Become a Sustainavore!

Eat for your health, the planet, and your values.

Become a Sustainavore!

Eat for your health, the planet, and your values.

Sustainable Dish Episode 210: Erin Skinner, RD

The Blue Zones have long been touted as holding the secrets to longevity. One aspect of the “Blue Zones” framework that gets far too much attention is the prescribed eating plan with an emphasis on limiting animal-based foods. 

In reality, there are many factors that go into living a long, high-quality, and meaningful life. Plus, when you start to look at the research behind this movement, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Today I am sharing my conversation with fellow dietitian and podcaster Erin Skinner, founder of Empowered Nutrition, a functional nutrition practice. Erin is a board-certified Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and holds a certification in integrative and functional nutrition therapy.   

When the company she was working for elected to adopt The Blue Zones Lifestyle, Erin saw this as an opportunity for a research project. She followed the Blue Zone’s generated meal plan, tracked her nutrition, and in the end, found the diet lacking in 15 key nutrients!

In the course of her research, she also uncovered fundamental flaws in the information on which the Blue Zones framework is based. Did you know that one of the Blue Zones kept such poor records that it was difficult to determine their ages? That’s a problem when your claim to fame is measured in years of life.

This topic is so fascinating. You can read my article where I breakdown the Blue Zones and listen in as Erin and I discuss:

  • How the Blue Zones Diet came to be
  • The history of Seventh Day Adventists’ involvement in health care
  • The importance of including meat in your diet
  • Conflicts of interest in vegan and vegetarian diets
  • Erin’s company, Empowered Nutrition
  • Diana’s work with the Global Food Justice Alliance

 

Resources:

Sacred Cow

Sustainable Dish post: Avoiding Meat to Live Longer? A Breakdown of the “Blue Zones”

Dan Buettner 

Erin’s report on The Blue Zones

New York Times article: Lift Weights, Eat More Protein, Especially if You’re Over 40 

Ellen G White: A Psychobiography by Steve Daily

Saul Newman study: Supercentenarians and the Oldest-old are Concentrated in Regions with No Birth Certificates and Short Lifespans 

Study: Meat Supplementation Improves Growth, Cognitive, and Behavioral Outcomes in Kenyan Children

Study: An Egg a Day Enhances Growth in Resource-Poor Communities

Sustainable Dish Episode 196: Fireside Chat with Robb Wolf

Sustainable Dish Episode 199: Dr. Mark Cucuzzella

 

Connect with Erin:

Website: Erin Skinner Nutrition | Empowered Nutrition

Instagram: @empowerednutrition.health

Podcast: Empowered Nutrition

 

Episode Credits:

Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connelly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.

If you’re ready to take your support for a nutritious, sustainable, and equitable food system to the next level, join my Global Food Justice Alliance community on Patreon. You will have access to ad-free podcasts, exclusive videos, a discussion community, and much more. Go to sustainabledish.com/join to support my work.

Join me September 29 – October 2, 2022, for a fun and informative weekend getaway at White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia. You’ll learn about regenerative farming and nutrition, plus participate in farming activities and enjoy incredible food. To learn more, visit sustainabledish.com/events and get your tickets today before they sell out.

 

Quotes:

“The large majority of people in the US and around the world don’t have access to regenerative meat, but do need their nutrition, even in feedlot finished beef, which can be raised in a great way on pasture before it hits the feedlot.” – Diana Rogers, RD 

“I find it interesting that the Seventh Day Adventist population was included in the Blue Zones, but Mormons were not when the only difference nutritionally between these two populations is that Mormons eat meat.” – Diana Rodgers, RD

“There’s different Adventist-owned organizations where they’re profiting to the tune of millions of dollars a year on selling meat replacement products, promoting these meal plans from Blue Zones, for example, profiting off of creating these Blue Zones communities and even promoting the validity of this by creating these lifestyle medicine organizations” – Erin Skinner, RD

 

Transcript:

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connelly, who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now on to our show. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Hey, everyone; Diana here, and as you might know, I’ve been traveling a ton and doing a lot of speaking for the Global Food Justice Alliance. So for today, I’m releasing a show I recorded for another expert, which I thought you’d enjoy. To join my mission at global food justice, please visit sustainabledish.com/join, and you’ll get access to early ad-free podcasts, the full video versions, exclusive downloads, and a community discussion group. So head over to sustainable dish.com/join and support the work I’m doing to push back against the anti-meat narrative. Thanks so much, and enjoy the show. 

(White Oak Pastures Event Ad) Diana Rodgers

Looking for a fun and informative weekend getaway at one of my favorite regenerative farms? Come join me with celebrity farmer Will Harris at White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia September 29th through October 2nd. You’ll meet some really cool people, participate in farm activities, learn about regenerative farming, plus have nutrition classroom time with me. And, of course, enjoy incredible food. To learn more, visit sustainabledish.com/events and get your tickets today before they sell out.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Okay, hi, Diana, it’s so good to chat with you. I know we’re here to talk about Blue Zones. I’m really looking forward to it.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah. So this is a unique podcast; we’re gonna record for both of our shows. So this is Diana Rodgers of Sustainable Dish podcast. And I am speaking with Erin Skinner, who is a dietitian, and did her master’s degree on the Blue Zones. And so I recently published an article on my blog all about why the Blue Zones and this whole idea that eating less meat is really the key to longevity is actually not really science-based. I don’t know, Erin, if you need to do an intro for your podcast?

Erin Skinner, RD  

Well, I think you should be intro’d because Diana, you’re such a hero to me. I’ve followed you for many years. And just if you don’t know about Diana, run out and get her book right now because she is such an important voice in the space of ancestral nutrition and sustainability and just the whole discussion around what that looks like versus popular culture versus like scientific reality. So, and Diana is a registered dietitian and just such an important voice in this space. So I’m excited to chat with you.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, so I’ve been familiar with your work for a little while. And I was excited when you reached out about specifically about the Blue Zone. So I’ll give a brief background. I’m sure you can give a lot better background, but… 

Erin Skinner, RD  

I don’t know. You know things I didn’t know. So I think we can synergize? 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah. So there’s a lot of people, when I post information about the healthfulness of meat, people will say, “Well, what about vegetarian India? And what about the Blue Zones.” So right off the bat, vegetarian India has among the highest rates of malnutrition, and stunting, which is an indicator of malnutrition, in the world. People largely who are vegetarian there are doing it because they can’t access meat. There’s a lot of really crazy politics going on right now in India, that is that are restricting and even trying to make illegal not only the consumption of meat but also even having it in your home or selling it or transporting it. You can be lynched basically by these vigilante groups, which are basically hired by the government to go around and make sure that everyone is complying. So it’s wild. So no, vegetarian India is not the model for a healthy vegetarian society. And then now the Blue Zones, which is the other thing that people will cite as the best way for longevity, is clearly eating less meat because the Blue Zones. So the Blue Zones was a study and then a book. Is that correct?

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yes, I wouldn’t call it quite a study. It was an epidemiological project by a man named Dan Buettner, which Diana, you know, that really was published in National Geographic. And then it turned into a book and then a company.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

And this idea is that people who live in these in these special places on Earth, we have more centenarians than other places. And they were trying to associate well, it must be diet. But first of all, there are so many reasons why people live a long time, and socioeconomics, it tends to be the number one predictor of long-term health also connection to society, time outside, movement. I mean, there’s so many factors that go into…

Erin Skinner, RD  

 Smoking

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Smoking, right? That go into why someone would live a long and healthy life. And it’s, again, it’s not just about longevity. It’s about healthfulness, too. So that was something at the end of the article I wrote about because there are folks out there who are talking about, well, if you want to live a long time, you should restrict meat. But is the goal just to live a long time and be bedridden? Or is the goal to live long and be strong? And if we want to live long and actually have muscle tone, meat is critical for that because our need for meat and our ability to digest meat as we get older changes. And so we actually – anyone over 40, and there was an article in The New York Times promoting this needs about twice the RDA of protein, which is also dreadfully low, to begin with. But why don’t you talk a little bit about the different Blue Zones and typical diet consumption in these areas?

Erin Skinner, RD  

Sure, yeah. And I mean, I could go on, I’m going to try to maybe keep it brief. And then let’s dig into what sounds more interesting. But long story short, I love that you thought that I did my Masters on this because what actually happened was in a doctorate program, where we write these manuscripts. So we’ll like routinely write these papers for like peer review. And at the same time, back, well, years ago, I had been recruited by this company that wanted to create an insurance-based functional medicine clinic. So aside from my top passion of like promoting ancestral nutrition, my other main thing is insurance-based functional medicine. And so I’m like dream job, yeah. I want to help you figure this out, let’s do it. And we did. But here was the kind of the catch of it is the whole thing was, the company was this company named Adventist Health in California. And that was their corporate headquarters. And so at their corporate headquarters, they have this clinic. I’m the dietitian, and there’s a functional medicine doctor and the rest of the clinic ride around. In my first year working there, the company announces that they’ve purchased Blue Zones, the company Blue Zones. And so they’re wanting to promote this as like – what basically the Blue Zones company does is they get paid by towns and organizations to come in and implement this quote, unquote, like Blue Zones lifestyle that includes the diet. And then they tell you that because when they do this, you’re gonna have improved health outcomes and longevity in your organization. So here, I am seeing them trying to not only promote this within the corporate headquarters, but across basically, they have all these hospitals that are rural hospitals. So they’re in low-income communities. And they’re wanting to push out this basically like vegan or like near vegan diet. And all these low-income communities, over time is their vision with this. And over the course of working there, of course, I already told them when I took the job, look, I’m not a proponent of veganism or vegetarianism. I’m never going to promote that. But I’ll help people actually optimize their nutrition and tell them what that looks like. And if you’re fine with that, I’ll come do this. So as they’re starting to try to roll this out, I get my research scientific writing hat on, and I write because I do a huge extensive research project on the Blue Zones inside and out, even to the degree where I implemented… they have like a meal plan generator. So I generated myself a meal plan, using their thing, ate it for several days, put it in a nutrition tractor tracker, and quantified the exact nutrition that diet provided versus like my normal diet. I put all this research into huge manuscripts and provided it to the corporate like leaders of the company. So not for publication or degree or anything, but just to say, like, “Hey, here’s how you’re endangering everybody that works for you and all the people living in the communities where you want to implement this. It’s extremely dangerous.” And that’s really where I was coming from with writing that, so I’m happy to get into it more. But that was basically the project of it all.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Wow, that’s so fascinating. So a lot of my listeners are familiar with what I wrote my book, and also James does a lot of podcasts where he brings up… he’s done a deep dive into Seventh Day Adventist background, their influence on starting the dietetics movement. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. 

Erin Skinner, RD  

Oh, yeah.  I did a deep dive as well. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Oh, my goodness. And so for anyone who is interested in the background of this religion and their influence on diet, the… let me see. The book, I don’t even know if I have it in front of me here. It’s the biography of Ellen G. White and is fascinating. So basically, this woman, Ellen G. White, was the leader of the Seventh Day Adventist movement along with one or two others, but she was really the one that had the visions and really set the rules for everybody. And she was hit in the head with a rock, and while she was recovering, she was helping her dad, who was a hatter and so exposed to large amounts of mercury while she was convalescing in her home in the 1800s. Mercury is a neurotoxin. She started developing these visions. And it was God speaking to her telling her all sorts of things. But a big part of the Seventh Day Adventist religion is to be very clean with your diet. And so there’s no drinking, there’s no smoking, there’s no heavy spices, and no meat because it was thought that meat would give you impure thoughts and make you too sexual and purity and low libido.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Because you can actually like produce sex hormones when you eat sufficient food.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Right, so probably works really well, right? And the Seventh Day Adventist movement had the sanitariums that you could go to, which were sort of like half hospital, half spas, and you could go and get water treatments. And they invented sort of this Jazzercise type movement exercise like really started there. You would get fresh air. You would go out to these places, and you were fed a vegetarian diet. And at the time, we didn’t really understand germ theory very well, and people were eating very bad meat because they weren’t refrigerating it. And so people did have a lot of really bad GI problems that did resolve when they stopped eating rotten meat. So Kellogg’s cornflakes was one of the products that was developed at one of these sanitariums. People wanted to eat this way when they got home. So it became a cereal company. But the Seventh Day Adventist organization owns quite a lot of hospitals. In fact, the nursing home that I did my internship was a Seventh Day Adventist nursing home. And the idea was that they would heal you and maybe convert you while they’re healing you. So I just think it’s fascinating that you were working there. And I just wanted to give folks a little bit of background on the Adventist.

Erin Skinner, RD  

I felt like a Trojan horse, man. I mean, it was like, “What am I doing here? This is wild.” And it was so fascinating to get because we do a functional medicine clinic, right? So we would do all this really extensive lab testing on them, like detail, like micronutrient testing, for example. And I mean, I tell you what, it was fascinating because I’ve been in clinical practice a long time, I know what sort of I have calibration for kind of like, what’s a normal degree of sickness on average across an area. And these were the most unwell people. When their labs were just catastrophic. I mean, it was just like, I wish I could do a real study on this to actually take long-term – like some of them like lifelong vegetarian or vegan people and report on their nutritional status because it’s abysmal. And then they would have horrible medical problems to suit. So to see them – we can get into, I mean, I don’t even have time to get into all the flaws with Blue Zones, which are like there’s so many flaws with this and ways that it’s just a big joke. But basically, the idea that they would then try to use this as a way to promote that way of eating across people who are like populations that are already vulnerable. Just it disturbs me to no end.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Right. And so that’s why and I always just like to reflect on this with the regenerative ag movement, vilifying meat unless it’s grass-fed. The large majority of people in the US and around the world don’t have access to regenerative meat, but do need their nutrition, even in feedlot finished beef, which can be raised in a great way on pasture before it hits the feedlot and can upcycle food we can’t eat at a feedlot and actually turn it into protein, which is also then nutrient dense, full of iron, B12. and other nutrients that are very difficult or impossible to get in a plant-based diet. So this is why I’m just so passionate about pushing the message that meat is critical, not only for healthy soils but also for healthy humans as well. 

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yeah, absolutely. 

(Patreon Ad) Diana Rodgers, RD   

Ready to take your support for a nutritious, sustainable, and equitable food systems to the next level? Join my Global Food Justice Alliance community on Patreon and have access to ad-free podcasts, exclusive videos, and a discussion community, plus so much more. Go to sustainable dish.com/join to support my work, and thank you. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Well, so I also find it interesting that Seventh Day Adventist population was included in the Blue Zones, but Mormons were not. And the only difference nutritionally between these two populations is that Mormons eat meat, but they have relatively the same…

Erin Skinner, RD  

Longevity

Diana Rodgers, RD  

 Yes. So will you talk a little bit about the Blue Zones specifically, and the different areas and the typical diet patterns and maybe also the diet pattern that you modeled, and what you found from that compared to your typical diet?

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yeah. So I’ll start with that last piece of basically, they have this table of what that diet is that they recommend, and I know you referenced the same thing in your email. I think it’s somewhere in the order of 10 ounces a month of animal protein of like muscle meat and then three eggs max a week but discouraged. Up to, I think, it was nine ounces a month of fish, but also discouraged. But encouraging otherwise all plants. And so, but then what was an interesting plot twist about the whole thing I went through was when I went into their paid meal plan generator and made myself a meal plan, the meal plan was 100% vegan. So they didn’t include any of those, like discouraged things like that, it comes out averages out to about a third of an ounce per day of animal protein. But so what I did is after I analyzed the diet they gave me, I found it to be abysmal. It was like about there 15 nutrients that weren’t met that where it didn’t meet my needs. And I’m advantaged in the sense of like, I’m not a child, I’m not elderly, I don’t have a chronic disease. If I had been, if I had been one of those people, it would probably would have been even worse, but already 15 things that didn’t meet as compared to my own diet, it didn’t meet three things. And then it also was inadequate on protein, even using those low guidelines that you referenced of which are probably half of what our true needs are. And then what I did is I went ahead, and I said, “Okay, well, let’s pretend that I ate the allowed meat,” and I put it in there. And it changed nothing. It was like a drop in the bucket. Because it’s a joke. But so that’s what the dietary recommendations are. And then, with respect to the zones, there’s so many places where you can go read about these zones. There’s basically like Loma Linda in California, which as you said, has similar longevity to a Mormon population, that area that eats meat. And then there’s also one in Italy, there’s one in Greece, and then there’s one in Costa Rica, and then there’s Okinawa, Japan. So I think before, like, aside from getting into the specifics of all these, here’s the most critical, critical thing to understand about this is, there’s a study that was done through Oxford University, the published author on it, I’ll put it in the show notes. But basically, his name is Saul Newman, what he did is he went in, and he got the vital records from these different areas. And what he found was that these areas, there’s the common thread among them is that these are poor areas that have poor vital records keeping at that time, around 100 years ago. They had poor vital records keeping. And there is the availability of government assistance for the poor. So like, what you can infer from that is, hey, there’s their risk of bias here in the sense of, hey, you’re starving to death, you can start getting money from the government if you falsify a birth record, saying that you’re old enough to get government assistance. And then fast forward 80 years, oh, look, you’re a centenarian. And then to further underscore that, what even found was when you look at like the moment that they started actually keeping vital records – so managing the birth certificates better – from that point forward, there’s an 80% drop in centenarians. So as soon as you can’t play that game, suddenly, people aren’t living to be 100 anymore. And then all in the surrounding areas around these so-called Blue Zones, there’s high mortality rates because, again, these are areas of poverty. So that’s why you do see these poverty diets that are low in protein and low in nutrients that, because they are poor people who had to try to do it they could to get by. And so it’s almost pointless to even talk about what’s happening in these blue zones because the whole thing is like, based off of falsifications from 100 years ago.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Wow. Again, so but let’s talk about, I mean, I’ve been to Costa Rica. I’ve been to Italy. They eat a lot of meat in these places. So yeah, I mean, I guess you’re saying that it doesn’t even matter to begin with because it’s not even… these weren’t even real. It’s not a true longevity study to begin with.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yeah, that’s not even real. And there’s no peer review evidence of this. And then that’s another thing I discussed in my paper was like, Look, here’s how it works with what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to prescribe a diet pattern to a whole population, including children including high-risk people. And so here’s how that goes. It starts with an epidemiological study, which the Blue Zones, you could categorize it that way. Then you move on to a cohort study where you follow a group of people either prospectively or retrospectively and see what associations you find. And then you do an interventional study to prove the safety of it and the efficacy of it, and then you maybe could derive a dietary recommendation from that. So it’s completely unsafe to just jump in from like, what you have is very extremely weak evidence. And in fact, there’s evidence against it all the way to like, hey, everybody should do this. And even kids should do this. And by the way, the meal plan we’re going to give you is even worse than what we recommend.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

And from I don’t know, if you’ve looked into this, I did a little bit, and I was only able to find one interventional study looking at meat versus less meat. And that was in Kenya with kids. Yeah. Have you seen any others?

Erin Skinner, RD  

I haven’t found any as good as that. I mean, that is a very clear example of what happens with or without. There is some, I think, if you want to look at it, you can also say that like there are, when you look at these populations, and you want to, if you want to actually kind of like take anything from what they do, they do tend to eat where were they there’s like a couple of them where they would have more like goat’s milk than anything as one of their primary dietary sources of any protein. And so I think that, that’s an interesting question, too, is like, what if you look at milk versus meat, and like in that Kenya study, they saw that even then there’s a difference. Like, if you just give them milk, it’s still not adequate compared to meat.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, it might. My thought was that study with the milk supplement performing worse than even the over calorie group compared to the meat group was that maybe the milk was blocking iron absorption?

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yeah, I mean, it could be because they don’t really have a heme iron source. So Right. Yeah.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

And I know of a few studies looking at like an egg a day where they gave families of newborns, a couple of chickens that were for the baby. And they said, you know, they taught the families how to take care of the chickens. And they said, just give one egg a day, specifically to the child. So the newborn obviously is like a toddler by that point. And they found not only an improvement in health, but also behavior. The parents said the kids were just better kids.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yeah, that was one of the biggest things I saw on its population was mood dysregulation to the extreme. Well, the levels of anxiety and depression were just, I’ve never seen anything like it. And what you said kind of brings to mind too, is like, the US government pays. I think it’s… I believe it’s on the order of, like, gosh, I don’t want to say a number, but it’s millions of dollars a year for like food subsidies for low-income children. And the reason why they’re willing to make that investment over time is there’s an abundance of research to show that kind of to your point on meat, look, when you have someone who doesn’t have access to diet quality and nutrient-dense foods, even giving them access to like the CAFO meat, the ultra-processed milk from Walmart, whatever they use, like their WIC benefits to go get, they still see performed, like improved outcomes in those children compared to the non to little less nourished children. So the impacts of this are profound. It doesn’t have to be that there’s perfect quality nutrition, anything is going to outperform the lack of nutrient-dense foods.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Totally 100%. I think it’s interesting that for WIC, you can’t get meat for WIC. So it was for the first 1000 days. I mean, you can get dairy, but you can’t get meat. 

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yeah, it is. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

And now we’re seeing right now this huge debacle with the baby formulas, right? And so we’ve got all these people that were sold this lie that – nothing against women who, for whatever reason, can’t or don’t want to breastfeed, but we know the benefits of breast milk. And there has been very strong marketing globally to try to get women off breastfeeding and onto formula. And I know that my mother was convinced that breastfeeding was like, barbaric. And that formula was like, the way that modern women fed children in the 70s when I was born. And so my siblings and I were all formula fed.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yeah, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. But that, I mean, that totally relates to me to like, where I went with all this was, I was when I wrote this whole paper. I was like, Look, I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you just don’t know what you’re doing. But then what happened was in a year – so in this like, I’ll bet you could run circles around me if your knowledge of this – but basically what I figured out is like oh, okay, so like, there’s different like Adventist-owned organizations that have, where they’re profiting on the tune of like millions of dollars a year on selling like meat replacement products, promoting these like meal plans, like from Blue Zones, for example, profiting off of creating these Blue Zones communities and even what really disturbs me too is like, they’re promoting the validity of this by creating these like lifestyle medicine organizations, bringing up these like conflicted physicians within it that will promote the whole thing. And then even getting into like medical schools and teaching this to like medical students so that they’re coming into the world of medicine thinking that this is nutritional guidance, like the whole thing is, it reminds me what you’re talking about with breast milk of like, when you realize how deep the web goes is it is extremely disturbing.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yes, I did a podcast with Dr. Mark Cucuzzella. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him? So he sent me a book, The Nutritional Guide. I can see it from here – for Clinicians or something. And it’s this little it looks like it’s about the size of a Bible. It’s blue. And it’s a free book that, you know, basically given to all medical schools that requested or even who don’t – that it was handed to him to hand to his medical students. And, of course, these medical students are eager. They want to help. They want to learn. And this looks like a great reference guide. Right? It’s easy, it’s small, it can you know, and basically, every disease is caused by meat. And every cure is removing meat from the diet of everything.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Is it from one of these lifestyle medicine groups?

Diana Rodgers, RD  

It’s from… here, I’m gonna grab it real quick. 

Erin Skinner, RD  

Okay. Go ahead.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Okay, it’s actually from one of the most, one of the groups I hate the most. So it’s the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. 

Erin Skinner, RD  

Okay. Yeah. You’re besties.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah. Besties highly funded by PETA. Yeah, they are not physicians, nor are responsible. And you know, and there are so many lifestyle medicine… I mean, lifestyle medicine sounds like a great thing, right? It sounds like, of course, we all want we… it’s not just nutrition, we need lifestyle medicine, and we don’t want just pharmaceuticals, we want lifestyle changes. But all of these lifestyle, are the majority of them. I can’t say all because there may be some that I haven’t looked into. All of the ones I have looked into promote no to a minuscule amount of meat as the solution.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yeah, and then in there’s a weird train of them where it’s almost like, they’re like, almost like evasive, where it’ll like there’s original one was like, funded by Coca Cola. And the whole idea there, right is to be like, hey, sugar is fine as part of a healthy lifestyle, and not meat. Oh, by the way, we’re like, also funded by people that sell meat replacements, but then when that was like, vetted by, I believe, it was the New York Times that had the whole like, connection, you know more – way, way more than me about this, but like, They vetted it, and then the whole thing, they like, rebranded and created a new lifestyle medicine: name and organization with a different logo. So it’s almost like a shifting sands kind of thing, where it’s like, hard to trace it.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Exactly, exactly. Yes, I was actually just on a call with a regen ag organization that I have a lot of respect for, but they are co-hosting an event with the, what was it? The planetary… plantarians or something like that. And I was like, you know, that there’s not anything organic or regenerative about eliminating meat, right, that we need grazing animals in order to have organic vegetables, like, you have to. And so it’s unfortunate that even in the regenerative ag grass-fed space, there are so many people that are saying, well, clearly, we need to, you know, all be moving towards this plant-based diet and just have meat as a condiment.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yeah. It is such a… I hope… I wonder sometimes about you, Diana, I mean, to me, sometimes it feels so… I get discouraged. Like it feels like when you realize how much money and how much profit is coming out of these interests to promote this. It feels like such a difficult like climb but yeah, it’s such a critical one.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Well, you know, I know of in Australia, the Adventist groups are very heavily invested in the cereal industry there and alt meats. I don’t know much about the US. Are you familiar with US-based?

Erin Skinner, RD  

I don’t know the detailed ins and outs of it, but yes, they are.  That’s their history, and they’ve been doing that since like the start of everything. Where like you said with Kellogg’s cornflakes and it’s just kind of never ended, and they still do have active sales of both the cereal grains and the meat replacement products, and that’s when I realize they’re not going to get back to me on this paper. [Erin and Diana laughing] Gotcha.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

So what do you spend your time mostly doing these days, Erin?

Erin Skinner, RD  

Well, I go back to what we originally talked about what was great about that experience was that I felt like our clinic was very successful at figuring out a model for insurance-based functional medicine. And the way that we figured it out was like, hey, look, one of the main core things that is time-consuming about functional medicine is that it is so diet centric, and that’s a time-consuming endeavor. And that’s why insurance companies pay for hour-long visits with dietitians, sometimes longer. And so if you keep the nutrition with a nutritionist, and you have the dietitian doing most of the majority of the counseling, and then you have the physician oversight, or whatever, the outside dietitians go, that dietitian can have short visits, and the whole thing can work fine. And so after I left that company, we live in North Carolina, and now I opened an insurance-based functional nutrition clinic, and then we’re adding the medical sides later this year, so it’s great we already have four dieticians. It’s been like I just opened in the fall. So it’s growing huge, very quickly. And it’s serving a lot of people. And also, I think part of my agenda is to provide realistic jobs for dietitians who are you interested in integrative and functional nutrition so that they’re not stuck with sort of like, Hey, you have to either be like you or me where we build ourselves from scratch or you have to get that clinical job, that’s not really the passion space. So it’s like, Hey, you can come into this employment, this W2 job and do this and get mentored and functional nutrition and get a good federal wage and the hospital with give you and we’re serving a lot of people who get and can access functional medicine with their insurance benefits, usually for free. There’s usually not even a copay.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

That’s amazing. It is definitely abysmal when I talk to people who want to become dietitians, I really encourage them to assess their personal ability to hustle, right? Because right, if you are not in private practice, and able to really drum up your own business, and be an entrepreneur, and all the things that come along with that have a blog and social media presence, because it’s not like you can just, you know, get your RD certificate and hang a plaque outside your door, and people are gonna come flooding in, right, because now all doctors in my area, they have to refer to dietitians that are within their practice. And so I have a handful of GI doctors that know that I can work, you know, run miracles with these weird IBS cases that they don’t – they’re like, Oh my gosh, I don’t know what to do. But you fix it. It’s like, okay, yeah, just basic diet changes. But in general, you really, if you want a job that’s not hospital-based, where you’re just doling out Boost supplements and feeding tubes, you really have to be your own boss. So I think that’s fantastic that you’re providing jobs that are stimulating for dietitians that actually use our brains and think outside the box.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Right. Because not everybody has years to go with like very minimal income, especially after they paid for their RD. And like you said it can be a personality thing where they could be great dietitians, but they’re just not business minded. And so I want something that’s more scalable, I guess for us as dietitians. But yeah, I want to hear, Diana, I know I’ve probably read closely, but maybe if you want to share with people what you’re up to these days.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Oh, sure, yeah. So I mentioned to you actually right before we got on the show I’ve been traveling a ton. And so I have my machine of Sustainable Dish. And I have some helpers that work with me to generate a new Instagram post every day. And we have blog posts that come out. We have one coming up on optimal foraging strategy and why you always have room for dessert. And what’s behind that, things like that. I started a new organization called the Global Food Justice Alliance, which is a nonprofit that advocates for the right of people to access nutrient-dense food like meat, milk, and eggs, and to really push back against this global anti-meat narrative. And so I’ve been raising money and touring around speaking about this and about all of the bias coming from science, the Global Burden of Disease study is completely corrupt. And that’s the anchor study for so many food policies around the world. So I just got back from Brazil. I’m going to the UK next week, and I’m not sure when this podcast is going come out. I will be back in the UK and then in Australia, New Zealand. And it seems like every country has a different battle with the anti-meat narrative. With Brazil, and I did a podcast with Robb about this. It’s really emissions emissions emissions, right? And so what are they doing, they’re going more to feedlot finishing because the shorter the animals live, the less emissions they put out. 

Erin Skinner, RD  

And a small fraction of emissions, I remember from your book that was so powerful.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

It’s small, and it’s a cycle. It’s like the water cycle. It’s like, so it’s very different than fossil fuel emissions, to begin with. In Ireland, they’re looking at culling livestock by 30%. That doesn’t mean that demand for meat is gonna go down by 30%. It just means that 30% of Irish farmers are going to be out of business, and more businesses are going to go to countries like Brazil to supply meat to Europe. So it’s just fascinating. New Zealand and Australia – there’s no vegan Fridays going on down there at all. But they have their own issues with protests with, you know, the Adventists groups that are controlling dietitians there and a lot of the messaging and taking away doctors’ licenses for promoting meat, things like that. So, I’ve been very busy, and I only see it, unfortunately, getting more busy as we just move forward with, you know, this idea of farting cattle causing all of our problems. Yeah, it’s just never-ending.

Erin Skinner, RD  

I already don’t know how you do it. And I’m amazed by you all the time, but I hope you’re… I just want to encourage you. What you do is so important. I know you know it, but there’s a whole world cheering for you. So…

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Well, thank you so much. I have to run because I promised to pick up kids three minutes from now. So I have to run.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Go for it. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

It was really great to chat with you. And I want everyone… how can they find you on Instagram? 

Erin Skinner, RD  

Yeah, we’re on Instagram at Empowered Nutrition.health, and our website is the same empowered nutrition.health and then Diana, go ahead, you could tell people if you want, and we’ll link it in the show notes on our side as well.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Sure I’m at sustainable dish and at global food justice.

Erin Skinner, RD  

Perfect. It was so great to chat with you. Diana.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

All right. Thank you so much. Have a great day

Erin Skinner, RD  

You as well. Bye.

Diana Rodgers, RD 

Thanks so much for listening to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. If you liked the show, please leave a review on iTunes. And if you’d like to support the work I’m doing on Patreon, please visit sustainabledish.com/join. As a Patreon subscriber, you’ll get access to ad-free podcasts, plus exclusive video podcasts, never before seen interviews, and a discussion community. Go to sustainabledish.com/join, and thank you for your support.

 

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