If there is anything the pandemic has taught us, it’s the importance of health. But all too often people rely on the government to tell them what health standards to follow. But history has shown us that the government isn’t always the best entity to tell us what’s healthy and what is not.

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• Food Is Freedom: How Washington’s Food Subsidies Have Helped Make Americans Fat and Sick

Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Emma: Hi Brittany.

Brittany: Hi, Emma.

Emma: Today we’re gonna talk about something a little bit different. I don’t believe we’ve talked on touched on this, sorry, in an episode yet, but I want to talk about health, which is something that has been in the news constantly for the last year and a half. And, you know, you’re getting a lot of different answers about why we should care about health or what health even is, what it looks like, and especially about your own health decisions and sort of those conversations that you’ve gotta be having. lots of talk about the vaccines and about COVID and all of that stuff. So I wanna talk just more broadly about health and sort of what it is, and why it’s important to me personally. When I think about health, I think about number one, you know, the things that you eat, the things that you put into your body and what those do to your body, but also, you know, your body’s strength and what it’s capable of doing and, performance-wise. So I think I, those are sort of the two factors that I look at. But also there’s mental health and there’s emotional health and there’s all different types of health. But I wanna focus really today on the nutrition and exercise aspect. this is super important to me because I see this as, you know, a responsibility that people have to take, is to take care of themselves. And we’ve seen a lot of that in the last year. People with underlying health conditions and problems like diabetes and heart disease that were hit really, really hard with COVID. And that’s really sad to me that folks that have those things before, dealt with COVID more and they had a higher death rate, with COVID coming through the country and through the world. So I think that makes it super, super relevant. And I, you know, I, believe a lot in personal responsibility and in taking care of the things that you can take care of. And I think your personal health is one of the biggest things that we all have control over. And certain people are born with, you know, certain health conditions that they can’t change. But if you talk to those people a lot of the times, they will tell you, yeah, I have to be careful about what I eat or I have to be careful about exercise. And really this is, you know, it’s a very personal topic. It’s different for just about everybody, but I think it’s important to talk about, and especially as you’re figuring out the world listeners, you’re figuring out, you know, how you’re gonna live your life, thinking about your personal health is a huge part of, of what you should be considering there. So, Brittany, I don’t know if you have any particular like health things that you really care about or like a personal regimen that you sort of follow.

Brittany: Yeah. so one thing that you kind of touched on that was really important to me is, so when COVID happened was talking about how to fix COVID. And nobody was talking about how to live healthier so that you don’t get COVID. Right. And that was really shocking to me cuz I am, I mean, I’m a pretty healthy person. I’ve been on a sugar kick lately, but we’ll pretend not, that’s not true. but I eat, like I’m somebody who subscribes to the keto diet, so I eat a lot of like meat and vegetables. Yeah. And I go running a lot. So health is very important to me. And part of that is cuz I have family members with cancer and even though there’s really no way of knowing whether or not you’re gonna get cancer I feel like it is my responsibility to do everything I can to stay healthy. Yeah. And when COVID happened, I felt the same way. You know, I felt like, okay, everybody is freaking out about COVID, but why aren’t we talking about taking more vitamin D? Why aren’t we ta talking about, you know, everybody was crammed indoors. That’s when I started running outside because I was like, I need sunshine. I need to, you know Yeah. Practice this fresh air. So I think it’s really crazy to me, and I think sometimes our government, not sometimes I think most of the time our government is not the health expert, right? No. They tell us all these things. They give us all these guidelines, but a lot of the problems in our healthcare system, are because we focus more on curing whatever illness you get instead of prevention. Yes. And I think we need to be focusing a lot on prevention. You know, how do we live our life so that we don’t get these, you know, terrible sicknesses so that we don’t have people calling for universal healthcare that we can’t afford? We don’t have, you know, Obamacare and everyone’s saying, oh, we have sick people. We need this. Because if we were focused more on preventative healthcare about being healthy, then we wouldn’t, you know, be in this problem. So that’s my 2 sense.

Emma: Absolutely. Yeah. I, you know, it was funny, there were a lot of really nutty, Democratic candidates in the Democrat primary a couple of years ago, but one of them said something that I actually really agreed with, and she, it was, it was Maryanne Williamson. She was one of them.

Brittany: I loved her.

Emma: One of the really nutty ones, but she had a couple of things that I actually really agreed with her on. Same. And one of them was that she said, we don’t have a healthcare system, we have a sick care system. Yep. And I just could not forget that because like you said, Brittany, there are so many people who only think about their health and only think about how, you know, the condition that their body is in when they’re sick or when it’s too late. And I think that’s a real tragedy, and you kind of touched on this a bit, but the food pyramid and the, basically the general guidance that the government is still giving people and that they were telling us when I was in school in our health classes, is very, very heavily influenced by lobbying. And, we, I think our last episode, we just talked a little bit about subsidies and lobbying and sort of how that works, but basically related to food, the dairy, and the corn industries. Yes. And all of these huge, huge industries that are specific to certain ingredients in our food came into the government when they were basically reworking the food pyramid in the nineties, the 1990s when we were both kids talking about, Hey, this is what people need to be eating. And basically, they came in and they said, well, you need to eat. You know, I think that it was like 40 to 60% of your diet needs to be based on carbohydrates,

Brittany: Carbs, yeah.

Emma: Which is something that, you know, you, talked about the keto diet. I’ve done the keto diet myself. I’ve also done paleo. That’s kind of more what I stick to where it’s basically meats, fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats. And the government basically told everyone, most of your diet should be carbs. So it should be bread, it should be corn, it should be starchy vegetables like potatoes and only a little of it. Yeah. Pasta and very, very little of it. The very top, the skinniest part of the pyramid needs to be fat and you need to be drinking a lot of milk. There were these got milk campaigns that,

Brittany: Oh my gosh, they got milk.

Emma: The government literally paid for it. Yeah. So I don’t know if they still even have these anymore, but basically.

Brittany: I haven’t seen a got milk commercial probably since the late nineties. I just realized that now.

Emma: Yeah. They still had them I think in the 2000 at least for a while while I was in school. So I don’t know, I’d be curious readers if you wanna write us in and tell us if you’re still seeing these ads in schools and stuff. But they would have these celebrities drinking milk to promote it. And that was in part because of the dairy lobby that came in. The dairy industry hired a bunch of lobbyists to come in and say, Hey, everyone needs to be drinking more milk. And the only reason that they were doing that was to sell more milk. And they even paid scientists. They, this has all been documented. They paid scientists to come up with studies saying that milk is really good for you and milk in certain amounts, and if it’s good quality milk is, can be good for you for some people if you’re not sensitive to it. But they way, way overplayed that just to sell more of it. And it totally worked. A lot of people thought that they needed to drink milk to be healthy. So there are all these different things where basically these special interests and, corrupt government officials have been influenced by, by not science and not actually what our body needs and has been proven to need over history, but just what these companies wanted to sell. And we are a very pro-free market. We are a pro entrepreneur, but what we do not like is when businesses and government work together to trick people and to lie to them. And that’s basically what has happened with nutrition over the years. So, I kind of talked a bit about this, but definitely, you don’t need as many carbs as the government tries to tell you to need.

Brittany: No, I do not.

Emma: You need, good healthy carbs that come from things that grow above the ground. So you’re talking about vegetables, that’s a great source of carbs that are really good for your body. good quality meat, especially organic grass-fed meat. it’s a little more expensive because it’s different to raise than, you know, most of your conventional meat, but it’s much higher in nutrients that your body needs. And good quality fat is something that has been so demonized by the government because, you know, it wasn’t as profitable for a lot of people, but quality olive oil and grass-fed butter and those types of things, it’s some of the best stuff you can give your body. You know, obviously, it needs to be in moderation, but your body needs those things as fuel to run on. So, I get super fired up. I could talk about this all day, but nutrition especially is just something that has been really influenced by corruption. And I think it’s important that we talk about these things and it’s gonna be different from person to person. Like, Brittany may have different needs than I do. Yes. You know, we’re two different people with different DNA, so you know, what I’m talking about here may not be exactly what you need as an individual, but it’s important to look at these things objectively and not just, you know, listen to what the government is telling you.

Brittany: I think you’re absolutely right and I, think it’s funny because again, everybody is different, right? It’s like one diet that works for somebody else might not work for me. I know I do keto, it works for me. Some people do keto, it doesn’t work for them. People who are lifting a lot of weights, they can sometimes eat more carbs. But what makes me really sad about this is there are a lot of people that don’t do their own research. And we talk a lot about personal responsibility here and a lot of people assume the government knows best for them, so they don’t go out and they don’t do their own research. And the problem with that is if you’re somebody who doesn’t do that, you’re gonna take a look at the food pyramid and you’re just gonna be like, all right. That sounds right. I mean, nowadays it’s like the food pyramid is so laughable. Yeah. That I think most people, and maybe it’s because we have the, you know, internet now, we have all these different things where we can find out what works for us. But most people would look at that food pyramid and just start laughing because nobody needs that many carbs. Carbs is just sugar. And I know I’m like, I’m yeah. Speaking my own propaganda here because I am keto. But, It’s just funny to me and even when I started kindergarten, they didn’t have the food parameter. They called it the five food groups. Yes. So, it was different. Right. Like they’re always changing things, but like the last person I’m gonna listen to for my office, the government Yeah. But a lot of people don’t know that. Right. A lot of people just don’t realize that. And again, with the COVID thing, I was shocked at how much they were scaring people instead of telling people to go exercise. Yes. Telling people to take more vitamins. I think that was what was most, well there were a lot of things that were shocking to me during the COVID pandemic, but it really scared me that it never like, that we weren’t talking about how to stay healthy. Yeah. Instead, we were telling people to stay indoors and wear their masks. Yeah. And you know, and not do these things. And another thing is a funny note.

Emma: Which is, Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. No, you’re fine. I was saying staying inside is so bad for you.

Brittany: It’s so bad.

Emma: You’re not getting your vitamin D you’re not getting fresh air. It’s being outside and like interacting with the world around you basically works like a vaccine. Yep. It exposes you to different, small amounts of bacteria that your body can fight off. And that’s your immune system. So, you can keep talking.

Brittany: No, I was just my little interjection, But I was gonna tie it back to mental health too. Yes. You know, what you eat and how you treat your body is not just going to help your physical body, it’s going to help your frame of mind. If you’re sitting in your house all day on the couch watching Netflix and eating sugar, which a lot of people did during COVID, you are not going to be as healthy. it was funny for me, COVID is when I was the healthiest because I was working from home because all the offices shut down. So I was actually like eating healthy meals every day and cooking and now I meal prep so that I can keep that going. But I was running, you know, five miles a day. Yeah. So I used that as a time to get really healthy because it was a scary time and people were scared. Totally. But as we were been saying, the government wasn’t really telling us the right things. No. Like sure. Maybe wearing a mask helped. I’m not here to argue about masks. I don’t wanna get into that argument. but if we’re staying inside all day and we’re not working out and we’re not doing, we’re not eating healthy, then like of course you’re gonna be at high risk. The people who were getting COVID the most had pre-existing health conditions. Yeah. They were already sick. So that just blows my mind.

Emma: Yeah. And seriously, I agree. Keeping people inside and locked up and not getting fresh air, even vitamin D which you get from the sun is like one of the best things that you can give your immune system. And rather than talking about, you know, like you said Brittany, the vitamins that you should be taking to actually help your immune system, those are proven things that we know help your body fight off infections and fight off viruses. They weren’t talking about that at all. Instead, they were saying, you need to isolate yourself and don’t come within six feet of anyone else, and don’t gather for Thanksgiving. And I even tried to go on some hikes where the hikes were shut down and it was like you couldn’t go outside and you couldn’t hike around. And it’s absurd because those things are so good for your body. They keep you in good shape, they keep you healthy, and again, they expose you to small amounts of other bacteria that your body can learn what it is and learn how to fight it off. And then if you encounter it again, you basically have immunity to it. Yeah. So there are, there are so many studies that actually connect, screen time spent inside. So if you’re playing video games or if you’re on a computer, there is a direct correlation between screen time and your, likelihood of having asthma. Really. So, yes. And this was in a book by a guy who you probably know Greg Lukianoff.

Brittany: Love him. So wait, yeah. Was this coddling cuz he talked about was, yes. Connor and I talked about this briefly. He talked about that peanut allergy.

Emma: Yes, exactly.

Brittany: You’re more likely to be allergic to peanuts if you don’t have peanuts.

Emma: Exactly. So, we don’t have too much time left, but before we wrap, I wanna just talk about this. The more time you spend on a screen inside, the less time your body is practicing, basically fighting off infections and it’s, doesn’t get as much practice on, you know, encountering other bacteria and learning how to fight it off. So the more time you spend inside in your same little environment with your family, you know, you’re not being exposed to other germs. You don’t actually know how to fight them off as well. So that’s a huge health element as well. and just getting some exercise, even if it’s just a little walk a day for 20 or 10 minutes even does wonders for your body. So, Brittany, I don’t know if you have anything else to add here. I know we could talk all day.

Brittany: I Could go on rants all day, so I won’t add anything else to spare our listeners,

Emma: Awesome. Well, we will drop you guys some more info in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening, Brittany. I will talk to you later.

Brittany: Talk to you later.