Oh my god, I think this is one of my favorite topics.

Okay, let's go.

So you know how people say, well, it's fruit so it's natural.

Yeah, okay, so I have a scoop for you.

The fruit that we have today in our supermarkets is not natural.

Just like humans bred gray wolves into chihuahuas for their entertainment, humans have been crossing and breeding fruit for millennia to make them more appetizing for humans, to make them sweeter, to make them have fewer seeds, less fiber.

If you look at an ancestral banana, it's tiny, it's full of seeds, it's quite dense and it's not very sweet.

If you look at a banana today, it's very sweet, very little fiber, very little seeds, super easy to eat.

Humans have been creating these fruits to be extra juicy and extra sweet and extra full of sugar.

So that's one thing to note.

The fruit you see today in the supermarket is not natural.

However, a piece of fruit still has fiber in it.

And fiber is protective, as I explained at the beginning.

Fiber helps reduce the glucose spike of a meal because it creates that mesh in the intestine.

So if you want to eat something sweet, eating fiber is still the best.

Sorry, eating a piece of whole fruit is still the best thing to do because of that fiber blunting the spike from the sugar.

The problem arises when we denature that piece of fruit.

So maybe we're going to juice an apple.

As a result, we're removing all the fiber from the apple and we're concentrating the sugar that was already being concentrated for centuries by humans in that whole apple.

When we dry fruit, we take away all of the water.

So we concentrate the sugar and we eat way more pieces of dried fruit than we would a regular fruit.

And what's, I think, particularly concerning about that is there's quite a few companies now which are targeting children with dried fruits.

And I think many parents are, again, I always say this and I want to reiterate this point.

I genuinely believe that all parents are doing the best that they can in the context of their life situation, the context of their knowledge.

But I'm not sure that those dried fruit packets are the best thing to be giving our kids, particularly on an empty stomach.

Yes.

Although you could argue that dried fruit is better than candy because at least it has some fiber in it.

But what would be even better if you really want to give dried fruit would be to pair it with some nuts, for example.

So you make a little snack with a few dried apricots and then some pecans or whatever.

That's better because you're putting some clothes on the carbs, right?

I get it.

And that's what I love about all your suggestions.

They can be applied by anyone in any situation, no matter what diet they're following.

Yes.

Little hacks, little tweaks just to make things a little bit better than they would have otherwise been, right?

Exactly.

We're not talking like big overhaul of your life, of your food habits.

No, no, no.

Small tweaks, big impact.

Yeah.

Adding those nuts into the dried fruit, you can see how it could be really tasty.

Yeah, absolutely.

And change the blood sugar response.

Absolutely.

Now, I had a thought there, Jessie.

A lot of the time, the cultural wisdom that's there, we're now learning the modern science again.

That's why that works.

Now, the only place where I think your recommendations don't match up with certainly the ancient wisdom that I'm aware of is with fruit on empty stomachs.

Because I know in Ayurvedic medicine for many years, they had been talking about if you're eating a piece of fruit, have it before your meal, because then it's digested really easily and it doesn't then sort of fester on top of your meal afterwards.

Now, first of all, I welcome your thoughts on that.

But just a little addition there.

Based on what you just said about the fact that the way fruit is bred now compared to how fruit was bred in the past, maybe two or three thousand years ago, the fruit that we were getting, lower in sugar, not quite as sweet.

Maybe that worked then.

Maybe it doesn't work so well now.

I don't know.

But what's your sort of perspective on that?

Well, this is a very common question.

And I was fascinated by it.

I was like, OK, where does this come from?

Like, why do we think that fruit rots in the stomach if it's eaten last?

And through my research, I found that there was a doctor in the Renaissance who said that fruit, and this is a separate branch from the Ayurveda stuff, but this doctor said that if you eat fruit after a meal, it's going to rot and putrefy in your stomach and create all these vapors and stuff.

That doctor just said that.

I mean, I don't know where he pulled that out of, but it just is not true.

Like, nothing actually rots or putrefies in the stomach.

So, that particular thing about the rotting is just not true.

Nothing can rot in the stomach, actually.

So, there is this ancient wisdom about having the fruit on an empty stomach or at the beginning of a meal.

And to that I say, well, we have two opposing views, right?

We have the glucose science, which says if you want to eat something sweet, the best time for your glucose is at the end of a meal.

And we have ancient wisdom that could also, you know, have some really good sources.

So, maybe where we land is if you don't feel any discomfort by eating fruit after a meal, maybe you do that.

And if you're somebody and your body's like, no, it's not working, maybe it gives you bloating or whatever, then you switch it up, you know?

It's up to you to sort of tailor these recommendations to other things going on in your life.

So, what you're recommending is we take a pragmatic, nuanced approach to our health.

Mind-blowing!

It's 2023, that's not the way it goes.

Yeah, I know, I know.

And I think this is also why, you know, my work has been so well received, is that it feels fresh and nice and it's no longer an extreme diet.

It's not like cut out entire food groups.

It's like, okay, guys, I think we're over diets.

Personally, I would rather we never, ever have any diets ever again.

So, what about we use all this recent science and we find these principles that are easy, that have a big impact on our physical and our mental health, that are not very hard, don't cost any money.

And how about we do that?

And people seem to be quite happy with that approach.

Jessie, it's almost impossible now to have the audience size which you have and not get pushed back.

Okay, I'm sure it's technically possible, but I would say it's almost impossible.

If and when people push back against your work, what is the common thing they say and how do you respond?

So, I've experienced like multiple waves of this and I sort of categorize pushback or criticism in two camps.

So, there's like the stuff that really I can't do anything about, for example, people who don't want to hear any information about food because maybe they had an eating dessert in the past, maybe they're just like, no.

So, for those people, my work is like, they just hate it because I'm talking about food.

Those things I don't really pay attention to because, you know.

It's not for them.

Exactly.

And then you have the useful criticism.

And from the beginning of the Glucose Goddess project, I've always really listened to feedback, whether it's in comments or in DMs or in real life.

Because my purpose here is to make science accessible, to make it inclusive, to make sure that I'm serving the people that I want to give this information to.

So, I would say the biggest criticisms have been from people with type 1 diabetes.

Maybe this was a year ago that it started happening, that they didn't like that I was using a glucose monitor as a person without diabetes.

And I really listened very carefully to this because a lot of people were sharing with how saddened it made them that I was like showing my glucose monitor like, hey, I'm wearing a glucose monitor.

And for them, it was a device that they need to survive.

And so, I really took that to heart.

And I started thinking a lot about my glucose monitor approach and, you know, whether I think it's for everybody.

I stopped also posting photos of myself with the device being like, hey, glucose monitor.

Now, I really am just like, I'm using it to make the illustrative graphs, but I no longer use it as like a fashion statement.

Yeah.

You know?

So, that was really, really helpful.

I think another thing that people push back on is the clothes on carbs thing.

They say, yes, but if you take it to an extreme, it could be harmful.

Like, as I explained at the beginning, you could put two pounds of butter on a piece of bread and that would reduce the spike, but you need to have more nuance.

And that I think I really addressed it in the book quite well.

I think you do address it really well.

I think, you know, I've read both books and I think you're really clear that this is not to stress you out, right?

This is not necessarily to be applied in every situation.

This is to try and help you, right?

Yeah, sure.

In an ideal world, we'd all eat an exclusively whole food diet that was naturally stabilizing our blood sugars.

But the reality is most people, or at least many people, are going to struggle with that.

Yes.

And I think, particularly in the second book, this new book, the testimonials, I just love reading them.

You know, you mentioned eating disorders.

There is a testimonial, right?

There's a testimonial, I can't remember which book it's in, about bulimia and how a young lady, I think, with bulimia said your method has really helped them.

And before you answer, I've quite a lot of thoughts on what you just said.

And, you know, I've been trying to communicate health messaging to the public since maybe 2014 now, through TV shows, books, podcasts, whatever it might be, right?

And you simply cannot anymore communicate health information and not get pushback.

And the reality is not all information is for everyone, right?

I try, I think like you do, to be as compassionate as possible when putting out that information.

And now I can be relatively detached if and when pushback comes and go, yeah, I can actually learn from that.

That's a good point.

Or I actually disagree with that.

Or I can see that that person is being really, really triggered by something.

This ain't about me.

This is about them, right?

So I think taking a compassionate approach to that has been really helpful.

I understand what you're saying about the type 1 diabetics and I can understand why certain members of that community may feel like that.

But technology and progress is going to come in every form.

CGMs are here.

They're here to stay.

They're only going to get more and more popular.

I do believe they can be a valuable tool for some people with the right education, with the right context.

I think they can be an incredible tool for the right person.

Yeah.

And to be fair, there's a whole other part of the community of people with type 1 diabetes who are super happy that I'm wearing one because it destigmatizes it for them.

There you go.

So there's always, you know, pros and cons.

And on the eating disorders front, I really got very interested in this topic.

And I spoke to many experts on the subject because I got a few comments being like, oh, these rules are just an eating disorder waiting to happen.

And I thought that was really unfortunate that, you know, we need to nuance something that's a diet and that's really unhealthy, unscientific, completely random and could cause some difficult behaviors, but also with advice that people need because people are so, and that was a tough one for me to get through.

I was like, okay, how, like, where do I land?

Like, what's true about not wanting to encourage disordered eating?

And what's true about wanting to give these very important pieces of information that are life changing and potentially life saving?

So, but it's an ongoing journey, you know, the pushback.

I try to learn from every thing that happens.

Yeah, you get this.

I've definitely had it when we've done podcasts on fasting before.

And I've thought long and hard about this.

Is this irresponsible?

Should I be doing it?

And where I've landed is, you know, I try and caveat it.

I try and make sure in the introductions to each podcast, we say this may not be suitable for people who are recovering from or suffering with eating disorders.

Having said that, some people with eating disorders find fasting incredibly useful.

I know that because people are fed back.

And also, let's just look at what's going on around us.

You know, in America, what is it?

88 or 90% of people may be metabolically unhealthy, right?

Stabilizing their blood sugar is going to save their life.

Yeah, exactly.

Right?

Exactly.

So, and I think we all, and I know it's hard because I know sometimes it's parents of kids who are struggling.

They've got like a 12 year old or a 14 year old who's really struggling with an eating disorder.

And then they get often, and I can totally understand it, feel very defensive and upset when they see certain posts.

But I'm not sure I have the solution to it apart from trying to approach these things with compassion.

Yes.

I don't know because not everything is for everyone.

Absolutely.

And then, you know, you also have to remember that of the people reading your books, listening to your podcast, reading your content, like 99% of people are so thrilled and happy.

And then there are a few people who are triggered or upset that will comment.