Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 39 - The Nutrition Space Is Broken + Tribalism

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

In this episode Danny outlines what he believes to be the most fundamental flaw in the nutrition space right now, nutritional tribalism. The desire to pick sides and battle it out has only muddied the waters of the nutrition space and made it more confusing.Topics covered:Why are we at a nutritional standstillWhat can we learn from:veganfastingketo macro countingWhat we need to do to stop debating nutrition and start helping people be healthier.ENJOY THIS EPISODE + Thanks For Listening!---RESOURCES/COACHING: I am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE! Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----SOCIAL LINKS:Follow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE!Support the Show.

Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. Today we are talking about all things nutrition. Now let me tell you the interesting way in which I stumbled across selecting this as an episode topic. So for anybody who doesn't know, I quite like to listen to the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, like every other white male age 25 to 45. I fall smack dab in the middle of his demographic, and I've been listening to his show now for, gosh, going on five years. I'm also quite a big fan of Kevin Hart, the comedian. I really enjoyed his book, his more recent book. I'm not as much of a fan of, but his original book. And the two did a podcast together. And of course, and this is my one gripe with Mr. Rogan, they got down the rabbit hole of nutrition. And while I think that

Joe knows quite a bit about nutrition, he has a very good handle on what works for him. There were some comments made with regard to nutrition that I thought would really create a solid foundation for discussion here today with regards as to how to look at it through your own lens. So I'm sure I'll butcher this, but in paraphrasing, Kevin Hart essentially told Joe Rogan, I feel better now that I've gone plant-based. I love the Beyond Meat Burger, to which Joe replied, the Beyond Meat Burger is bad for you. It is essentially fake meat, something that I relatively tend to align myself with. I don't think that's a very healthful replacement for wild sourced animal products, which kind of matriculated into the conclusion that everybody has to do what is best for them. And of all of the podcasts I've listened to that Joe has done about nutrition, I think

that that was possibly the best conclusion that has been drawn in all of them. You have to do what is best for you. And I think perhaps the biggest mistake that people make with regards to nutrition, and again, this is very prevalent sociologically and societally today, is what I like to call tribalism. So let's outline a little bit about tribalism. What is it? Where do we see it?

Tribalism is essentially feeling the need to pick sides and defend that side vehemently and dogmatically until the bitter end. We see this a lot politically. People who, no matter what, they're going to side with the general democratic consensus or the general republican consensus, period. They have pre-selected and pre-determined. My job is to defend the general opinion of the people on my side. People who are more politically moderate will often select things from both sides, consider things from both sides, and defend things from both sides. But people who have slipped into that space of tribalism vehemently and dogmatically defend their side to the bitter end. This shows up a lot in the fitness space with regards to training modalities. People who will vehemently defend the Bulgarian method, the West Side method, CrossFit, bodybuilding, the merits of aerobic work.

They will constantly pound and defend why their training modality is the best. And of course we see this with nutrition. We've even gone so far into nutritional tribalism that I think it's borderline becoming the new religion. I got into a, I don't want to call it an argument because I didn't even engage with this person on Twitter, but people's Twitter handles are like Veggie Bro, Vegan Girl, Carnivore Carl, and you see it on Instagram as well. People who put their dietary choices in their Instagram bio, their Twitter bio. And I think it becomes really important to outline in this ever increasingly digital society that what people put in their biographies on things like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are really indicative of how they feel about life. And it's a part of their identity.

They're essentially saying, hey, these characters that I put in my bio, this is going to tell you what I'm all about. And if somebody is willing to put their dietary preference in there, I believe they've transcended from a space of this just being a way of eating to this has become their way of selecting a tribe. And if you look at human beings, homo sapiens sapien, as an organism, we only made it this far because we can tribalize, we can get together, we can be communal, we can figure things out, but that requires joint collaborative enterprise in forming a team. And the desire to do that now and the ability to do it digitally and connect with people all over the world and form a tribe in the social space, in the social media space, has really, really amplified this nutritional tribalism that I think is becoming

increasingly problematic in our space. And why I think it's problematic goes back to the discussion between Joe Rogan and Kevin Hart. Joe made the point that different things work for different people. But if the only dialogue we're having is tribalistic, argumentative, combative, and you're stupid because you eat this, you're stupid because you don't eat this. That is not elevating the nutritional dialogue. And while we become increasingly, increasingly tribal, we're becoming increasingly, increasingly more unhealthy, overweight, and obese. I've had many clients who have tried a vegan diet because of the merits, the potential benefits for the climate, potential benefits for animal and animal well-being, only to be extremely

unhealthy because the diet is difficult to adhere to, and they end up having to quit because they end up physiologically quite unhealthy. But those things all go on the back burner. Your health goes on the back burner because the tribe and the identity and the political nature of nutrition is more important. Defending your beliefs is more important than your health. And I don't think that that's a good idea, particularly when we can very simply cut and dry, say, different strokes for different folks you gotta find what works for you and the way to do that isn't through tribalistic argumentation it's through communication through listening through open-mindedness and understanding so

this is how we need to navigate nutritional tribalism moving forward as coaches, as hobbyists, as enthusiasts, as people who just want to be healthier. Number one, the thing we absolutely need to do is keep an open mind. Let's talk a little bit about some of the more common diets and what keeping an open mind might allow us to garner from each one of those. So let's use ketogenic dieting, if it fits your macros, dieting, intermittent fasting, and let's say veganism. Okay, so we've got keto, IF, intermittent fasting, veganism, and IIFYM. So let's start with keto. The ketogenic diet is a moderate protein, low carb, high fat diet. And essentially what happens when you're on the ketogenic diet is your metabolic flexibility more aligns with fat metabolism and the creation of ketone bodies and different fatty acid

byproducts that will fuel the brain in place of the primary default energy source, which is glucose. This works really well for some people. Some people love the way they feel. They rave about the cognitive benefits. They rave about the ability to choose higher fat foods that are rich and oftentimes quite flavorful. And I think that's fantastic. And I think one of the things that we can learn from a ketogenic diet, when you look at what it's comprised of, is mostly healthful cruciferous green vegetables, a lot of animal products. And while we don't have a ton of long-term data, what we know is that these people really, really tout the cognitive benefits, they tout the satiety benefits, and they tout the variety of different foods they're able to have that don't contain

starchy carbohydrate. And if we keep an open mind and we examine the potential benefits of a ketogenic diet for certain populations, right, it might increase caloric control by eliminating hyperpalatable, high-calorie carbohydrate foods, and that might be a really good place for somebody. The cognitive benefits might be really beneficial for somebody. You know, the ease of simply saying these are what I have to choose from might be beneficial for somebody. You know, the ease of simply saying these are what I have to choose from might be beneficial to somebody. And on the flip side, all of those same things can be looked at as restriction that are potentially deleterious or negative. But in maintaining an open mind, we can see that there is some merit there and that there's some positivity in there. And so

that's just a way of looking at something like keto. Intermittent fasting, for example, while restricting an eating window might not be ideal for everybody, it's a dietary approach that we could deploy at different times. We might try an intermittent fast when we travel and it's hard to get healthful foods at airports or fast food locations. And instead we shorten our eating window. We can look at the fact that it's been linked to autophagy and potentially cell regenerative benefits have extended out. We can look at the fact that it's been linked to autophagy and potentially cell regenerative benefits have extended out. We can look at the fact that a lot of people can lose weight by shortening that eating window. We can look at the emerging field of chrononutrition. We can learn from it. If we get dogmatic and tribalistic about it, you become one of these

people that it's like, oh, it manages your insulin. You can burn so much more fat. You can eat whatever you want, all of which are not necessarily true. But there are positives to be learned from that. When we look at veganism, which I think is the most charged, the most political, the most aggressive of all of these nutritional dogmatic diets, camps, tribes, whatever you want to call them, we can't ignore the fact that our livestock practices, at least at this point, could be better. We could treat animals better. We could be more responsible with our production of animal protein.

And we could be more responsible with our production of the majority of livestock, including how we farm most of our fruits and vegetables. We could be better societally. We could be better societally. We could be better sociologically. We could eat more locally grown things that would limit carbon emissions that could potentially be regenerative. There's a lot of things within veganism

that we can look at. However, if you look at the actual name of the diet, it's veganism. There are no other diets that end in ism. The things that end in ism are usually religions, Mormonism, Buddhism, right? So these are things that we have to be aware of. Veganism has quickly devolved from a way of eating into a very aggressive, punitive approach in which people hyper-target non-vegans and make them feel bad. And while I think people do need to be more aware of the impact our nutritional choices have on the planet, have on animals, have on our bodies, attacking people and using verbiage like you're an animal abuser, you're raping and pillaging the planet is certainly a horrible way to get people to listen.

And it's the exclusive reason why we have the carnivore diet. There is no way you will change my mind on this. I'm all for open-mindedness, but I am very firmly in the camp that carnivorism was born exclusively out of a detestment and a hatred for the way in which vegans promote their diet and the way in which they make people feel. And it's gotten to a point with this tribalism now that people are so frustrated, it's so charged that they're forming anti-camps. I consider carnivore to be less about carnivore and more about anti-veganism. Look at the people who choose to be vegan. Look at the way they tend, not always, but tend to look, tend to speak, tend to carry themselves. Now, look at the people who tend to

be carnivores. Not in all cases. Look at the way they look, look at the way they talk, look at the way they carry themselves. They're effectively opposites, nutritionally, politically, aesthetically. Like, it's no accident that these camps despise each other. And this is all coming from nutrition. It's ridiculous. Nutrition is supposed to be about health. It's supposed to be about wellness. It's supposed to be about nourishing the body and selecting foods from a variety of sources that work for you. It's not supposed to be about fighting and combating. And lastly, if we look at IIFYM, if it fits your macros or, you know, which has kind of devolved into its own thing, but just the general way of counting

calories and managing your intake, we really can get down to the nuts and bolts of energy balance. We can understand macros like proteins, carbs, and fats. We can understand about how much we need of those things to look and perform the way we want, there is a lot of positivity there. But on the negative side, a lot of people who follow that IIFYM approach have devolved to the point of only caring about the macro and the calorie total, not where the food is sourced, not always the micronutrient value. And so there's a lot to learn. And that's one, kind of how we can keep an open mind, and two, how we can learn a little bit from each camp. But here's what we need to do. We need to remember that nutrition is very nuanced. It's impacted by our behavior, our situation, and our experience. And that a lot

of these diets are very restrictive. They limit what you can eat and they're difficult to adhere to. And for most people, most people in America are overweight and almost half of the people in America are obese. They need nutrition to be a space that's a little less dogmatic, a little more accessible, and that makes a lot more sense a lot faster. They need things that are actionable. And I think if we look at what I just said, if we look at those diets, we could probably find a lot of commonality there that would be a lot easier, sustainable, and adherable for the average person. For example, keto, intermittent fasting, veganism, and if it fits your macros,

are all diets that can and probably should contain a large degree of fruit and vegetable slash plant matter. We can all get behind the fact that we should probably be eating a considerable amount of plant matter. Why? Multiple reasons. Plants are rich in micronutrients, antioxidants, polyphenols, things that impact our body, our health, our cellular processes, our aging processes, our mitochondrial processes positively and help us live fruits and even legumes and whole grains helps nourish and give our gut microbiome food that it needs to perform the various things that it has to do to keep the body healthy. Fiber has been shown to positively impact cholesterol, to positively impact blood lipids, to positively impact blood sugar, to do a variety of things that are all aligned with overall better metabolic health. Fiber keeps us full, but vegetables in general, even if they

don't have a lot of fiber, tend to be low enough in calories that we can eat enough of them to feel full from food volume alone. So that is really important, and that's something that can fit inside of all of those nutritional approaches. And it can just fit inside a general paradigm of nutrition, which is, hey, I want to focus on getting a considerable amount of plant matter. Hey, guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me if you would share it on your social media. Simply screenshot whatever platform you're listening to and share the

episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. Let's talk about animal protein, right? Particularly the ketogenic diet, the intermittent fasting approach, and if it fits your macros. All of those tend to revolve pretty heavily around consuming a substantial amount of animal protein. Animal protein from things like dairy, wild game, beef, poultry, and fish, all of these things are protein-rich, loaded with micronutrients. They contain a variety of unique things,

like amino acids that are harder to get in plant sources. While we don't have to eat these all the time, we don't have to eat them in massive amounts, even if our goal is building a lot of muscle, we don't have to eat them in massive amounts. And we can get them from, if it's fish, perhaps wild caught, if it's poultry, perhaps pastured, if it's red meat or beef, perhaps pastured or grass fed or local, we can source these in a way that might be more healthful for the planet, that might be more accessible. And if you are on the budget or you are on a budget rather, or you are in a way that might be more healthful for the planet, that might be more accessible. And if you are on the budget, or you are on a budget rather, or you are in a situation where

there's perhaps food scarcity or limited access, you can get protein at a relatively affordable rate. It might not necessarily be the best for the planet. It might not necessarily be the best in terms of the animal's well-being, but in terms of your well-being, getting animal protein in a relatively moderate amount, I think is part of a overall healthful diet. And we can't all make the same impact due to different cultural factors, social factors, socioeconomic factors, and all of that is okay. But if you do have the power to get those meats from, you know, local farms, wild caught, pastured, you know, that does make a marginal difference. And if we all commit to making some form of marginal difference, that's where, you know, the vegans can have their cake

and eat it too, without getting super angry about people eating meat. And we can say, hey, this makes sense. It's actually better for the planet. And it's probably better for our health that we eat these things and not abandon them altogether. And it can be a little bit of a win-win because there are points on each side of the coin that we can learn from that have a lot of value. And back to that Rogan point of considering what works for you. Everybody's going to have something that works different for them. What that is, what that thing that is working is going to be contingent on a variety of factors like income level, food accessibility. Do you live in a food desert or not? What was your exposure to fundamental nutrition education? Have you ever been exposed to it? And assuming that somebody

who's, let's say they live in the inner city, they're low income, they don't have any formalized nutrition education, and you're just going to berate them about eating fast food because it's bad for the planet and you're raping animals and all this crap, which you hear all the time. That's not a platform for elevating nutritional dialogue. It's not going to help people make a difference at all. And so I think when we talk about effective ways we can improve our nutrition, improve our health, we can break it down into five things that I really, really like to do. Number one is limit processed food intake.

Processed food is not inherently fattening, doesn't cause fat gain any more than any other food due to that being essentially exclusively driven by calories. gain any more than any other food due to that being essentially exclusively driven by calories. But if we were going to point at a food that had the greatest impact of causing fat gain, I would say it's absolutely processed foods because they're generally designed to be overconsumed through means of food science and food production. They're almost all hyperpalatable. They are almost all very high calories. They're prepackaged. They're easy to consume. all hyperpalatable. They are almost all very high calories. They're prepackaged. They're easy to consume. All things that are aligned with, unfortunately, overconsumption. So eliminating or partially eliminating processed foods from the diet is a very, very good way that we can all start moving in the right direction of nutrition without joining a tribe or getting dogmatic.

Another thing we can do is pre-prep the majority of the food that we eat. A lot of people look at that as time consuming, but consider when you go out to eat at a restaurant or even when you sit in line at fast food, you have to wait in line, wait or wait to be served. You have to wait for the food to be prepared. You have to wait for the food to be delivered or dropped in your car. You have to eat it. You have to dispose of it or you have to pay, leave a tip and then finally leave. That takes time, probably much less time than preparing a few protein sources and vegetable

sources in advance. And so one of the things that I recommend people do is pre-prepare fruits, pre-prepare vegetables, pre-prepare proteins, pre-prepare, that's a lot of pre's and a lot of prepares, nutritious options that will be available to you to help increase the amount of protein you're getting, increase the amount of fiber, increase your micronutrient exposure, all positive things in the name of overall health. And again, simply doing that and eliminating processed foods is going to give you an exponentially better nutritional foundation and doesn't require joining a tribe or a camp. And it's very accessible for people of almost all income levels. So that's where we start looking at nutrition socioeconomically and saying, what's practical for people? What's likely to work for people? And I think that those two tips as a foundation are accessible economically, they're accessible behaviorally, right? And they're really going to help people generate some momentum. Another tool and tip I like, and this is number three, is what I call

eat the rainbow. And this is something that I got from essentially the Japanese model of what would be their food pyramid. So here we have a food pyramid. In Japan, they have more of a food wheel that's comprised of a variety of different fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, all of which have different colors. And in general, different colors denote different nutritional qualities, different polyphenols, different micronutrient densities, where plants and animals, or more generally speaking, plants, get their color from is from various polyphenols that have different nutritional properties. So simply aiming to eat a variety

of different colored plant matter and a variety of different animal proteins and a variety of different whole grains might be a very good way to ensure you're covering all your nutritional bases, you're getting a variety of different minerals, you're getting access to a variety of different vitamins, you're getting access to a variety of different polyphenols, proteins, amino acids. All of that stuff can simply be boiled down into eating the rainbow,

or what I like to call high food variety. So just your first, your big three, toss the processed foods, prepare some stuff in advance, and what you're preparing, if you can get it from a variety of different sources and colors, you'll probably be better off. Another tip is to make snacking effortful, not effortless. And what I mean by this is snacking is probably the number one way that calories tend to sneak into people's diets. And too many calories can lead to excessive adiposity, body fatness. And those are things that we generally want to avoid because, hey, nobody wants to be overweight. Nobody wants to be carrying around the excess inflammation associated with being in a chronic calorie surplus. And so eliminating snacking and making it more difficult can be really, really ideal. And this can totally

exist on a continuum from from I buy snack foods, but when I go to the pantry for Doritos, I put the Doritos in a bowl and I leave the bag in the pantry instead of taking the whole bag back with me to the couch. That's one end of the continuum all the way to I just don't buy snack foods. And I think what I like to do is understand, hey, my behavior, my schedule, what I do, I do like to snack. I'm going to be honest with myself about what works for me. I do like to snack. However, I'm going to buy prepackaged perhaps snacks that limit the amount of calories. So I'm going to buy small bags of those snacks and I'm only going to have one. Or instead of buying like mixed nuts, I'm going to

buy nuts that are already in the shell. Nuts that I have to actually like crack open to get to. I'm going to buy fruit that's got a peel or something that I have to work for. fantastic. If you're not familiar with his work, he has a book called The Hungry Brain, which does an amazing job of outlining all of the various ways in which our neurology, our brain chemistry, our behavior, and our evolution impacts our physiology, impacts our food choices. And so making snacking effortful is a really, really good way to do this. And then the last tip I have, and this is one that I got from Stan Efferding and Mark Bell, is just take a 10-minute walk after each meal. A 10-minute walk is a fantastic way to aid in mechanical digestion by helping things move through the stomach and small intestine more efficiently.

It can help with disposal of glucose. It can help with insulin management, blood sugar regulation. If you do this three times a day and you get three 10-minute walks, it's going to massively increase your NEAT. It's going to increase your exposure to things like vitamin D and sunlight, which are healthful for the organism overall. And I think it's a really easy tool to implement. So the things that I like people to implement as a strategy for just healthful eating, eliminate processed food or limit it, try to pre-prepare a variety of different colored fruits and vegetables and a variety of different protein sources, make snacking effortful and not

effortless, and finish each meal with a 10-minute walk. And when it comes to nutrition as a whole, try to avoid tribalism. Try to avoid being dogmatic. Keep an open mind. Consider, hey, what are these vegans right about more so than what are they wrong about? What can I borrow from them that they're doing right? Maybe they're treating the planet better. Maybe they're treating the planet better. Maybe they're treating animals better. And maybe they're eating a lot of vegetables. All healthy. While these intermittent fasters, they've really limited their eating window.

And they seem to have great energy. And they're staying lean because their calorie intake totals are lower. Whereas these IIFYMers, they've got an amazing job of being able to eyeball things and make sure they're getting the right amount of those fundamental macros because they track their nutrition well enough to understand what's in stuff. Oh, and those keto people, man, you know, they've got a really good way of balancing healthful vegetable and animal proteins while limiting their carbohydrate intake. And they make some great, you know, healthful food options that I can throw into my recipe book. You can borrow some stuff from these people instead of falling into the trap

that a lot of people do, myself included, of feeling like you have to pick a side, feeling like you have to effectively shit on the other team and make them look stupid because the way they've chosen to eat. And I think when we really break it down, we can say there's plenty to borrow from all of these people. And while the tribalistic nature that has really infiltrated and kind of unfortunately overcome

the nutrition space is a net negative, all of these different diets may have something to teach us and they may potentially give us the tools we need to make nutrition more accessible to people in the future. But the only way we can do that is by keeping an open mind, learning from each camp, remembering that nutrition is nuanced and all diets are effectively, from a fat loss standpoint, work via caloric deficit, but are not for everybody. Not all diets are for everybody. And that when we're selecting a nutritional approach,

we need to put health first, but we need to consider the socioeconomic, educational, and practical barriers that hold people back from reaching their potential. So guys, let's commit to hopefully ending nutritional tribalism by elevating the conversation we're having. And instead of debating whether or not we should or shouldn't be eating certain things or which diet's better for certain things or which diet's better for fat loss or which diet's better for this.

Let's start talking about the properties of foods, the healthful properties of various foods, why we should include them in our diet, why we should be conscientious of where they come from, why we should be conscientious of how much we're eating, how we can make nutrition more accessible to kids, young adults, people in various socioeconomic situations so that we can be a healthier population as a whole. The only tribe that we should really be concerned with is the entirety of the people on this planet, the health of everybody on this earth, the tribe of actual humanity, not the tribe of this arbitrary, you know, nutritional dogmatic camps that are going to go to war for years if we don't do the right thing and we don't elevate the conversation. So thank you all so much

for listening. I hope you enjoyed the episode. I think there's a lot here for people to consider with regards to coaching nutrition, considering nutrition and integrating nutritional concepts into their life. Do me a favor, please. If you enjoy this episode, share it. I think this will make a tremendously positive impact if it finds the right set of ears and the right people who need it at the right time. So do share it to your Instagram story. Please tag me so I can thank you. That makes a really big difference. And I would love to get more feedback on the podcast. So if you haven't already, do leave me a written review on iTunes. If you have guest suggestions, if you have episode suggestions, go to my Instagram, click the link in my bio. There's a link there where you can suggest topics

for future episodes. And we'll move forward from here, hopefully being a little bit less dogmatic, a little bit less tribal. Have an amazing rest of your week. Again, be safe out there. Do what you can to lead. Be a leader. Try to understand that it's a very volatile place in the world right now. And the last thing we need is to make nutrition a part of that. Have a good one. you