast crunch. Naturally. As a consumer and as an adult in the 90s,

yes, I would think that. 100%. And so part of the lobbying on the like the grain, the big commodity crops, was to try and lump in these ultra refined products with whole grains. And even speaking of the lobby, we need to kind of go back to the origin of how the food pyramid started. And so, um... The Swedish lady, right? It was, yeah. And the idea of a food pyramid started in Sweden in 1974. But it kind of just reflected like the changing global needs around nutrition, right? Because all of the nutritional information before World War II was like, we need people

to eat more food so they can do manual labor. Right? That was almost the entirety of nutrition. Like, there were, literally doctors were writing prescription for like, malted chocolate milk in the 1920s to like, fatten up children. What do I gotta do to get a prescription for that? Because I love malted chocolate milk. And they would literally like, measure children's health

based on like, how ruddy their cheeks were. Honestly, I feel like my mom told me a story when she was in Iran, because she was very thin. My mom was like, skinny, skinny, skinny. She went to a nutritionist, and I think that they recommended she drink like gallons of goat milk. Yeah, yeah, that was it. And like gallons of milk to like fatten her up

because they're like, you're way too skinny, you're never gonna get married. That was literally the history of nutrition was... Meg, you don't be sad. That's how it used to be back in the day. It's better now. It's like actually like a snapshot. It's the history of the world. It's like we need to figure out how to feed people more to fatten them up. And then after World War II, there's a massive industrialization shift, especially with meat

and dairy and production of grains to feed the troops. And then from that like 1950s until the 1970s, we had, you know, an era where, oh gosh, our nutritional problems are now that we're eating too much. And so enter the food pyramid is in this really weird time where we're like, we need to tell people to eat less. Okay, but how do we structure what people are eating? Let's figure it out. So what?

Having 11 servings of something does not equate like eating less. You are absolutely correct. And thus we find the problem because there were two agencies that could have taken hold of the food pyramid. One is the US Department of Agriculture, whose entire job, the USDA, is to get people to buy more agriculture grown in America. Right. And it's a really important agency, and agriculture is a really important industry to America.

The other agency is Health and Human Services, whose entire job is to... What's that acronym? HHS. I don't think I've ever heard of HHS. HHS? I think RFK Junior's the head of it now. Oh, no way, okay.

And so they're actually about to put out brand new guidelines for 2025, which are going to be very interesting to see. I wonder what that's gonna look like. I don't know if they're gonna get rid of my plate or whatever, but... Do you think we're all gonna have cheese hands? You saw that guy on the internet that ate so much cheese and bacon that he started secreting

orange liquid on his hands? Ew, no, is that real? Maggie, please Google keto cheese hands. This is for research, this is for science. At some point I ate so much Costco salmon that I started smelling like fish and our roommates had to get me the stuff. That's probably why your skin's orange. I ate so much Costco salmon that I started smelling like fish and our roommates had to get me this stuff. That's probably why your skin's orange. I think so, man.

Yeah, man's hands filled with cholesterol. These are real news sources. Yeah, he was eating six to nine pounds of butter. Oh, that's too much butter. Oh, too much butter. Speaking of butter though, so one of the predecessors to the food pyramid was like post-World War II. Maybe it was mid, but it was just called the Seven Food Groups. I've never heard of this before.

The Seven Food Groups was just like a wheel, and again, this was World War II, so it was like, how do we get people to eat more so they can build airplanes to stop Mussolini? And butter was just an entirely separate category. Is butter a carb? No. Literally, they had like cheese and yogurt and milk. and then it was just like butter and margarine. You gotta eat both. Oh my god, just fattening people up so they can work longer? This is sick. And so it's Health and Human Services' job to keep the population healthy and in theory keep spending on

healthcare down. Doesn't always happen that way. And then USDA's job to get people to eat more. And then they put the agencies together and said, oh, you took keys. Keys, now keys. You took keys. I love when they keys. Figure it out. And basically, the USDA kind of ended up being given control of the food pyramid. Right.

And this is a way that American politics functions where you basically have a head of the USDA who will then retire and then go become the head of the beef lobby. And then the head of the beef lobby will retire and become the head of the USDA, which is exactly- Is this trickle-down economics? No, that's not what trickle-down economics is. This is America's very unique relationship to lobbying. And if we took any public servant in politics and banned them from joining any lobby group for 10 years, I think

we would have a much better, more equitable country, but I digress. Mary Nessel made the same claim in this. So anyways, that is exactly what we saw. A vote for Josh is a vote for Nicole and Maggie. Where we had a beef lobbyist be the head of the USDA. And so basically you have the USDA trying to just get people to eat more products that we grow. Food, yeah. The most profitable ones being cows in commodity crops. And so they ended up, you know, having a lot of those up there.

And then eventually, like, you have the dairy lobby, who was saying, like, well, we don't like our positioning in relation to sweets. And so they had to make all these concessions. Originally, the square for meat was colored red, and the meat lobbies didn't like that, because they said reds looked like a warning. And so, literally...

So it used to be color-coded? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, like, there's just so many different stories of how this pyramid gets messed up over the course of 12 years, including my favorite, which is somebody said, hey, the pyramid is, like, too hierarchical. We don't like this. We should make this more accurate to how people eat. And they created a bowl.

And so the bowl had sectors in it that were not stacked on top of each other. When was the bowl introduced? The bowl was never introduced. The bowl got shot down. Okay, the bowl was an idea. But it was almost basically a coin flip between the bowl and the pyramid. Mm-hmm. And then the pyramid ended up winning out.

And so eventually, there's even a story of like... So crazy. The pyramid was like meant to go to printers, but they were like out of ink. And then the day later, a beef lobbyist stepped in and was like, if you do this, we riot. And then like so many incredible stories. The Washington Post ran a story that one random group, it was a random physicians group that like was not a big public funded group at all, but they sent in a single letter

to the USDA and was like, hey what what if we made it vegetarian, huh? Because we don't really need meat. And then, God, I think it was Malcolm Gladwell actually wrote a story for the Washington Post about like, physicians group recommends fully vegetarian diet, and then that made so many headlines, it got blown out of proportion that the beef lobby flips out. The point is, it's very, very, very complicated. It sounds very complicated. And that made so many headlines and got blown out of proportion that the beef lobby flips out. The point is, it's very, very, very complicated. It's still very complicated.

And it was on every school classroom's wall for 13 years, the precise 13 years that you and I were in school. Right. If you're planning a trip this summer, imagine how much more meaningful your experience could be if you could speak the local language. Ordering a coffee, asking for directions, or just having a friendly chat. It all hits different when you can connect in someone else's native tongue. That's where Rosetta Stone comes in.

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That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit rosettastone.com slash hot dog to get started and claim your 50% off today. Don't miss out. Go to RosettaStone.com slash hot dog and start learning today. And then we got my pyramid. And then you say, get out of here. I don't even remember. I remember my plate the most, which we'll talk about at the end.

I do not remember MyPlate at all. When I went to culinary school, we had to take a nutrition class. Why? I couldn't tell you. It was for-profit education. And they taught us about the MyPlate, but I want to talk about the MyPyramid. The MyPyramid was, first of all, beautiful. The color coding on this one, I love. Also, there's a little man or woman

walking up stairs to imply that you need to also move your body. So my pyramid was in 2005. Yeah, that was in 2005. And then it's just a little person just walking up the steps saying maintain balance between food and physical activity, which I kind of love. I don't know. I think it's cute. I, so it's really, really interesting. So my pyramid in 2005, 13 years after the original Food Guide pyramid, it changed servings to measurements, right? But not a consensus of measurements because for grains,

I see for grains and for meat, it's ounces. But vegetables, fruits and milk are in cups. And I think it's because Americans, I'm sorry, are like dumb. And like, because they go to the meat counter and they say, let me get five ounces of this. I would say quarter pound, right? I don't know, dude. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense.

Also, what is this Chinese food pagoda I'm seeing? I'm so glad you asked. So a couple criticisms of the food pyramid. One, the hierarchical nature of the pyramid blocks stacked on top of each other. The next pyramid, what they did is they are very, very thin triangles emanating from the top of the triangle, which makes no sense. This should be a pie graph, right? To show, like, an actual representation. And then they switched it from servings, 6 to 11, never made sense.

They say six ounces of grains. Is that cooked? Is that raw? Unclear. My favorite is milk, where you also just see slices of cheese, three cups. How do you get three cups of Kraft Singles? Oh, if there's a will, there's a way. Like, none of cheese, three cups. How do you get three cups of Kraft singles? Oh, if there's a will, there's a way. None of this makes any sense. And then some of the other criticisms are that like, hey, America is a very multicultural place.

Right. This doesn't necessarily fit into all diets. Why are we saying that milk is a necessary part of the human diet when countries like China, the largest country on earth doesn't have like Tolerant people yeah, yeah, and so they introduced the Chinese food guide pagoda, which I believe is actually used in China Oh, no way At least recently adopted. I have never ever seen this before. I the only time I saw a pagoda was in Japan

That's so funny, which in that they say like there's still a section for dairy, but that soy is included in there. I can see right here, there's a little block of tofu. And then there's also a link to the original USDA food guide pyramid, which was originally supposed to be called the Eating Right pyramid, but then Kraft had like a brand of low-fat products out there called Eating Right, and Kraft threatened to sue on copyright infringement. Not only that, this is my favorite part. Yes copyright infringement not only that this is my favorite part this is my favorite part Kraft's competitors threatened to sue because then that would have given Kraft an advantage so meanwhile if they called it eating right

my freaking crafts competitors like no that benefits craft and then craft is like you can't name it that because we have that and so everybody's fighting and meanwhile the only nutritional advice is just eat more fruits and vegetables and be moderate. That's all that's been it Nicole. That's been it But be my nutrition moderates good. That's what I'm saying moderate and eat fruits and vegetables good eat less meat Maintain a healthy caloric balance move. Well, which we see on the my pyramid you have a giant Kaiju character climbing the pyramid like King Kong in the Empire State. You can tell that there's motion because there's one arm in front of the other and one leg

is going up a stair. But part of the whole, people should be moving a lot more. And I think the government's had some pretty good programs, as well as the Play 60, you know, getting kids. Jump rope for heart. Yeah, all that stuff is great, but putting that on the food pyramid is like a very deliberate marketing ploy. It was McDonald's giving out step counters, right?

Oh my God, I remember my McDonald's step counters! And the step counters were burning kids' wrists. You gotta look up the story, it's incredible. My step counter was one that you would put on your pants. Oh, from McDonald's? From McDonald's and it was red. Oh, because they initially had wrist ones and the batteries were overheating and burning children. I remember I would shake it like this. I would shake it like this and say,

hey, look how much I want. But that was literally McDonald's saying like, hey, it's not our fault. You should just be moving more. And so that's sort of where this is going. That's what America's about, baby. You got freedom of choice. Like, actually, yes. And so there we have My Pyramid. And then this was phased out in what, 2012?

2011. 2011. Talk about My Plate. So My Plate was, it was actually really beautifully constructed, in my opinion. It was a flat plate with a little side cup, because everyone eats like that, right? And a fork. I love the side cup. And the best part about this is that there's no numbers, right?

It's all, as someone who appreciates visual aids, this was actually really good for me. We never actually got percentages. We were never given ounces, cups, anything like that. It was just a visual representation of what you should have. And from what I'm looking at, your plate should be in four quadrants, not equal quadrants though. So the largest quadrant would be vegetables. When I'm looking at this, it gives me about 40% vegetables. And then, am I bad? Am I bad at this? No, I don't know. I've always just been fascinated

So when you look at my plate, it almost looks like they're in quartiles like cut into yeah pizza cut into four slices But like but like a screwed up pizza, but I can't tell how much like is vegetables 40% or is that yeah? 30% so so vegetables are 40% of the plate and then grains are 35% of the plate. How much is that together? You're at 75% Nicole. Already? You've got 25% left. Oh my God. Oh my God.

And then, and then 10% fruits and then 20% protein and then dairy's on the side just for, just for kicks. Well, dairy is on the side because it's not a necessary part of human health, but we, but we have a lot of people who make their money in America human health, but we have a lot of people who make their money in America based on dairy. And we have cheese caves filled with millions of tons of cheese.

Do you wanna know why I'm so stupid? I literally, do you remember how you said like the dairy implies dessert? Literally looking at this MyPlate organization, the dairy looks like a little side of like pudding. I know, I always imagine like a little sidecar of yogurt that someone's eating. Oh my God, like a little vanilla of like pudding. I know. I always imagine like a little side of yogurt that someone's eating. Oh my God, like a little vanilla yogurt on the side? Like I'm having like a steak, some penne pasta,

little side of strawberries inexplicably next to the pasta, and then some broccoli, and then a little yogurt parfait on the side. Exactly. I think it's supposed to be a cup of milk. Like you're drinking a glass of... It's a cup? My stupid ass. It can be anything, but the idea is eat dairy with every meal or else the US dairy lobby is gonna get pissed Did you grow up drinking like milk with like a sandwich? Oh my god constantly

I know that's like so ham and cheese sandwich with mayonnaise on white bread with an ice-cold glass of skim milk You know who you sound like right now one of the full house characters I remember very vividly that a Full House character ate that exact thing! I can still taste the mustard being washed down with milk. Oh my god! Do you miss it? A little bit. It's a nostalgic feeling. When was the last time you chugged dairy out of every can? Pretty recently.

There's something really good about just drinking milk straight out of the carton. There are some people who are like, my bodies aren't meant to run on lactose. There's something really good about just drinking milk straight out of the carton. There are some people who are like, like bodies aren't meant to run on lactose. I'm like, mine was. My ancestors, we... I love milk. We were locked up in Northern Europe, you know, a cow was dying, like you got to drink its milk for your own sustenance.

Ferment the kefir. Ferment the kefir. You know, my body really does process dairy very well. Josh, I want to do an experiment with you. What's that? So in front of us, we have a whiteboard. I see that. And I thought it would be fun if we decided to create a food pyramid

that works for us and maybe we can share with the rest of the world. Oh, gosh. Now, this might take a second. Maggie, I'm just going to shut up for about five minutes while I draw this, okay? Don't look, don't cheat off of my paper! Jerk. Okay. Are you ready to see my food pyramid?

Show me that food pyramid, Nicole. So, my food pyramid isn't based off of foods, it's based off of food preparations. So, Americans don't consume enough steamed or boiled foods. And I think that's screwed up. So at the bottom, the most servings of, of I'd say six servings, whatever that means to you, of steamed foods, let it be vegetables, let it be meats, let it be rice, let it be whatever you want.

Steamed at the bottom. Okay. And then after that you have seared. You can sear your vegetables. You can sear your proteins. You can sear yada, yada, yada. Sear your bread. I don't care.

Sear your pancakes. I think it's called a toast. No, no, I'm talking about cooking with oil. Oh, okay. This is about, so this is about steaming, which is- Like a British fried bread. Exactly. Fry it up.

I don't care. Live your life. After that, it's baked slash air fried. Cause who doesn't have an air fryer now, nowadays? I don't care. Live your life. After that, it's baked slash air fried, because who doesn't have an air fryer nowadays? I don't, but I'm just special. I should. They really do work very well. And then baked, I would say two to three servings, and then fried, like in deep oil.

We're talking about like frying food, like a fried shrimp, coconut shrimp situation. One serving. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and like design my meal based on Nicole's new preparation base, not food based, pyramid. But doesn't it make sense because one's, Americans don't use- Absolutely not.

None of this makes sense. I know, I see where you're coming from, but in theory this could just all be different kinds of rice, you could just have steamed rice, and then you could have like a nice like pan seared crispy rice, you could do like a fried rice. Yeah, but no one would do that, but no one would do that. A nice baked tachseared crispy rice. You could do like a fried rice. Yeah, but no one would do that.

A nice baked tachin. But no one would do that. You would have to be realistic. Well, no, but I'm being serious though. This is the exact conundrum with creating a food pyramid, right? This is, okay fine. You're never going to create anything that is going to like, one, satisfy anybody

in their interests, or two, like be able to fully, accurately represent a healthy diet without then, like, very intuitive knowledge from people. Okay, hear me out. So you get people looking at the USDA food pyramid. What if I poop in your dress? You get people looking at the USDA food pyramid, right, and being like, so I can just have 11 bowls of cereal?

Well, no, I'm saying- It's like, no, you should have intuitive knowledge passed down from generations. Yes, yes. That's stupid. And this is just a guideline and people should be eating grains. Get off your soapbox for a second. And they should be eating small portions of meat. They should be eating vegetables.

It's not there for you to like find weird loopholes. Listen. So imagine, I'm not much of an artiste, I'm not a Picasso over here. Imagine there was like a picture of like an apple for the steam, like steamed apples What the hell why where's raw? Where's raw in this? Oh, oh, you know, where's raw here here because because I care about you here Raw will be here fantastic now I I have I'm the poison control center Nicole and I've gotten 1,500 calls about people eating raw chicken breast

veggies such fruit and I've gotten 1,500 calls about people eating raw chicken breast. Veggies! Such fruit! Excluding meat! And dairy! Is that better? This makes sense to me. Can I tell you why? People who have never before deep fried food in their homes saw this on the pyramid, thought it was necessary,

didn't turn the oil off on their stove, and now their homes are on fire. It needs some tweaking. It needs some tweaking. I didn't say it was perfect, I said it's a guideline. If you could rate this, what would you give this? I'd give this a one out of ten. You're so ugly. No, no, I think this is a genuinely important exercise, though. But you don't think teaching people proper food preparations Oh my God, 100%.

is helpful in health and wellness? Yes, but I think a pyramid is the worst way to represent it. Okay, freaking make it a square, what do you want from me? You sound like the HHS and USDA for 12 years. It's a bowl now. Okay, what do you want? Now it's a plate. Okay, now, what do you mean?

Where's the dairy on the plate? It's like a moon orbiting the plate on the side. I don't know. Okay, what are you gonna do, make an inverted cross? Tampico's like, we're gonna invade a Central American country unless you put like blue juice as a fruit I want to see your artwork if you have it in you I'm not I'm not gonna indulge me here man I don't want to do it it doesn't need to be I'll draw a food pyramid it doesn't need to be a pyramid. It can be another shape. I'll draw a food pyramid here. Eat food not too much, mostly plants.

Eat food not too much, mostly plants. This has been the only dietary advice post-world war two that actually holds up It is verified by science I understand you have people there who are eating carnivore and claims that it is cured literally all their diseases I understand you have people who are eating, you know Completely vegan and say that that has cured all their diseases at the end of the day. It's not that difficult I know it's difficult to cook, it's difficult to have the institutional knowledge to know how

to eat food. I know fresh produce is more expensive than anything in terms of a calorie basis. I know it's very easy to buy convenience foods, but eat food not too much, mostly plants. Go out there, get some whole grains, cook it up, get some whole muscle cuts of lean meat, cook a fresh vegetable you've never cooked. Hell, not even fresh vegetables. Frozen vegetables are very, very good. Frozen vegetables are as nutritious as fresh vegetables.

It's very, very simple. And I actually have a lot of empathy for all of the people, very well-intentioned dieticians and farmers and nutritionists and public servants who created the food pyramid, right? Because it's so difficult, as you saw with your, you know, steamed to fried pyramid. It's a good idea. It just needs some, some, it needs a few think tanks and about a hundred million dollars behind it and it can work. But it's so difficult, especially in the face of all these companies trying to make money off of it.

So my heart goes out to all the people who did that, but ultimately the food pyramid, yeah, it was a weird lobbying scam and I hope we end up in a better place in the future. With Amex Platinum, get access to an annual dining credit and exclusive dining experiences, plus access to an annual travel credit and perks like 4 p.m. late checkout at fine hotels and resorts. Now arriving in Tokyo. So going for your favorite food takes on a whole new meaning. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply.

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Drinking Age. ideas rattling out there in the universe. It's time for a little segment we call... Opinions on a Castle Roll! Oh, that's radical! Let's get to that first opinion. We have fun here. We do have fun. Hey guys, my name is Garrett from Spokane. Hi, Garrett from Spokane. I have a question for you all. Lately, my wife and I have been trying to add more veggies to our toddler's diet. Three year old, she hates eating pretty much anything but chicken nuggets and I did it to myself. Anyway, and I'm just trying to find ways to hide veggies into things. Veggies and beans and maybe beans and sauces,

veggies and sauces, things I can do to try to incorporate that without it imparting too much veginess to my daughter, you know? What are your thoughts on that? Also, I heard you like tofu. What do you think? How do you make tofu taste like meat? I heard freeze it. What do you think? You don't gotta make tofu taste like meat. You just gotta make it taste like delicious stuff. But one, I do wanna say, seems like a good dad. I like that. I liked his vocal fries at some point. I liked your vocal fry too.

I like his vocal fry. You always say, make the meat taste bad and the veggies taste good, which is something I think is a great, great, you can kick it off. Well, yeah, that's my long-term Psi-op on children. But that has to be done from a young age. And like you said, they've already experienced

the joys of chicken nuggets. My idea is like, what if we turned all cauliflower and tofu into nuggets and just served children boiled unsalted meat and thus conditioned them to love vegetables and hate meat, but then also probably just conditioning them to love fried things and hate boiled things. So I wouldn't actually recommend that. If you were to look at my food pyramid, but then also probably just conditioning them to love fried things

and hate boiled things. So I wouldn't actually recommend that. If you were to look at my food pyramid, that wouldn't happen. Pfft. Dang it, she was right. Um, no, as far as, as like veggies that you can sneak into foods, stuff like a mac and cheese, every kid loves, right? Uh-huh.

Boil cauliflower, blend that into a cheese sauce. Yeah, sure. You know, I think that into a cheese sauce. Yeah, sure. You know, I think that'd be pretty good. Yeah, you could do onion, carrot, and cauliflower, and you can even throw in some white beans in there. Um, I don't know why chicken nuggets, I thought it'd be fun if you made, like, cool funky sauces. Like, what if you made a barbecue sauce with, like, a...

You just take, like, store-bought barbecue sauce, and then you take a beet, and you just, like, blend the beet in the barbecue sauce. Virtually undetectable. Blend the beet in there. Um... Stuff like tofu chili. Tofu, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought about, like I don't know why carrot sauce came to mind. They can make like a carrot apple sauce and dip it in there. Be fun. You know, if you're- There's a lot of options.

There's a lot of options. Beans. Beans are great. Black bean brownies. Listen, they taste pretty good. I like them. I just like Asian bean desserts. This is your thing. You just love beans and desserts.

I love beans and desserts. You've always loved beans and desserts. Remember we had jaya a few days ago? Oh, we did. We had a... Oh, my God. We had a... They called it a fava bean. So jaya, it's mispronouncing horribly, but it's a Vietnamese type of kind of porridge-based dessert. Various tubers and beans, even corn. Cooked a little bit sweet, but not cloyingly sweet, and then salted coconut milk on it.

But we had just a black-eyed pea porridge dessert. There were black-eyed peas in there, and I'm like, ooh! I love dessert beans. So make some dessert beans, make some bean cookies. No, there have to be easier ways. What foods do kids love? Nuggets, pizza. Pizza, great way to get vegetables in there, man. I don't know, it depends. There's some kids that are really picky

and there's some kids that are not very picky. Collie crust pizza, blend some like carrot, celery, onion into a sauce. I went to my niece's house the other day and she was eating avocado and plum puree and a little broccoli, cheddar, chicken, like patty. And she loved it. She's like eight months old. She was eating it all.

I don't know if this is a good recommendation because I don't know how much your child loves chile verde. But like when I was a kid, I would love any sort of like braised meat in like a somewhat, not even spicy, just like a kind of aesthetic flavorful green sauce. But like if you just blend a bunch of spinach in there, just kind of green and fun, unless your kid doesn't like green foods.

But that's a good idea. I think kids should eat green foods. I think you put it in front of them and say, eat it. Yeah, probably easier said than done. You're about to be, you're a lot closer to Ryan. She's not gonna talk for a long time. You know what I mean? Like I don't have to deal with that for a minute. But I think, I don't know, it's,

how do you raise a non-picky eater? I think you put a bunch of foods in front of them and keep putting a bunch of foods in front of them. Even foods they don't like. I'm not gonna pretend to know. Even foods they reject. Hot carrot, hot dog, you roast a big old carrot. Ew, no, don't do that.

Put it in a bun. Don't do that. I like it. I like it a lot. Good luck. Godspeed. You've got this. Hey, I just, I wanted to like share this knowledge with everybody in the entire world.

If you take a white sweet potato and you bake it and you put dark chocolate chips in it, it is hands down one of the best things I've ever tasted in my entire life. Yeah, it is. So don't knock it until you put dark chocolate chips in it, it is hands down one of the best things I've ever tasted in my entire life. So don't knock it until you try it. I'm not knocking it, but honey, I'm going to try it. And that sounds so good. I love chocolate chips in places I wouldn't expect them. I love a rogue chocolate chip.

What's the least expected place you've ever had a chocolate chip? You don't want to know? Sounds like a newlywed game question. You don't want to know. That sounds really good. And I love sweet potato as a dessert. One time I took a sweet potato and I mashed it all up inside of the skin and then I added vanilla sugar to it and then I bruleed it and it was the best thing I've ever had.

I did that recently. We had for some reason just like... A lot of sweet potato? No, you know what it was? We were making candied yams for someone's last meal. I think it was Sierra. And for some reason, one of the yams that we got, red garnet yam, was actually a white sweet potato.

And so we had a baked white sweet potato, and Lily was just like, does anybody want this? And I was like, hell yes! And it was baked to the point where like, so much steam had evaporated, so it was nice and fudgy. Jammy. Jammy sweet potato. And I put a little bit of Nielsen Massey vanilla paste

in there, a little bit of salt and honey oh So good so good so good. I think garnet yams do better than white sweet potatoes Oh, I like white sweet potatoes either way eat potatoes for dessert man yum Love sweet potatoes love a potato. I always have sweet potatoes at my house I should I should be eating more sweet potatoes That's been that was part of my new year's resolution is to eat more potato. You ever eat purple sweet potato? Yeah, they're not my favorite. Me too. They're a little too starchy.

I agree. Not so, that's what I love about garnet yams. I heard a stringy one the other day, ruined my day, ruined it. Ugh, ruined it. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Sorry. Acid reflux. Yo Josh, yo Nicole. This is Taylor from Fresno. I'm going to say it. Bone marrow is one of the most overrated restaurant foods. I've had it on multiple occasions in fancy restaurants, less fancy restaurants, and every

time- I will not stand for this. It's essentially just like putting butter on some crostinis or some kind of other toasted bread. Let me know your thoughts. I get this. Okay, if I could eat bone marrow every day, I think I would. Really? If I did, I feel like I would die from cholesterol, high cholesterol, but I love the way it tastes and I think it's delicious and I don't think it's a commonly

utilized part of the animal. So I love it, my family loves it. Sounds delicious. I feel like bone marrow is kind of in the same restaurant era as pork belly, where you start to see more like pork belly on menus. Bone marrow, when done really well, I remember the restaurant Animal, it was the first time they had these big roasted bone marrow bones with like grilled bread and like a lemony parsley salad. And you combine all that together and that is just one of the best bites of food that

I can remember, right? Sure. However, places that weren't as good at cooking, you'd go get bone marrow and they roasted it so hard that all the bone marrow leaked out. Exactly. And you just end up with an empty bone. An empty bone and like... And all of the fats on the silpat mat left in the kitchen.

Yeah, and like I didn't know how to send it back, you know what I mean? Um, and so a lot of bad bone marrow has been served. And I've had a lot of like terrible pork belly at restaurants. Yeah. Where it's not butchered properly, it's just a hunk of fat. Yeah, at restaurants it's a little bit hit or miss, but whenever I make bone marrow at home I put it in my stews a lot, honey.

You ever had stewed bone marrow warm as hapsi? No, but I would love to try it. You would love to try, okay. Yeah, you raise a good point though. Hi Nicole, Maggie, and Josh, and any TAs that might be listening. So I had a question, or maybe a episode suggestion for you all. I converted to vegetarian or maybe a episode suggestion for you all.

I converted to vegetarianism about a year ago, but I'm having a hard time getting enough protein. And I would like to start using protein powder, but I just have no idea where to start. So could you guys recommend some of the best protein powders to use? Thanks. Yes. What do you get? I remember Tara's whey being very popular, but do they still have their vegan stuff? Well, I don't think, I mean,

they might be down for whey protein. They didn't especially vegan. They said the vegetarian. Vegetarian? Tara's whey is great. But if you are looking for a vegan one, vegan protein, I remember I used to take this protein powder in particular and I loved it. Organe organic protein, you can get it from anywhere.

Really love that one. And then also Garden of Life. Garden of Life and Organe are vegan, but if you want a really good whey protein, Tara's whey is really, really finely milled and it tastes pretty good. I've been using the same whey protein for like, I think like 15 years. It was the Costco brand way back in the day, still might be there, but now I just, I get it online. It's optimum nutrition, gold standard whey.

Like the macronutrients on it are good, but moreover it like it when I mix it with my yogurt It creates the perfect like pudding consistency and ditto with when I blend it with frozen blueberries So anytime I change like whey proteins Some of them like have too many thickeners in it and they make my protein just like a sludge that I can't drink like my Shake or they just turn my yogurt into like a glue. Yeah. So for me, like, I don't know, optimum nutrition gold standard way. I've run through every single flavor they have. Don't go for the crazy ones. If you want chocolate, do the chocolate malt.

That's great. If you want vanilla, go for like, I don't know, vanilla ice cream, they call it or something. But I've been using that one for forever. It's pretty affordable on a per serving basis because you have to buy it, you buy it in like 10 pound jugs. I know some people have been using unflavored whey protein and vegan protein to like beef up their like pasta dishes or like... Really?

Beef up their chilies and stuff, yeah. That's crazy work, man. I'm into it. No, I mean, listen, whenever you aren't getting enough nutrients... Sure. If you can find a way to do it in a way that still tastes good, I support it. Yeah, I mean, I do that with like nonfat Greek yogurt. And like I would normally eat full fat,

but if I'm eating... If I want full fat, I'll get like, lebna or something. So in my house, I'll have like nonfat Greek yogurt, which I basically use as a supplement. Right. Because there's like 20 grams of protein per 130 calories or something. And then I'll have like, lebna if I actually want to make like a delicious sort of herby creamy sauce to dip my homemade cabob in Underrated if you ever find Lebanon in a store just buy it and eat it the intersection between like cream cheese and yogurt

It's just you know with like cucumber dill. No, I don't even like it like that I just like it straight up with the spoon You know what one of the best combinations ever had is? Lebna with a little float, smoked olive oil. Oh, smoked olive oil. Smoked olive oil in Lebna. It gives you like almost like a bagel and lox vibes. He's getting that smoke off. Bro!

I love Lebna. Grilled bread, flaky salt, Lebna, Arbequina smoked olive oil. Arbequina? Arbequina. That's the one brand of smoked olive oil that I can tell you. I was like, arbequina, smoked olive oil. Arbequina? Arbequina. That's the one brand of smoked olive oil that I can tell you. Oh, I was like, where's that? I have no idea. Take me to arbequina.

I had it at a restaurant and they served it with a fish crudo and it was just like, it's a good ass dish, man. Arbequina. Was that helpful, us talking about? It's a variety of olive. And they have a smoked one. Josh, I'm salivating. I know, same.

What's wrong with you? We need to get out here and start filling up our food pyramids. I just recently Googled, like, other countries' food pyramids. Belgium has something called the inverted food triangle. I was gonna say inverted, yeah, I was gonna make you make an inverted cross, like the demon you... I love that the food pyramid is not a pyramid, it's just a triangle. Like, what's on the other side of the food pyramid?

The other side is fitness and relationships with your mother. Ha ha ha! But this one just says it starts with drink mostly water. Oh, that's so great. I agree. I concur. And then you have... Is this Belgium? This is Belgium. Hell yeah, Belgium, you got it. You have... This is really cool. You have yeah Belgium you got it you have this is really cool

You have like fruits and vegetables at the base Mm-hmm, and then you have like what appears to be whole grains and beans and is that an ice cube? I can't tell looks like a cube of jelly to me, but then you also have like gelatin. Maybe it's gelatin I think it might be I don't know then you have like it's a cube of gelatin is I have nuts and olive oil Slightly below that. Mm-hmm. Then you get into like fish and milk and then oh crazy And then you get white meat and dairy and eggs. Oh Man, and they and then they have red meat At the very bottom saying eat less

And then as little as possible you have bacon, soda, pizza, wine. That's really interesting. So Belgium has tried to like separate out, because if you're in America, I grew up eating lean cuisines, hungry mans and hot pockets. Where the hell does that fit on the pyramid? I don't recognize any of that. Well, I think that's something that they recognize. In Belgium that goes into as little as possible That's really interesting be like Belgium be like Belgium capital of Belgium is It's probably Brussels, right? I have a friend that lives in Belgium. Hi Vic. I know you're not listening. Hey Vic

I got really I got really drunk in a in a Belgian restaurant bathroom once Yeah, I remember and I got locked in for a cup for like and then you're like see who play let me out please I remember most of your stories I know I need to make new ones but I don't have a lot you should make my memories I don't remember anything that happens to me anymore and on that note yeah you've seen it right dude I have that in my house bro it's the best all right on note, you guys get out of here. We'll stay. We'll stick around.

If you want to be featured on opinions by castrules, give us a call at 833-DOG-POD-1. We got new episodes out every, what, Wednesday? We're still doing that? Yes, Josh. So on Wednesdays and then Sundays, check out my new shoes. I can't pull my leg up like that. Hold on.

Hold on. If you really listen to the food pyramid, you'd be doing flexibility training. Should I? We got new episodes out on Wednesdays, that's the audio version, then on Sundays the video comes out over on YouTube. And if you like that, the videos, I mean,

then you can stick around the YouTube channel on which they're hosted. Do you see my socks? They say I love chocolate. Whereby we have- Do you see that? Whereby we have many other styles of video. Look how thick my, is this my socks? They say I love chocolate. Whereby we have... Do you see that? Whereby we have many other styles of video. Look how thick my... Is this my calves?

Are these my calves? Is that like an existential question? Do my calves belong to me? Do they belong to God? Is this body part called my calves? Yeah. Look how thick my calves have gotten. You've heard of my plate and my beer, but now Nicole's my calves. Oh my God.

They're like Like crazy. I have very thin calves for a man of my stature. Let me see It's kind of like skinny calves and people like you don't train your calves. I'm like you damn right or don't I got fat You had FCD You down with FCD? Yeah, you know. Niati. Alright, on that note, I'll see y'all later. Goodbye.