#1339 I Don't Understand... Jenny Four
Scott Benner
Jenny doesn’t understand why everything you can eat is called food.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The juicebox podcast.
Jenny's back, and today we're going to talk about what we call food in another episode of I don't understand. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. If you are the caregiver of someone with type one diabetes or have type one yourself, please go to T 1d exchange.org/juice, box and complete the survey. This should take you about 10 minutes and will really help type one diabetes research. You can help right from your house at T 1d exchange.org/juice, box. When you place your first order for ag one with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink, ag one.com/juice box. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the juicebox podcast. Private Facebook group. Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes. But everybody is welcome. Type one, type two, gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out juicebox podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. This episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, and later in this episode, we're going to be speaking with Heather, who will talk about the importance of education and understanding the impacts of hyperglycemia, Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper, this episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by cozy Earth. Cozy earth.com use the offer code juicebox at checkout to save 40% off of the clothing, towels, sheets off of everything they have at cozy earth.com. Jenny, welcome back. We're going to do another I don't understand today. Yay. Today, we're going to pick from your list again, and we think we're going to blend together two of your ideas off the list. But basically we're going to talk about food cool. So we'll start with your I don't understand you said. I don't understand why we call everything that we put in our mouth and eat food, which I took to mean you guys are eating some stuff you shouldn't be eating. And let's find out what that is so. But what was your big idea like? And also, let's be clear, you were traveling. You had a lot of free time. You were thinking about this, you got yourself upset,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:44
like, well and in travel, what? What do you see, especially when you're traveling in an airport or on an airplane, what do you see?
Scott Benner 2:55
It's all prepackaged, like frozen stuff that they heat back up again, stuff I can take in a bag with me, and also it's four times the cost it would be if I bought it somewhere else. That's what I know,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:06
absolutely 100% but it's the I guess. What brought it to mind was the convenience factor. I understand we're busy. People are busy in today, but, you know, I grew up thinking about food is something that I put in because my body needs nourishment, right? It's a basic necessity of life, just like water is, yeah. And so as we've moved on in ages, more and more products have come to market, but that quote, unquote, food that we put in isn't always nourishing our body the way that we're supposed to be nourished. We may be getting calorie value from it, which our body works, but is it really providing all the nutrients that our body requires?
Scott Benner 3:57
I don't know some, right, but not all, because they do pump that stuff full of like, I mean, they say they full of vitamins, but I don't you know what I mean. Like, you don't know. You're wondering over and you're like, there's vitamin B in this. Like, you don't even mean, like, that kind of an idea, yeah, right. It's funny too, because I'm making a supplement. I'm making a short series. I don't know if I told you this or not, but I went out to the Facebook group and I said, I don't care how crunchy it is or weird or anything, tell me every supplement you take. And I ended up, wow, ended up with a list of like, 88 things that people use, right? So I'm like, Well, what am I going to do with this list? So what I basically did was I, you know, I go to the internet and I say, like, you know, I don't know, vitamin D, and I get a breakdown of it. This is what it does. This is what you know. This is what this is what you can hope to get from it. Here are things you might want to be cautious about. Here's how it's generally dosed. And in like a five minute episode, I talk about vitamin D. And then I went to the next one and the next one, the next one. And what I thought was people can listen and decide for themselves if this is something they want to look more. We're into, but I find myself saying almost in every one, like, make sure you're getting a high quality vitamin. So I just was thinking, like, how high quality could it be if I'm putting it into, like, some processed food? Because I have to be able to say it's got some value nutritionally Correct, right? And
Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:16
that's why, you know, again, from a legal standpoint, products that have been really, really processed, meaning they took all the nutrient value out of them in the processing, then they have to be labeled as enriched and fortified, right? Because what they took out to be able to provide some nutrition value, they have to add back. And then your question is 100% valid. What does our body do with something that's been synthetically added back to replace what was naturally there in in the beginnings of what was really food, right?
Scott Benner 5:52
Probably not much. It's my expectation. You know, at Christmas last year, I bought a candy cane from this guy that makes them by hand, right? Yeah. So there was not like, you know? So I'm like, Okay, I wonder what a handmade candy cane tastes like. And I got it, and it was fine. It was good. It wasn't super excited or anything, but at least when I ate it, what I knew was, this is an indulging thing here. I'm not joking myself into believing that there's something in this candy cane that is gonna, like, benefit my overall health or well being, no, right, right? This is just sponge sugar mixed with whatever the hell else it is, yeah, and that's it. I'm taking your point, right? Like, things are packaged up in a way where you're like, Well, this is food, right? But, like, a cheeseburger from a fast food place is not you going to the grocery store buying beef and making your burger, making a burger yourself. And I'm trying to use something that's, you know, whether you make it yourself or not, like, this is not an incredibly healthy decision one way or the other. But like, still, in our minds, it's, they're both cheeseburgers, so they both have the same thing. And we think of them, I think, generally speaking, like it's the one we made ourselves. And so if you kind of extrapolate that out to Lunchables, for example, or something like that, or like lunch meat, is there a world where you'd ever go to a deli counter and buy like, sliced turkey or ham or something like that? The podcast is sponsored today by the place where I kept my oh gosh, my sheets, my towels, some of my clothing, a lot of the things that I stay warm or comfortable with, cozy earth.com I'm wearing a pair of cozy Earth joggers right now. I've recently gotten another pair in a different color. I sleep on cozy Earth sheets. They are so comfortable and soft and temperate, temperate, meaning I'm never hot or cold, which is really saying something, because my wife loves to turn that giant fan on, but they keep me nice and warm without making me, like, sweaty or moist. You know what I mean? You don't want to be moist while you're sleeping. And then, of course, the waffle towels I use every day to dry off my bits and parts after I've showered. Cozyearth.com, use the offer code juice box at checkout to save 40% off of your entire order. I'm not saying 40% off of one item. I'm saying 40% off of everything you put in the cart. Cozyearth.com, use the offer code juice box at checkout. This episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes. Learn more about hyperglycemia at Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper
Speaker 1 8:27
Well, Hi, I'm Heather lackey. I am a wife and mom. I have two children that are seniors in high school, and I've had type one diabetes for 34 years, and I'm a dietitian and a diabetes educator. You know, I'm the Director of Global Medical Education. I lead a team of clinicians that are developing content. How do
Scott Benner 8:50
you feel when your blood sugar's high? Irritable,
Unknown Speaker 8:52
thirsty, hungry.
Scott Benner 8:56
What do you enjoy most about your job? See
Speaker 1 8:58
education working. See people thriving. That's kind of the fuel that feeds, you know, my fire.
Scott Benner 9:06
What would you like to see community members talk about more hyperglycemia
Speaker 1 9:10
is the critical thing, right? That leads to short term and long term complications. Hyperglycemia is the greatest unmet need and the treatment of diabetes currently, and I think that that's where technology can help if
Scott Benner 9:25
you're having trouble with hyperglycemia and would like to talk to other people in the diabetes community. Check out the Medtronic champions hashtag, or go to Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper
Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:37
we go to a place that actually has do I buy sliced I don't eat it. My kids don't eat it. My husband does eat turkey and chicken. But I go to a place that's actually farm. Oh, okay, so there. So we have some place here that supplies stuff. I know where it came from. I could go visit the farm if I really wanted to. Yeah, I know what went into the product, and I know that that's. From a standpoint of everybody's availability, that's not everywhere. I get that entirely at a deli. You still have options your grocery store. You've got options in different deli cuts and different brands and things like that. And I think in terms of what I view as what should be called food, it should have the least amount of processing in the least amount of ingredients, right? If you're getting deli chicken, what's in it? Can you read all the ingredients? How long was it? You know, you know what I'm saying? Yeah,
Scott Benner 10:28
I do a thing where I just get, I'll get a turkey breast from the store, and then I'll either bake it or smoke it and then slice it myself. But I listen, I'm nowhere near where you are on all this. And I don't mean that, like, pejoratively, but like, I look at deli meat, I'm like, That can't be good. Like, do what I mean. Like, it feels like it's been pressed together and it's just wrapped in plastic, and they unwrap it and they cut it and they put it back in, but they don't cover it up. But I'm like, Ah, well, that seems wrong to me. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I just remember somebody telling me at some point that, like, salt and nitrates, or something, was very high in deli meats. And I was like, Okay, well, I'll try to avoid that then. But you can look at that and just think it's Turkey, right? Yeah, right, yes.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:12
So we've been, you know, all along, I think we have set up a we've set up the equation for people to incorrectly or understand that broad term of food, because we don't get we get math in school, we get how to read. We get, you know, basically, how to understand science, etc. But what we really should be getting as humans is a baseline of education from kindergarten through at least High School of Nutrition, what is
Scott Benner 11:48
food? Why am I? What is food? Why?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:50
What physiologically happens? You know, kindergarten, you learn the food groups as the grades go on. What are the nutrients? What does that do in your body? Like your understanding of vitamin D, right? Is it a quality source? What does it actually do in your body? Why do I need it? I think we'd have a healthier overall society if we really understood food and its purpose in our body.
Scott Benner 12:15
But you made such a good point a moment ago, like the availability for people. So I just looked up like, why do we process food preservation, safety to eliminate microorganisms, convenience, taste and texture? Who knew that processing can improve the taste of certain foods by adding ingredients like spices, sugars or fats and changing the texture? Food processing methods can change the texture of foods, making them more appealing or easier to consume, I have to tell you. I'm sure I've told you this in the past, but when my kids were little, I used to buy them frozen chicken nuggets, and then one day, I was like, What am I doing? Like, why don't I just buy the chicken and cuddle up myself and make my own nuggets and texture, like the texture my son bit into it, he goes, this isn't chicken. And I'm like, Oh, my God, that's crazy, like that. That's chicken. It really is. And he goes, that's not what this tastes like, like the feeling in his mouth. So it can, you know, if you process it, it says you can fortify it, concentrate nutrients from mass production to feed large populations, cost effective cultural and traditional practices like pickling and fermenting, but that's not what we're talking about. Of course, the drawbacks are nutrient loss, additives and preservatives, and then highly processed foods often contain little nutritional value and may contribute to poor health. So so what starts out as let me see how old I can sound here. My grandmother used to buy tin cans of Charlie's chips. Do you know what that is? So I don't know what she would get. Okay, oh, boy, man, I guess I'm pretty old. Okay, here we
Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:50
go. Either that or your grandmother did different things. I
Scott Benner 13:53
don't know. I know, you know, like the idea of, like, a holiday popcorn tin, like, you know, like, right? So when my grandmother went to the store to buy potato chips. Her potato chips came in one of those bins from a company, and they were called like, Charlie's chips. And I'm okay betting, if I could go back into a time machine, I would learn that Charlie's chips were potatoes, salt and fried and grease. And I'm probably right. And now, because this was good, this is the 70s, right? So, I mean, maybe not, but my expectation is that somewhere along the way, that's how my grandmother ate a potato chip the first time, and then eventually it became what it is now, right? And so when you stop and think about like, even like a like, I'm just gonna say like, a very popular Nacho chip, will say that, right?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:38
That's a good way to say, what a yes, very kind. We all know.
Scott Benner 14:42
Everyone who's been on this planet knows that if you lick whatever that is off that chip, you're like, This is so good. I don't even know what this is, right? But I bet you, if you broke it down, like, in our minds, we're eating a corn chip with some like flavor on cheese on Yeah,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:57
they think it's cheese, right? It says nachos.
Scott Benner 14:59
Cheese on the bag, and so, but that is not what you're eating. You're not eating my grandmother's potato chip with a little bit of cheese on it, or something like that. And so over time, that's happened to everything. Yes, yeah, everything, yeah, really, even to the point where, you know, even the people will tell you I would I was overseas, and I heard somebody say recently, it was overseas, and I had a peach. I picked a peach off a tree, I ate a peach, and I bought I bit into it, and I thought, This isn't what a peach tastes like. So, like, even our fruit and everything's modified in one way or another, right? Because it's the yield, right? But how much of that is about the size of our country, because this takes us into your other I don't understand, which is, why does the US allow ingredients that other countries will will outlaw,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:51
right? And I think that you actually the peach story reminds me, years ago, for an anniversary, my husband, and I went to France, and it was a little like grocery store, like around the corner, and we went and we got a couple of things, and one of them was yogurt. And I opened the yogurt and it looked different, and I tasted it. And we ate yogurt so much while we were there. It was the tastiest yogurt, honest. It's the peach story, really. It was, my goodness, like, this is not Americanized yogurt, and it tasted like just really good. I don't know what the difference in it, but it was really, you cannot, and I don't really eat very much dairy now. So maybe there are some things that are on the market that are similar enough, but I mean, it was very different. And so that brought in that other thought, like, I don't understand why, despite having smaller populations in in area Europe, is still a really big place.
Scott Benner 17:01
It's not, they're not feeding 20 people, right? They're still, they have a they're smaller and they have a smaller population, but they still have to cover their population with the size of their industry. So, right? So understand,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:13
no, it could be, but then why are we like, don't we want our US people to Healthy People, right? Do you know that's my problem. You're confusing
Scott Benner 17:25
someone sitting on the board of directors somewhere is like, How much money are we making this month with right? Yeah, it's like, everything else. Listen, social media is a great example, right? Like, you know, because you and I, before we started recording, Jenny was listing out her, gripes with her gripes with the world I don't
Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:43
understand. Yeah, and listen,
Scott Benner 17:45
the first time you open up Instagram or Tiktok, you go, Oh, wow, my God, this pictures are everybody blah, blah. The 10th time you do it, you're like, Ah, I'm good. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I've seen this already. So how do we up the ante to keep you coming back to the app? I think that's what happens with the food as well, right? Like, let's just keep upping the flavor. Put more fat in it, more sugar, more salt. Like, so that you're just like, oh my god, this is awesome.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:08
Those are the top three, if you look into any food science. I mean, there are, there are lots of different books all about it, right? Supersize Me, all of those different options to look at. They focus on those three ingredients, sugar, salt and fat, yeah, and the food industry has figured out how to marry them to the point that they are addicting. Yeah.
Scott Benner 18:29
Do you want me to tell people the thing you told me that we looked up to see if it was true, and it looks like it might be sure that in 1988 Philip Morris bought Kraft Foods. Acquired Kraft Foods, a major food conglomerate. So, uh, so basically, a tobacco company that made cigarettes was like, Hey, let's buy a food company. And a couple years earlier, it looks like RJ Reynolds bought Nabisco, yep. So then there's reasons that it might make sense, you know, for the for them to diversify like that. Obviously, they had to shift away from tobacco because it was becoming less, you know. And
Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:07
do you, I mean, if you really think about it, then do you really want? Are those the people that you want putting quote, unquote, food in your mouth? Well,
Scott Benner 19:15
they're money people. It's hard, but that's what. But they're money people. When you stop and think about like they were in the cigarette business. They had something that, you know, they made that was really addictive. And they were probably like, hey, people aren't smoking as much. They're not going to stop eating. Why don't we shift over here and keep going? And obviously, it worked out pretty well, absolutely, for them, but not for us.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:39
Yeah, right. Look at the health of our country, right, right. We've got phenomenal emergency care. But why? It's because as a nation, we've continued to get sicker and sicker, and That's atrocious for all of the knowledge that we have. But
Scott Benner 19:52
then they'll just but then that same money will probably just go buy like a healthcare system,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:56
sure, and new medications and new things. Put band aids on the problems that could easily be fixed by people just eating an apple. Yeah.
Scott Benner 20:05
So we went, we went on, by the way, if you're listening and this is your life, don't, but don't get mad at us. Like, I mean, like we're not blaming you. This is the situation. Like, I mean, honestly, I thought you said it a minute ago. I think it's worth repeating, convenience, cost, you know, etc. Society is set up like this to support this kind of food. Now you can't just to just dash off and go, I'm not going to be involved in this anymore. Like you. People probably don't have the knowledge of where to start. You grew up with your mom making food that she grew like, so you have some I did knowledge about it, right and how to handle it. You're predisposed to do those things. But if I just asked you to, you know, if you didn't grow up that way, and I just asked you in your 40s to just shift all of a sudden, like, Hey, Jenny, go start making your own yogurt. All you need is a goat. And you'd be like, Hey, listen, what happens? Happen? Sorry, you know? Like, Oh, I
Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:00
did years ago, actually, I bought a yogurt maker after I did you were laughing. Although we have toyed with buying our own chickens, and just because we can have chickens, but we've not done that. No
Scott Benner 21:16
doubt in my mind that you've thought about buying chickens, not at all.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:22
They have the best eggs. They're fresh. They're always there. You know, I
Scott Benner 21:25
would love that. Listen. We went on an, I said, on the podcast, so people might know. But like, we went on a family vacation for the first time in years recently, and we went off to, like, a warm location on an island, and just sat around for a week, and my kids came, Kelly, myself and my son's girlfriend, and we got home, and we weren't home for like, 48 hours, and my son goes, Hey, you know, the entire time we were on that island, I got up eight, went to the bathroom, everything was as normal as could be, and I'm home 24 hours, And my stomach's upset, like, just like that. He's like, he's like, it's the food, right? Because he's like, 24 he's like, right? Like, am I seeing this correctly? And I'm like, Yeah, I don't know exactly how, but I think so, yeah. So especially
Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:15
if the food on the way home. Travel wise, again, you know, as we started out talking about travel, food is really hard on your system. Travel, in and of itself, is hard on your system. Most people get dehydrated when they're traveling, especially through flight. So absolutely, he was right.
Scott Benner 22:32
I remember the first time that I said to you, like, I don't understand when you're on a long car trip and you stop for gas, you don't get food. And you were like, No. And I was like, Well, where does the food come from? You were like, I bring it from home. I was like, oh, fascinating.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:46
He looked at me, like, how the crazy lady, that's
Scott Benner 22:50
such a good idea. But no, yeah, so Cole's, Cole's input was from his own personal experience. Was even though we were eating in restaurants every day, usually, but we did shop at the grocery store. But in fairness, the grocery store there was insanely expensive, I'm sure, but still, he's like, my stomach was like, great the whole time we were there. And he's like, I got home and like, he's like, I'm not eating crazy stuff, in my opinion, and I don't feel well all of a sudden. And so, I mean, it's, Listen, I'm not a doctor, right, and or anything, but it's got, it's got to be this. It's what's in the food. Like, we're all and then we run around patching up problems. And, and I grew up in this, you know what I mean? So, I mean, I was, like, really broke growing up. So we ate, like, garbage food, like whatever was available, stuff and, and I actually grew up with people who thought that, like, you know, some of that packaged food, which I'm sure in that time, a lot of people thought they saw it as, like, amazing. They were like, sure, you know what? I mean, like, there's a cookie. It comes in a bag. You don't have to bake it Isn't that insane, you know, like, that kind of thing,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 23:51
or TV dinners. Let's bake it in aluminum foil and,
Scott Benner 23:55
oh my god, yeah, the turkey with the fake gravy and the fake stuffing. See, now you said that, and I'm like, Oh, why don't they make those anymore? Those were good. Right away. I was like, Oh, awesome. I remember those. The gravy, like, yeah, the gravy was, like, thin. You'd like, whip it up a little bit try to make something happen. The potatoes were, like, hard
Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:18
potatoes, no, sort of what they were, but, but you'd put some butter
Scott Benner 24:22
and salt and pepper on and you're like, This is passable.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:26
But I remember the first time I had potatoes at a friend's house. I had gone for dinner, and her mom was also was not. She wasn't the cook that my mom was. She did the best that she could, you know, but she had mashed potatoes, and I tasted them and I ate them because I was very polite that just, you know, I was raised that way. And I came home and I was like, Mom, I don't know what you do different with your potatoes, but we had potatoes that were supposed to be mashed potatoes. They were like, they were like, wet and sort of like they were, they were just. Really, really soft. Yeah, do they go? They were probably boxed powdered potatoes, water powdered potatoes. Like, are you seeing my mom? Like, chop them up, boil them, smash them, you know, blend them up, whip them with the beater, and put butter and, yeah, with our mashed potatoes,
Scott Benner 25:15
maybe even a little sour cream in there to reach them. Listen, I'm going to tell you right now you've now again, this is really interesting. You have, like, fired off young broke Scott memories, those box mashed potatoes. If you made them thicker, if you didn't put as much liquid in, they were awesome. But I know they're not. I know if you gave it to me right now, I'd be like, I don't know what this is. I don't want this. But as a kid, growing up, I don't know, like, it's right, it's one of my memories. Listen, we say this all the time here. I don't know if we say this. I don't know if I've ever said this on the podcast or not, but my wife like she eats well, because we're older now and she understands. But if you asked her to go pick the things that really fire off the memory centers for her. It's like she grew up in a trash can, like, the stuff that really like, she's like, Oh, this. Like, I'm seriously, like, listen to this. So I won't tell her, like a garbage person, like, she she, if you left her to her own devices, she'd be like, Oh my God. And she'd say things that you'd be like, those aren't real foods, but it's the stuff she remembers from being a kid, sure. You know, I guess it just sticks to I have some stuff here. I asked chatgpt Why the US allows food additives that other countries have outlawed. It says, I'm curious. Some reasons might be regulatory framework differences,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:35
but right there, right there, regulatory framework differences, right there is Europe. Does it better? Because the citizen, I just feel like, the citizens are like, I'm not eating this, and we don't want our citizens eating this. Why do we want our Americans like, don't we care about each other?
Scott Benner 26:53
Yeah, the two so the two entities, the FDA and the EFSA, use different criteria and processing for evaluating food additives. The US tends to rely more on industry provided safety data, and has a high and has a they wouldn't lie about this, that has a higher threshold for banning substances, whereas the EU often applies what they call Precautionary Principle, meaning that substances can be banned if there's even a potential for harm, even if the science isn't definitive,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:20
right? So they're all the food, food colorings,
Scott Benner 27:23
yeah. Well,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:24
so the easy one, what you're
Scott Benner 27:25
just hearing here is there's a referee. And in Europe, the referee goes, I'm going to side on the side of the people eating the food, and our referee goes, I'm going to side on the side of the people making the food. Now, why could that be? Well, because lobbying in an economic interest. The Food and Chemical Industries in the US are powerful and have significant influence over regulatory processes through lobbying. So they're making the food and the rules about how the food is okayed
Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:53
and who's lobbying for your food. Who did you say from 1988
Scott Benner 27:57
Yeah, it might be, or it could be a an old tobacco company. I mean, what a cookie company. I guess you're right. Like,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:07
I just, I just want people to be smart. That's just it. I want
Scott Benner 28:10
everyone to know that. Before we started recording, Jenny told me she made her own baby food for her kids. I did.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:18
So I was eating it anyway. What's right? I mean, why?
Scott Benner 28:21
No. But I mean, like, you know, you got put on the right first foot as a kid, and you stuck with it. Also, you stuck with it, probably a little bit because of how you were raised, but also, I think, because you got diabetes too when you were a kid, so it was probably easier on you to eat real food too, right? I mean, listen, there's no doubt that a lot of the conversations that people have, you know, in the Facebook group and everything, they're like, I mean, they're eating stuff that I'm like. If you ate something different, this would definitely be easier. Now, I'm not into telling people how to eat, because of all the things that we've listed here, you know, finances and, you know, I mean, they could be addicted to it by now, like, you know, whatever. Like, there's 1000 reasons why people are eating the way they are. I want them to be able to cover their food well with insulin and not, you know, correct compound issues. But the truth is, the you know, the simpler the food, the simpler the ingredients, the simpler the bolus things should be as well,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:14
for the most part, correct, absolutely. And you know, there is no lie in that there are food deserts. And when they talk about food deserts, we're not talking about there's no food available. But in the beginning of this, like defining the word food, right? There's truly no real food available in a food desert, there are things that provide calories, fats, proteins, sugars, yeah, but are they really providing quality in which food in itself should provide? Yeah, no, it's
Scott Benner 29:49
back to your original point. Like, I don't understand why we're allowed to call all of this food, right, right? Because it's not. It's not, there's nothing. It's food ish, maybe, right? Right? But, yeah, but you're saying that there are people who live in places where their only option for breakfast is Captain Crunch or something like that, and right, you know, and their stuff is everything they're able to buy is boxed or processed. It's easy to say, like, I mean, listen, it really is easy to say, don't buy anything in a bag or a box. You'll probably be better off. But how are people supposed to accomplish that when the world's been now set up this way for them? So that's really probably the biggest thing. Is that in Europe, where we're talking about, in other places, their lives are set up differently, differently. And it's true. Like, if anybody who works with anybody who works in America and has an office overseas, you'll hear them complain, like, man, they take off a lot. Or, like, you know, when they go on fake hair, they have a baby. Like, in Canada, like, I work with this lovely woman who, like, I met and, like, we were starting to build up a rapport, and then she's like, Well, I'll see you next year. I'm having a baby. I'm like, What shit? Yeah, like, she just get
Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:54
a baby. Here, they get a year maternity leave in Canada, and then they will reserve your at least. When I was working with a couple of people who I worked with for pregnancy in Canada, a year maternity leave paid at least to some degree, and they will reserve your job for you unpaid for another year following that. Yeah,
Scott Benner 31:14
no, it's it. Listen, my wife was riding the train right up until, like Cole was coming out, trying to save up time to be with the baby after he was here and but my point is, is that if their society runs differently, then maybe they have more time to come home and make chicken nuggets out of a piece of real chicken, is my point. Yeah? So it's, he can't blame any like, it's not, it's not a blame game. It's like, it's no, it's the way we set the country up, is it put us in a situation now, right?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:42
I guess what made me really think about it as a like I don't understand, is hoping to bring to light that there are some things that maybe people can start to think about right in considerations, especially if you have the ability to do so, the smallest little changes can lead to another change can lead to some improvement. And we're all talking about diabetes management here. The simpler the ingredients, the less the ingredients, the more they're real food ingredients, yeah, honestly, everybody wants it to be a bit easier and less cumbersome to navigate. Blood sugar after food intake.
Scott Benner 32:20
Yeah, and you hear so many people with type one talk about, like they have digestion issues, and we've talked about that before, but like, you know, is it because you're trying to digest, you know, sweeteners cardboard that's in something like, I mean, listen this artificial colors and sweeteners, some food additives that are banned in other countries, such as certain artificial dyes and sweeteners remain widely used in the US due to their low cost and long established use. While these ingredients have raised health concerns like links to hyperactivity in children and cancer risks, the FDA maintains that they are safe at current consumption levels, but it goes on here to talk about it just picks a certain ingredient to make a point with, and it just struck me, brominated vegetable oil. Bvo is an emulsifier in some sodas. Now, I bet you, when you drink a soda, you think, well, the liquidy parts water, that for sure, unless it's brominated vegetable oil, like it's banned in Europe, but allowed in the US, despite concerns about its effects on health, it's approved. Its approval has not been reversed, in part because the industry lobbying and slow regulatory response. So you know, every time you pay a soda company, they take a couple for themselves and a couple to fight about so they can keep selling you more soda. I listen, I'm I'll have a soda sometimes, and I know when I'm drinking them, I'm like, This is not good for me. But I sometimes see people go down the soda aisle in the grocery store and they have so much soda in their cart. Like, yes, and I'm not one of those people, but you, like, part of you, just wants to grab them and go, please don't. Please don't, yeah, yeah. Like, that can't be right. You know what I mean, the
Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:00
biggest time that I see, very big carts full of soda or that type of thing? It's usually around the time of the big sporting events, right, where you're celebrating the Super Bowl, or some big sporting celebration, the Fourth of July, any of those things where, you know you got to drink something, heaven forbid, you would just drink water because it's so hard to find.
Scott Benner 34:28
Well, I want to, I want to stick up for other people. Water sucks. You know why? Because it tastes like nothing, but. But my point is, but, but to not joke about it. There's an example of, like, I need to be hydrated, right? And a glass of soda is not going to hydrate me the same way an equivalent glass of water would, right? But like a baby, I'm like, but I want it to taste good. And by the way, if we had more time, we could relate that back to your thought, which was, hold on, it's not going to. Yeah. Why are we? Jenny was off on a tangent earlier. Why are we afraid to feel emotions? How come people think they always need to be happy,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:09
like, happy to the nth degree?
Scott Benner 35:14
I'm putting that on myself about the about, like, water, like, just drink it and shut up. And now you're not thirsty anymore. Go on your business. Take a nice pee. It'll be over. Here's some other examples of additives allowed in the US, but banned elsewhere. Potassium bromate, which is used in bread products in the US, but banned in the U EU, Canada and other countries, due to concerns about carcinogens. So keep in mind too, even bread like I have a bread maker, I'll make bread in it goes bad pretty quickly because there's no preservatives in it, but it does not taste like whatever bread from a store tastes like at this point. Do you know what I mean? You know? I don't know. It's completely different. RBGH, recombinant bovine growth hormone is allowed in the US for dairy cows to increase milk production, but banned in the EU and other regions because of its potential health risks for the cows and the humans. And then something here I can't even azo dicarbonide, carbon carbon amide, a dough conditioner used in bread in the US, but banned in Europe and other countries due to its links to respiratory issues. So when I make bread, it's flour, salt, butter, a little bit of sugar.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:34
I use yeast or no, yes,
Scott Benner 36:36
yeast, that's it. That should be it. I think that's the five ingredients. I don't have a dough conditioner in it called azodicarbanamide. No, so, all right, so why are we allowed to call this stuff food? Jenny,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:50
right? Did we answer my question that these aren't they're not food.
Scott Benner 36:55
I mean, I think we I don't want to sound like a conspiracy nut, but it sounds like to me that the answer is money.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:02
Regulatory being fed by the
Scott Benner 37:05
money. Seems like money's the answer, but, but, yeah, so companies listen. Companies own stuff. They want to make more money. They find ways to do this. Now, the other thing is, you wonder, like, how many scientists did we have to, like, hire until somebody figured out that recombinant bovine growth hormone made cows make more milk. I don't know. I don't know what the other well, I'd love to hear the other side of the argument, like, what's the other side? Like, where are we going to get enough cows to make milk? Yeah, also, I would imagine this, let me I'll sound old again for a second. There are nine different types of milk in my grocery store, like, nine different brands from different companies. I bet you, if it wasn't so easy for me to grab milk that when I poured it, I would take exactly the amount I was going to use and no more. Come on, everyone's like, filled up their cereal bowl, eating their cereal when they're done. Like, there's a big pool of milk at the bottom right. Like, that was extra milk you didn't need. Jenny doesn't need cereal, but if she did, she'd understand what we were talking about. Were talking about. My point is, is that I want things to be readily available for everybody, but maybe there's that feeling of it's there so I can have more of it, or I can waste it like there's nothing special. You know what I mean
Jennifer Smith, CDE 38:16
that could be and, you know, commodity food, obviously, right? I mean, a lot of the public school systems get, sort of their food comes from more commodity types of options, so that it's not as expensive to feed. Thankfully, we have public school food systems, because there would be a lot of kids who wouldn't get one or even two meals a day, unfortunately, right? They're needed. I see the other side of it entirely. I do, but I my bigger picture is, why can't we just clean it up for everybody? Like I just, I don't understand how we can think that it's okay to keep things so unhealthy. People are getting rich in a way, yeah, by keeping other people sick,
Unknown Speaker 39:05
yeah? And it makes
Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:07
me really sad,
Scott Benner 39:08
yeah, or on just the wrong path that eventually catches up to them, right? Yeah? No, I listen. I can remember, like, crystal clear. I went to the grocery store with my grandmother once, and she died when I was 13. So I was pretty young. This is a long ass time ago, is what I'm saying, like, 40 years ago or more. And she's just going through the aisle, and her ice cream that she liked was there. She was so excited. And I was like, I couldn't understand why she was so excited. I said, Why are you so excited? And she goes, Oh, they don't always have it, so I don't get it that often. And I was like, okay, but now there's like, I don't know how long a grocery store aisle is. I mean, it's got to be a couple 100 feet, right? Don't you think? I mean,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:50
I don't even know. I have no idea. I haven't I know what you're talking about.
Scott Benner 39:55
In my grocery store there is a full aisle of just ice cream, yes.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:59
And bars and cakes and cookie ice cream, and in a six
Scott Benner 40:03
foot tall container, a couple of 100 feet long, from 40 different companies, ice cream, it's always there. It's never not there. It's always full. As a matter of fact, if you take a couple out, somebody runs out, shoves a couple back in,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 40:16
and you'll notice that they're not all called Ice Cream, because illegally, they can't be. Did you know that? Yeah, no, I know there's a difference between dairy treats and ice cream. Dairy treats
Scott Benner 40:27
that sounds like a cow fart when you go to the movie theater and you go to put butter on your popcorn. It's called buttery flavored topping.
Unknown Speaker 40:37
Yeah, it's
Speaker 2 40:38
oil. Oh, and it's not good
Scott Benner 40:44
oil. It's not like the cheese dust on that very famous, like chip where you're like, you know what? This might be giving me cancer, but this is awesome. It's not like that. It's like, you put it on the popcorn. You go, Oh, I just ruined $900 worth of popcorn with this oil.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 40:59
See, if you're like, Jenny, you take a big bag with you, and you have your own popcorn in the bag, and nobody checks it anymore. My
Scott Benner 41:05
wife makes fun of me when I do that. Oh, I
Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:07
do that. That's like, I put my I put, you know, drinks in there too, like, water bottles. I'm like, there's no reason they just paid like, $80 to come to these movies. We're not buying, not
Scott Benner 41:17
gonna buy $50 worth of, uh, popcorn and water bottles of water. No, all right, Jenny, listen. I don't know the answer, other than I think the answer is money, and people trying to make money. But I'll tell you this, if you hear this and you get upset by it, I'm very, very clearly not, like I don't talk about political stuff on the podcast. But you know, people have power, but they only have power when they're united and in day groups. That's right. If you are waiting for five people in a boardroom to decide that your health means more than profits, you might want to wait on someone else. Yeah,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:52
that's right, yes, you will be out of luck. So make your own choices, your labels, yeah,
Scott Benner 41:59
and eat like Jenny. Just make, you know, push up carrots and give me your babies or whatever. My God, all
Jennifer Smith, CDE 42:05
right, pretty easy in a blender, you know.
Scott Benner 42:09
Anyway, I appreciate this very much. Thank you.
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