Reactions to an RFK Food Pyramid Experiment

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1:05the last show with David Cooper people have strong opinions about food what's healthy what's lazy what's morally superior to eat I am here with someone who did an eating experiment she tried mowing munching down on the white houses RFK inspired diet for a week and by doing so she triggered a full blown internet food fight I'm here with reporter at business insider Emily Stewart Emily welcome to the show thank you for having me I gotta ask for those who don't know what it is before we get into what you did what is the RFK diet and what is a normal day of eating it actually look like well I mean to be fair I feel like what I meant in the story is like the the White House came out with a new food food pyramid right like you think of the food pyramid of like the 90s when it was like have all of the carbs that you would ever want like at least in the US and so they came up a new food pyramid RFK is obviously like the face of health and human services in the White House and so basically kind of what it says is like lots of meat lots of

2:09whole fats lots of whole foods which like isn't actually that kind of nuts but it is like also you know not really how everybody eats like yes we all aspire to eat like very healthy et cetera et cetera but like we also live like normal lives and like having a steak and a whole milk for dinner is not where everybody I'm just picturing my Jewish mother mixing milk and meat and her yelling at me if I had a glass of milk with a steak I would not do that but yes steak every night of the week like like there's some things guidance that have certainly changed in the messaging what did you end up eating for that week so basically what I did is like because not only was I doing like the RFK diet but also the agriculture as secretary had said like you can accomplish this initially she said $3 a meal and she was like you can have like a tortilla piece of chicken and if he's a broccoli which okay actually not that bad but whatever and then she said $15 a day and so what I did was try to

3:09like accomplish this diet so I like went to the grocery store and I bought like I have to chat GPT but to get it because I'm like not the best cook and like we did our best but like so I basically wound up with like a lot of ground beef which like I cannot eat for the foreseeable future chicken like rice lentils chickpeas it like it seems to favor like cooked vegetables so I got like frozen peas and like frozen vegetables are actually sold at my fridge and it according to chat GPT like chick cheese was allowed so I got some like cheddar cheese and then I just like spent a week kind of like subsisting on this food and like the truth of it was like it wasn't that hard like $15 a day even in New York City is not like the end all be all but it was like very boring kind of like at some when I was like asking chat GPT like what to do at some point it was like this is about maximal compliance like not maximal pleasure and

4:09like by day like three or four like I felt that one a little bit like I actually wound up reaching out to a friend who did I attrition being like what should I do here and she was like you got a layoff the ground fee like what are we doing but like because I couldn't on my budget like a Ford steak you know it would be like oh you can have like blueberries and it's like okay but like if I have blueberries like they're $10 like there goes a lot of my budget if I'm on like $115 a week and so it was just like a fun little experiment of like thinking about food and like how I eat and like how we all eat and like also just like personally I'm really not great at cooking so by the end of the week I was like pretty over it in terms of like eating different forms of like mush basically so you follow the federal government's instructions you do your best you have fun with it yes how do the people the internet people who I'm sure all were completely normal and sane and not bad at all how did they respond to you doing this you know truly like it was the price of the story

5:14I'm in a little bit viral I think like we have a comment section now I'd be either really like over 200 comments and I did go through and I read them all one and like they were not as nice as one would hope somebody said I was like the Marie Antoinette of the 21st century but people like have a lot of feelings about food right and so some people were very nice and really here's some cooking tips you seem not great at this like one man emailed to tell me I was stupid and like you know so many mailing women to tell them they're stupid that's the first I've ever heard that very rare but you know people have a lot of like feelings about food whether it be like someone thought I was not like trying hard enough some of them thought that I was biased like against the White House some of them thought I was biased for the White House like it really has been like all over the map and I think it was like exemplary in example of like we're also judgmental about food you know like I remember as a kid like I would bring like I would buy lunch at school and like other kids would make fun of me and my mom would be like people shouldn't care what you're eating and it's like true but it was like genuinely quite

6:16hurtful and I think like people are just like weird about this kind of stuff like last week I published a follow-up story on this and I was like in the middle McDonald's getting coffee because they have very good coffee and like some lady had reached out to me on LinkedIn and like God bless her but to like argue with me about like whether calcium was like in whole milk or not and I was like I don't know man like God bless and also like what are we doing here like people have a lot of feelings why these these reactions sound intense and odd why do you think food debates get people so oddly emotional compared to other daily habits like if you did a teeth brushing experiment based on what the dentist recommend I don't think you'd have this reaction yeah I mean I think like there's a lot of kind of like we treat food as like a moral type thing sometimes right like we get to clear foods like good or bad and like some of that's just like diet culture but some of it's also like kind of this virtue signaling thing right if you think about like online there's a lot of debate a lot of the tire about like cooking at home versus like using door dash or seamless

7:19or some sort of delivery service and I think like some of it's just like we've kind of been trained to like this food is good this food is bad and it's like a little bit screwed up and I think you know also it is something that like food is like a big part of our lives like we do have to decide what's for dinner literally every day for all of our lives and like as much as we don't like think that we think about it you know we do and I think it's just like I don't know I think we're pretty like judgmental about it like I wound up calling some of the people who had like emailed me and like they were genuinely like all pretty nice with like one exception but like you know I talked to one man out in Nevada and he was like really doing some strict diet stuff that he's been doing for a decade of like all whole foods makes his own bread like literally does not even believe in like instant yeast or fusion like really but he kind of said he was like listen if I go to a barbecue I'm gonna eat what's coming off the girl and not worry about it and like I do this for me and like that seemed like a very healthy way to be of like he had decided a decade ago like he

8:24was gonna follow this strict diet he done a bunch of reading like and God bless him but like he was like normal he was like in being not normal he was like probably the most normal person that I talked to about like feelings do I want to know about the call that went bad or was it just ugly rude mean I mean it was I mean I honestly I called the guy who had emailed to tell me I was stupid oh no which was fine I mean I'll see it was like not that bad it was more like I don't I was surprised he agreed to talk and then I don't think he realized that like I was gonna like bring it up and like it was all very cordial his wife was in the background I think they were like excited to talk to a reporter and like he was telling me about like his diet and then I do kind of have to say like okay but like why do you think you got so upset about this I'm just like I didn't get upset and I was like we'll email stranger like to call them stupid you know like it's different he was just kind of like what we lived in a poll we live in a polarize time and everybody's biased and he was like you know I didn't like your tone and I was like well I didn't

9:24like yours either sounds like you and him could have a blossoming friendship yeah I mean honestly it was like I think sometimes like the overall lesson besides like being about like feelings about food is that like you know the internet it makes it really easy to kind of be a jerk to strangers and like when we actually have to talk to each other and deal with each other like most of us are pretty like nice and normal and like that's kind of the bigger takeaway from me and like hopefully people stop emailing me about what I'm eating I'm so tired of thinking about and talking about it well to that end that's all the time we have we will stop talking about it Emily but I've enjoyed discussing it with you you can read about Emily's experience in our article and business insider where she's a reporter the articles titled my RFK diet experiment went viral the backlash turned into a political food fight Emily it's been a joy chatting with you on the program thanks for your time yeah thank you Ryan Reynolds here from int mobile I don't know if you knew this but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been

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