The Peter Attia Drive - Qualy #69 - Advice to parents and kids for creating a sustainable environment that's going to prevent them from running into metabolic problems

00:00:00.000 welcome to the qualies a subscriber exclusive podcast qualies is just a shorthand slang for

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00:00:59.240 subscribe so without further delay i hope you enjoy today's quali i want to get into some more geeky

00:01:06.740 biochemistry stuff but i also know that there's probably at least one person listening to this

00:01:10.500 who's a parent who's thinking oh man do i have to simmer down how much sugar my kids are eating so

00:01:16.300 when you saw kids in the clinic obviously you're seeing their parents that's one of the advantages

00:01:20.860 of pediatrics it's also one of the disadvantages that's right that's right you have two patients

00:01:24.860 two patients and i don't get paid for both but the beauty of it is you have you have a patient who you

00:01:30.660 need to take care of which is this child but then you also have another caregiver who for the most part

00:01:34.980 wants what's best for that child mostly and how would you counsel a parent who would say look

00:01:40.460 dr lustig there's no way my kid's going to have no sugar in their life can you give me a way

00:01:46.740 to create a sustainable environment instead of rules that's going to prevent my kid from having

00:01:51.900 the metabolic derangement that hoses them for the rest of their life but allows them to still be a 0.64

00:01:56.200 kid yes so that's what we did in clinic every single day here's the problem it's not the added

00:02:03.240 sugar you know it's the added sugar you don't know it's almost there's like a rumsfeld tone to that

00:02:09.320 right well yeah i mean there's the known knowns and then there's the unknown knowns and the fact is

00:02:14.260 when you look at the amount of sugar that is in sodas it's bad when you look at the amount of

00:02:23.360 sugar that's in candy cake ice cream it's about half as much that adds up to 50 percent of the

00:02:33.100 added sugar consumed by children and what is that number by the way in grams per day approximately

00:02:38.240 it runs the gamut but the median is 18 teaspoons so that's about 90 grams of sugar per day yeah it

00:02:45.380 used to be 120 it's actually come down because the obesity epidemic 90 to 94 grams of added sugar per

00:02:51.800 day half of the sugar is in foods you didn't know had it bread pasta sauce pretzels why pretzels have

00:03:00.640 sugar okay bread right why do they put sugar in bread any idea i guess if you buy it probably helps

00:03:08.160 with preserving it doesn't exactly so if you buy a loaf of bread at the bakery how soon before it

00:03:14.280 stales two days typically two days if you buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store how long before it

00:03:20.220 stales 10 days three weeks even okay why they're both bread right well what they did in the grocery

00:03:28.360 store bread was they added sugar very specifically because the sugar doesn't boil off when you put

00:03:34.940 it in the oven water does so it acts as a humectant it that's why it's so much moisture when you have

00:03:43.460 store-bought bread exactly that's why if you threw a loaf of bread at my head it would just bounce off

00:03:51.420 is because it's kind of spongy right but there are also breads like german fitness bread

00:03:57.440 which don't have that they're real bread they use whole grains they're lumpy bumpy and they're small

00:04:04.600 the loaves they're the size of their weapons and their weapons right you could like kill somebody

00:04:09.660 if you threw a german fitness bread at their head okay it is dense they're both bread but the store-bought

00:04:18.180 bread had sugar added very specifically to hold on to water because sugar's polar and so the water

00:04:25.100 stays in and therefore the bread doesn't stale as quickly therefore you can put a sell on you know

00:04:32.180 by date way later decreased depreciation increased profit so if a kid came in and a kid's got an

00:04:38.320 afel d and you've surmised that this child's eaten about 100 grams of sugar a day do you say to the

00:04:44.340 parent our target is what 20 grams per day what we say is we don't worry about target numbers what we say

00:04:51.140 is processed food is the problem because processed food is high sugar low fiber what you want is a

00:04:59.880 low sugar high fiber diet that's called real food every diet out there that works and there are a whole

00:05:07.960 bunch of diets that work okay certain vegan diets work remember coke is vegan so it's not like every

00:05:14.700 vegan diet's okay the college vegan diet doesn't necessarily yes the college vegan diet does not work

00:05:19.320 exactly right the traditional japanese diet the atkins diet ketogenic diet paleo diet mediterranean

00:05:27.660 diet all of these diets based diets sure they all work because they're all real food every diet that

00:05:35.800 works is real food and every diet that doesn't is because it's processed food the problem is parents

00:05:42.060 don't know the difference they don't understand that grocery store bread is processed food they think

00:05:48.060 they think you know if it's sold in the supermarket it's food no there's real food and you know what

00:05:55.440 that is but the parents don't and what we teach them in clinic is if there's a label on the food

00:06:03.100 that's a warning label because that means it's been processed because real food doesn't need a label

00:06:09.720 is there a you know nutrition facts label on broccoli is there a nutrition facts label on carrots no is

00:06:18.000 there a nutrition facts label on the meat in the meat case no the reason is because it's all real food

00:06:25.060 now when we get to meat you know there's ways of making meat a problem too it's called corn fed but

00:06:32.200 the bottom line is at least they're real food because that means you'll you don't necessarily fixate on

00:06:38.320 targets you say look right we're going to talk about we're going to make a conceptual change we

00:06:42.800 don't ask them to do math we ask them to purchase and consume real food now we have to teach them what

00:06:51.900 that is so what we do we bring all of the new patients in on the same day we see all the new

00:06:58.460 patients on one day it's like chaos and they all meet with a dietician they come in fasting and we draw

00:07:06.740 their blood and you know we we evaluate them and then they all sit down at a communal table and we do

00:07:13.100 an hour-long teaching breakfast and the dietician narrates why those foods are available for breakfast

00:07:22.200 so whole grain bread natural peanut butter you know not skippy jiff peter pan but you know the real stuff

00:07:30.140 plain yogurt etc and we explain why these foods were chosen and how they meet the criteria of real

00:07:39.220 food as opposed to what they're currently buying most parents get it now there are some who don't

00:07:44.840 there are some who say i'm sorry that takes too long i can't spend the time preparing real food

00:07:51.000 and then is there an economic consideration also what is the do you have a sense of what it costs

00:07:57.140 all things equal yeah double go for so a parent's going to basically have to double their food budget

00:08:01.840 if they want to start eating real food that's right they're going to have to double their food

00:08:04.980 budget and they're also going to have to double their food time in terms of preparation i hope you

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The Peter Attia Drive - December 03, 2019

Qualy #69 - Advice to parents and kids for creating a sustainable environment that's going to prevent them from running into metabolic problems

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