Podcast Episode 219: Micronutrient Deficiencies & Dietary Diversity – Dr. Ty Beal

[00:00:00] Melissa: Hello. And welcome back to the sound bites podcast. Today’s episode is about healthy and sustainable diets. We will focus. on the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies and why this is important to be aware of. It’s actually a bigger issue and happening a lot closer to home than you might think. We’re going to take a look at how nutrient density and bioavailability factor into this equation.

My guest today is Dr. Ty Beal. He’s a research advisor on the knowledge leadership team for the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition or GAIN in Washington, DC. Dr. Beal’s research seeks to understand what people eat and how it impacts their health and the planet. Welcome to the show, Dr. Beal.

[00:00:47] Ty: Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

[00:00:48] Melissa: I’m so excited to talk with you. And I do want our listeners to know that this podcast episode is a collaboration between sound bites and beef it’s what’s for dinner, a contractor to the beef checkoff. As a compensated member of the beef expert bureau, on behalf of the beef checkoff, my role is to share the science and support for beef’s role in a healthy diet, but we are gonna be talking a lot about other things other than beef today.

And we are also submitting this podcast for one free continuing education unit through the commission on dietetic registration for registered dietitian nutritionists, dietetic technicians registered and certified diabetes care and education specialists.

So stay tuned for that. You can visit the shownotes. Or my ceu Page @soundbitesrd.com for more information.

Before we get into the topic of today’s episode, I would love to hear a little bit more about your background and your work, perhaps how you got interested in this field in the first place. And of course your areas of expertise.

[00:01:53] Ty: Sure. So I started graduate school at UC Davis it’s university of California Davis, in the geography program, but I ended up getting a emphasis, a designated emphasis in global nutrition. UC Davis is really known for their global nutrition program. And when I started graduate school, I got really interested in the nutrition world.

I started attending nutrition seminars and even though there wasn’t a formal emphasis for my program, which was geography, I ended up applying for that. And after a couple years they approved it. So. I did a mix of geography and nutrition and epidemiology, ecology, and even some agricultural courses.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it was a really broad background.

[00:02:38] Melissa: Exciting. Like I can see how UC Davis could be that environment that would cultivate that sort of unique mix of interests.

[00:02:48] Ty: Yeah, exactly. For me, it was really great. A lot of people had a problem with so much diversity, so much difference, like people not knowing exactly where to focus..

You have too many different disciplines. But I really enjoyed that. And I think working in the food system, it really sets you up to understand better how everything interacts. And so directly out of that program, I got hired at GAIN where I currently work, and that was just a really nice transition.

I’m able to focus a lot on research and the science side of things, but also do practical work that helps to inform programs and global topics like diets and how is malnutrition, and what’s the cause of malnutrition in different contexts.

[00:03:32] Melissa: Wonderful. So building on that, I would love to hear a little bit more about GAIN itself and your role there. And also, I always ask my guests, if there’s any disclosures that you have to note yourself.

[00:03:45] Ty: Sure. Yeah. Just to start, I don’t have any disclosures. So my organization GAIN is a global NGO. We seek to improve access to nutritious and safe foods that are produced sustainably. And we work primarily in Africa and in Southeast Asia, but we do have global efforts as well.

So we really are trying to intervene in the food system to try to make a difference in people’s diets and reduce malnutrition. I specifically work on the team called knowledge leadership. This is the team that works on the research and evaluation and monitoring of programs. And so my specific role has been geared more towards global analyses and projects or programs that are focused more on data analysis or data collection. So I work a lot on, right now, collecting diet quality data worldwide, trying to understand those patterns and also the relationship between diet quality and malnutrition and other variables of interest.

[00:04:46] Melissa: Great. Thank you so much. And just to clarify you said you have no disclosures to note, and so I just wanted to make sure like I said, this episode is a collaboration between sound bites and beef It’s what’s for dinner. But you are not receiving an honorarium from beef. It’s what for dinner? You have no disclosures there either.

[00:05:03] Ty: Right.

[00:05:04] Melissa: Okay, great. Thank you. So we’re going to be focusing on micronutrient deficiencies and, and touching on some other related aspects, but you’re mentioning how you are involved in diet quality assessment and I talk about this from time to time on the podcast, but I would love to maybe address briefly sort of the challenges of collecting that data.

Because we know that there are some limitations and challenges, but I would just love to hear from your experience and your perspective, what those are so that we can kind of keep that into context as we move forward with this conversation.

[00:05:43] Ty: Yeah. I wish there were not so many challenges to collecting data on what people eat and really having a lot of confidence in that.

But there certainly are. You know, people don’t always remember what they’ve eaten. Depending on the type of method used to collect that information, there are better and worse ways to do it. There is a range of people who may be interviewing folks, different strategies and different methods. So you could be in person, it could be over the phone.

You could be doing what are considered better methods, such as a 24 hour recall where you kind of go through an open recall asking and probing for anything that’s been consumed in the past day or night to things like a food frequency questionnaire, where you just ask a few specific questions. People for one, they don’t always remember what they’ve eaten.

Trying to understand the exact quantity of foods is very hard. And even if you do remember, there are biases that can come in. So there is social desirability bias, for example, where people may not want to report how much they’ve eaten or foods that they consider unhealthy. Cuz it doesn’t feel good to, to always say that. People may not be honest about that.

So there are a lot of challenges. And then of course the sampling strategy of what population are you referring to? The timeframe, the season. Foods/diets change across seasons. So it’s really a challenge to get accurate data. And with any data that we have, we have to just realize that there’s a limitation that we don’t always know with perfect certainty, exactly what people are eating.

[00:07:16] Melissa: Great. Thank you. It is very complex, but at the end of the day some data is better than no data. And so I, yeah, I appreciate you addressing that.

So let’s start off with this burden of malnutrition globally. Where should we start with that? You have this focus and this interest, and I’m just curious what are you seeing on a global scale?

[00:07:41] Ty: Sure. There are about 150 million stunted children – and that’s children who are not growing at the speed, at the velocity that they should be for proper development that can have lifelong consequences. It’s a little bit over 20% globally. So that’s a huge burden. Especially in low and middle income countries.

And a lot of that relates to diet quality. A lot of other factors as well, clean water, access to healthcare, et cetera. Over 500 million women of reproductive age have anemia. So that is a big health burden as well. Much of the anemia is caused from iron deficiency, which is related to diet quality as well.

There’s also anemia that’s not related, but about 50 million, just under 50 million children are wasted. So that is a much more acute condition of not having access to enough food in the short term. And one of the studies that we are currently working on, we’re looking at micronutrient deficiencies specifically.

And so we find about 1.6 billion women of reproductive age and preschool-aged children have one or more micronutrient deficiencies. These are large numbers, it’s a big toll globally. And especially with micronutrient deficiencies, we even see quite surprisingly high burdens, even in high income context, like the U.S.

[00:08:59] Melissa: Yes. When we think of malnutrition, we do tend to think of lower income countries. We don’t tend to think of the U.S., but in your work, you are seeing micronutrient deficiencies in the U.S.. So can you tell us like what nutrients we’re lacking? Why you think that’s happening and then we’ll also discuss foods that provide those nutrients as well as some other related aspects.

[00:09:24] Ty: Yeah. So in the U.S., we don’t have data on all nutrients, that’s for sure. But we do have some micronutrient status biomarker data, particularly in women. So this is 15 to 49 years old. We see iron deficiency as just over 20% which is quite high. And even zinc deficiency is about 14% from our data. So those two nutrients are certainly important, and often can be lacking in the diet as well.

And the best sources of those are generally animal-source foods. When we look at dietary data in the U.S., there’s also inadequacies in certain nutrients like magnesium or vitamin E for example, that are often higher in plant foods, but from the biomarker data that we have, iron deficiency really stands out to be the highest prevalence.

[00:10:13] Melissa: Okay. So why do you think we’re seeing these deficiencies in the U.S. when we have – We do have food insecurity and rising rates of obesity, but we have for the most part, an abundant food supply.

[00:10:26] Ty: Well, I think for starters, there are very high requirements for women during that time period. It’s actually challenging to consume enough iron.

It’s not just something in most food systems – You can’t just eat whatever you want and have that take place. So even if you do have access to foods, to really meet the iron requirements you have to be pretty intentional. And we also see from recent evidence that intake of iron has actually been decreasing.

And so part of this could be from changes in fortified foods. One thing we do know is that beef consumption has decreased over the last decade and a half by about 15%. Poultry has increased. And so that right there has a shift in the amount of iron and the amount of heme iron, in particular.

So I do think it could be related to that partly and just overall diets seem not to be providing as much iron as they have been in the past.

[00:11:20] Melissa: Okay. So, yeah, from what I understand, our meat or protein intake has remained about the same, but the beef intake has gone down, like you said, replaced with chicken, which the iron is higher and more bioavailable in the beef than the chicken.

[00:11:33] Ty: Exactly. So it’s actually, there’s a higher quantity, but there’s also about two thirds of that iron is heme iron in beef and other ruminant meat, but in poultry it’s much lower than that. So I think it’s, it’s closer to 25% or so, is heme iron. So the, the, heme iron is a much more bioavailable. And you’re seeing an impact probably from the difference there.

[00:11:57] Melissa: Yeah. Let’s talk about bioavailability for a minute. Some of our listeners will be familiar with that term. Others might be kind of a new concept to them and I’ve touched on it here and there, but I think it’s really important to explain how some nutrients are more available or better absorbed in certain foods or certain forms.

And sometimes that’s animal food. Sometimes it’s plant foods. Sometimes it’s a combination. So can you kind of give us the 411 on bioavailability?

[00:12:28] Ty: Sure. So bioavailability has to do with the form that the nutrients are in and how the body can make use of those nutrients. And so I think two of the key nutrients that have pretty important differences across animal source foods to plant source foods is really the iron and zinc.

For one there’s amount of heme iron in the food, which we discussed with beef and poultry, but only animal source foods contain heme iron. And so a higher proportion of heme iron is absorbed than non-heme iron. And in plant source foods, there is only non-heme iron. So if you have a similar amount of iron in a plant source food versus something like beef, you’re not going to absorb as much, cuz it’s not as bioavailable.

There are also issues for iron with antinutrients that can inhibit absorption. So this is something like phytate or tannins in tea. Phytate is pretty high in pulses. So beans and lentils nuts and seeds as well as whole grains. And so the amount of phytate and the overall diet influences how much iron can be absorbed and the bioavailability of that iron.

Zinc similarly is influenced by phytate among other antinutrients. So it’s really important when you’re trying to understand, which is what we do, is what is the estimated prevalence of inadequate intake. There are actually different requirements, depending on the diet. So for example, if you’re on a vegan or vegetarian diet, the iron requirements are about 1.8 times higher.

So the targets are different. And that is precisely because of the differences in bioavailability. For zinc, it can range from about 1.7 times higher when you have a really high phytate diet. It’s not unhealthy to have phytate, there actually can be benefits to phytate, but you have to recognize that there’s an impact on bioavailability. And so I don’t think that’s always accounted for, and in, if you look at on a nutrition facts panel, the percent of the RDA for iron and zinc, it’s not accounting for that. Whereas certain nutrients like vitamin A, there is actually already an adjustment built into the metrics.

So, a vitamin A from a plant source in general, those are carotenoids. So those are converted about 12 to one to retinol, which is the form that can be used by the body. Whereas animal source foods contain retinol. So there is in this what’s called a retinol activity equivalent, which accounts for that.

So it’s about a 12 to one difference. So it’s 12 times more bioavailable in animal source foods. But at least when you’re looking at the package, you can see, okay, if it’s from a sweet potato versus. a dairy product, like milk that is already gonna be accounted for. Whereas I think the challenge with iron and zinc is that there’s no adjustment in the indicator itself.

[00:15:22] Melissa: Hmm, that’s a really good point. Thank you for explaining that to us. So you recently published a paper on priority micronutrient density foods. So tell us what this means and what you found in your research.

[00:15:38] Ty: Sure. So this was really building on previous work, where we were looking at what are the largest nutrient gaps globally, when we look across countries worldwide. We wanted to understand that from the available data. So we looked at previous project, looked at different data sources like biomarkers of micronutrient status, where you could see what the deficiency prevalence is for different populations, estimated prevalence of an adequate intake based on dietary intake data, and even adequacy of food supplies where you just look at a crude marker of the food supply and look at the nutrient adequacy of that food supply.

So we looked across countries and we really see, there’s not data on every nutrient, but we saw six nutrients where it was very clear that there were gaps worldwide.

So those were iron, zinc, vitamin A, folate, vitamin B12 and calcium. And there are certainly other inadequacies and deficiencies worldwide, but those six really stood out. And the other important thing is that there’s a public health burden from those nutrients and the data that we were looking at worldwide, what are called food composition databases contain those six nutrients pretty commonly, whereas they don’t always contain other nutrients.

And so we built a database to say, look, what is the density of different foods. You think about all the different types of foods that you would consume, in terms of a minimally processed diet, not looking at packaged processed foods. We looked at the nutrient density when also considering the bioavailability.

So the discussion we just had about iron and zinc, we really tried to account for that to the best we could so that you could look at a range of foods that are supplying different quantities, but also different forms of that food. So we adjust for the bioavailability in the metric.

[00:17:25] Melissa: Thank you for sharing that.

I’m curious as we’re talking, I know you’re talking about minimally processed foods and not so much packaged foods, but wondering your thoughts on fortified foods. I know that we have seen with like the folate fortification in some grain based foods that has helped prevent neural tube defects and spina bifida.

So and certainly we see like dairy is fortified with vitamin A vitamin D or I should say milk is. And with B12 being only naturally occurring in animal source foods, curious your thoughts on fortification of foods and how that can help these public health concerns.

[00:18:06] Ty: Sure. I think fortification is a really important public health strategy to help fill some of these important nutrient gaps.

And we’ve actually seen a lot of success stories. Iodine is one of them. Iodized salt has made a big impact on iodine deficiency and reduction of goiter. I think folate is another example. I think in the U.S. folate, from our data, we don’t see a lot of folate deficiency. Whereas if you look at the diet, not looking at the fortification, you actually see inadequate intake of folate.

So I think that’s filling a gap. Certainly. I think the limitation of fortification is that foods contain tens of thousands of compounds and nutrients. It’s a lot more than the handful of nutrients that are fortified. There are potential health effects of those compounds, especially when they’re combined in a natural food matrix.

And so I think there’s a risk of saying, oh, the problem is just, we’re gonna lack some nutrients in the diet. So we’re gonna fortify our foods and then you can eat whatever you want. I think that we see in the U.S. the very high intakes of ultra processed foods. So even if they’re fortified, they could be leading to excess intake, other health risks that increase your risk for non-communicable diseases.

And so I think it’s ideal to consume nutrient dense foods that are minimally processed for a lot of reasons. Also for absorption and bioavailability reasons and to not get excess, which can happen through fortification or supplements.

But I think it’s a good safety net. And so I think it should play a role going forward continually. But we should still seek to improve diet quality overall.

[00:19:45] Melissa: Thank you. Yes. I’m thinking like vitamin D is not found in naturally occurring in many foods and we get it from the sun and I always say I’m in Chicago.

There’s not a lot of sun here. But yeah, so certain nutrients, maybe that are really hard to get in the diet, even with the best intentions and the best availability, but could be fortified, and help offset some of those deficiencies. I also am seeing more and more, this move toward clean labels and those shorter ingredients lists.

I just attended the Institute of food technologists conference in Chicago. And I think it looks like the clean label movement is really kinda getting away from the free from origins that it started from like free from whatever free from fat free from gluten, whatever to better for you or better for me.

Now kind of ranging over into the sustainability arena. So it’s very interesting, but one of the things that a lot of people, I think don’t realize, and even a lot of health professionals don’t realize is sometimes when a product is shifting to a clean label and that short ingredients list, what happens is they don’t fortify the product.

And because some of those ingredients are listed are vitamins and minerals. Curious if you have a thought on that as well.

[00:21:10] Ty: That’s a really good point. I think I have myself even been shifting away from some foods with a lot of added ingredients and whatnot. And I think that can be concerning if your diet is not really nutrient dense.

I think certainly it would be ideal if you can consume such a diverse, nutrient dense diet that you don’t need any fortified foods. But I think the reality is that most people don’t actually consume a diet that will meet all of their nutrient requirements. And so I think there could be a negative consequence to shifting away from foods that contain added nutrients to them for that very reason. You could risk having inadequacy. So whatever nutrient that is if it could be B12, if you’re not consuming a lot of animal source foods, for example, and you’re not wanting to have many foods that have lots of ingredients or ingredients you don’t, you can’t pronounce or understand, then I think that could be a concern, right? So you mentioned vitamin D. Calcium is another one, folate, even iron.

[00:22:13] Melissa: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So, and I should clarify, I’m not talking about like chips or cookies. I’m talking about like instant oatmeal or some healthier frozen dinners that have fresh pasta in them. They’re not putting the B vitamins in there and kind of – I don’t wanna say an unintended consequence or, but maybe just like something that isn’t really even on people’s radar, but when you’re looking at those vitamins and minerals that you expect to be. In certain foods as fortified, but.

What else do you wanna share with U.S. about your research on these priority Micronutrient density, foods? We talked a little bit about iron and zinc and B12 a little bit about folate, but anything else about calcium perhaps since we didn’t really touch much on that?

[00:23:01] Ty: Most people probably in the U.S. would think, okay, dairy is the best source of calcium, which it is a great source.

But we also specifically find small fish that are consumed with the bone, or if you have canned fish with bones. So let’s say you have some canned salmon and the bones are in that can, those can actually be really good sources as well. And then in terms of plant source foods, dark green, leafy vegetables are really the top source.

And one thing that I think is sometimes misunderstood. Is about the bioavailability differences of calcium. From all of the evidence that I’ve looked at, there are pretty similar levels of bioavailability when you look at these dark green leafy vegetables, like kale, chard, spinach compared to dairy foods.

And so, it’s not a huge concern about the differences there. It’s really about what’s the quantity. Can you eat enough dark leafy greens to get that? There was one study that showed that the bioavailability of calcium in spinach in the U.S. was very low. And I think that’s the only study I’ve seen that showed that.

So that’s potentially possible. But when you look on average globally, when you look at all different dark green leafy vegetables, there’s similar levels of Biovailability for

[00:24:13] Melissa: calcium. Yeah. So then, like you said, it’s more the quantity. I did work for the dairy council for eight years and I remember we’d talk about how many cups of broccoli would you have to equal a cup of milk and kind of speaking to the, like you said, with the phytate interfering with iron absorption and so on.

So yeah, so bioavailability, but also the quantity of the nutrient.

So I understand you’re working on another paper, maybe kind of looking a little bit more at the sustainability aspect of our conversation today. You’re working on another paper, on the role of animal source foods in healthy and environmentally sustainable diets.

And it’s kind of cool cuz you’re bringing together some authors with some really different perspectives. So I would love to hear more about this project.

[00:25:04] Ty: Sure. I’m super excited about this paper. So the one of the editors of the journal of nutrition asked U.S. to write a paper, reviewing the role of animal source foods in healthy and sustainable diets.

Stella Nordhagen and Lawrence Haddad. To get at this question of the role of animal source foods…

And a couple of years ago, my colleague Stella nor Hogan, and I wrote a paper with our executive director Lauren Sadad to really try to get at this question of the role of animal source series, because they’re contentious topic. They’re increasingly being brought up in discussions, especially around the environmental side of things, but they’re definitely controversial and controversial on the health side and the environmental side.

And so what I’m really excited about is that I’m trying to bring people on who tend to fall on different sides of the aisle when you look at what’s their role. So those who may be more in favor of a moderate amount of animal source foods and others who are in favor of reducing animal source foods, but with people who are very reasonable and open to evidence and really wanting to just understand things the best that we can.

And so we’re going through and we almost actually are finished with this, so we’ll be submitting it soon. We’ve gone through specifically on the health side and looked at what are the benefits? What are the potential unique components of animal source foods nutrient-wise across the life phase, and then looking at the primary health risk that you would be concerned about that people have raised concerns over.

So things like processed meat, unprocessed red meat, saturated fat. And then we just try to address things in the most balanced way possible. And similarly, on the environmental side, we look at what are the risks and benefits. When we break things down through land use, soils, water, biodiversity, and then circularity.

So this process has been really fruitful. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see more common ground than I had expected among the co-authors.

That’s encouraging.

Yeah. And I think it’s gonna be really helpful because I think authors tend to write with authors with similar perspectives, right? You don’t really reach out to somebody who opposes your point of view to say, Hey, do you wanna write a paper together?

It’s not very common. That’s being encouraged a little bit more – there’s a new section in the, AJCN called the great debates in nutrition. But those folks are generally pretty far divided. So you don’t really get a lot of common – you don’t get a lot of agreement. And so this paper, I’m hoping that it’s actually a balanced, reasonably balanced paper that people can buy into on all sides.

So that’s what we did. And we’ll be submitting that soon, really looking forward to putting something out there that hopefully has a lot of interest and can be a balanced voice in this topic.

[00:27:58] Melissa: Absolutely. I will stay tuned for that and share that out with my audiences when it’s out. Yeah. The polarized conversations and debates with no common ground – are really not helpful for people. It just confuses people more or pits them against the other side. And we know from like confirmation bias and critical thinking aspect that a lot of us do just tend to look for that information that reinforces what we believe. So I give you a lot of credit and kudos for even attempting to bring these diverse opinions together to hopefully, and you said they’re open to the evidence and they really want to have a deeper understanding, even if it changes their initial thoughts or bias and come to some more meaningful, practical applications for this information, with that common ground and see all the nuances, right?

[00:28:55] Ty: Yeah. I will just admit right from the start that I have already through this process, I have had some of my interpretations of the evidence challenged and I have learned and adjusted.

And so I think probably others have too. So I just, as much as anybody else, I need the person who can kind of challenge my biases and really help to get at that closer to the, what the reality is. And so I’m really thankful for that.

[00:29:20] Melissa: Wonderful. Now tagging onto that. We haven’t heard too much about this lately, but it was big news a while ago that the eat Lancet report. Tell us about the eat Lancet report regarding nutrient adequacy and in your purview, like what the next steps might be, because I think they’re working on a 2.0 version of that.

[00:29:44] Ty: Yeah, exactly. So there, they’re currently working on a 2.0 version and they’re really trying to build off of what was produced in that 2019 paper and try to address the concerns that were raised. One of those was the nutrient adequacy of the diet.

So colleagues and I looked at the adequacy of these six nutrients, again, related to that paper. We have folate vitamin a vitamin B12, calcium, iron, and zinc. And we found that actually the diet is not quite adequate in certain nutrients, like zinc and calcium and B12 and especially iron. When we look at women 15 to 49 years of age, the diet, because of the really high amount of phytate and the low amount of heme iron it’s providing just over half of the recommended intake.

So it’s not actually providing enough iron for that population group and there was not necessarily a mention of that population group as a concern or needing to focus on supplementation or fortified foods. But I think that should be mentioned, or there should be efforts to really alter the diet so that it can meet those requirements for that population.

So my hope is to just bring that awareness and say, look, we are, we’re really trying to provide a diet that’s healthy and sustainable. Part of that is Nutrient adequacy. And we need to look at the diet when we account for differences in bioavailability, between the different foods that are included in that diet.

[00:31:08] Melissa: Excellent. We’ll stay tuned for that as well. I often ask my guests who are involved in research, how they feel about industry funded research, or if people criticize industry funded research. So I’d love to ask you your thoughts on that.

[00:31:23] Ty: Sure. So I will say, I think it would probably be ideal to have like funding that was separate from industry for a lot of things.

So, because industry does have an agenda. And even if not an agenda, they certainly may have some potential biases. But I think the reality is that there’s not money for all research to be funded. There’s just no way for that to happen. So I think industry funding is an important part of research and I really, I don’t like the interpretation that anybody who receives industry funding is immediately biased. I think that’s certainly false. There can be a bias for sure that can creep in, and it totally depends on the context and who’s funding it and how much control has had and whatnot.

But I personally know many people who receive industry funding on all sides from plant-based foods to animal source foods. And I, I really trust the researchers. I mean, the, the scientists are not making for the most part. They’re not making tons of money off of this work. They’re doing this because they care about it and they want to improve society.

They want to learn, they want to know the truth. They want to know reality. And so just because they receive industry funding does not mean that they’re just trying to show something that industry is gonna appreciate. And so most industry funding as well, they don’t have control over what gets published.

They don’t have control over the research design. And these studies are published where the findings either go against the funder who, what they would want to see potentially, or they don’t they may show null results to something. So I think that’s just important to keep in mind. When academics or scientists disclose research funding as a potential conflict of interest, it doesn’t mean that that’s compromising their objectivity.

It means that they’re being transparent about the fact that they have this funding so that the reader can be informed and aware of that. It’s really, often misinterpreted, people see any sort of industry funding you can say, ah, I’m not gonna even read this paper or it’s not even valid. And I think the papers and studies should be assessed on their merit themselves separately from the industry.

[00:33:35] Melissa: Thank you. And are you seeing, I know I’ve heard that some of the issue with this could be a whole other episode is what gets published and what doesn’t get published. And are we seeing more research that regardless of the outcome it’s getting published or there’s some access to it?

[00:33:56] Ty: I think that probably is still a concern.

I’m not looking at any data right now, but from my experience and my understanding, Studies with not exciting results – one they’re less likely for researchers to want to publish them or to spend the time to write them up. And journals are also less interested, especially the high impact journals.

So they wanna see exciting things, splashy findings, headlines. So I do think there is a bias that perhaps many of these studies can go unpublished or they could, maybe they’re published in a much lower tiered journal. Maybe they’re published at a much later timeline. And I think that’s a shame, but it’s completely understandable given the incentives and whatnot.

[00:34:39] Melissa: Thank you. So as we’re wrapping up, I guess we’ve talked about global malnutrition, we’ve talked about specific nutrients and foods. And I should say micronutrients. In summary, I guess I would say like what, in your research, in your work that you’re doing, in your opinion, are you most concerned with regarding diets and your advice on how they could be improved?

Maybe some bottom-line takeaways for our listeners?

[00:35:07] Ty: Yeah, so I think that’s a different answer depending on the context. And I think globally it’s a very different issue from the U.S.. So globally, in many of the low income countries are even lower middle income countries where we work diets are highly dependent on a single staple like rice, and they’re not diverse enough.

So they just need overall diversity of fruits and vegetables, pulses, nuts, and seeds, and then often even low in animal source foods. Which could really improve the nutrient density and improve malnutrition.

And when you look at the U.S. specifically we have data from the Gallup world poll in, in 2021, so last year, we see processed meats are very high close to about half of the population, nearly consuming process meets in the previous day. We see sweet foods over half of the population consuming sweet foods. A third of the population consuming soft drinks. And so we know from other evidence that ultra processed foods make up more than half of the diet in the U.S..

So I think limiting these foods and transitioning to more minimally processed foods is an important strategy. That’s kind of the key thing. When you look at the health risks from Ultraprocessed foods and the proportion of those in the diet. The specific foods that we’d benefit from increasing in the U.S. probably.

Pulses. So things like beans, peas, and lentils, nuts and seeds and whole grains. Most of the grains consumed with the U.S. are refined grains. So I think it’s always important to look at the dietary issues and the nutritional issues in the population that you’re dealing with. And in the U.S., I personally don’t think there needs to be a huge reduction in animal source foods.

I think that it’s more this concern of the ultra processed foods and trying to make the diet much more minimally processed. And so if there was that one food in the animal source category, I think processed meats certainly should be decreased, but otherwise, I think it’s more about balancing the diet and the processing.

[00:37:04] Melissa: Thank you. And just to clarify processed meats or things like bacon or sausage or anything that’s been cured,

[00:37:11] Ty: Salted. Yeah.

[00:37:13] Melissa: Fill in the blanks for me.

[00:37:14] Ty: Salted. Yeah. Nitrates added to that. Pepperoni. There’s a few different reasons for why those are a health risk. There’s a high in sodium. Nitrates and nitrates can increase risk of cancer, colorectal cancer in particular, and different preservatives. And there’s a range – I should also add that there are healthier and less healthy way to process meats. And so there’s not a lot of research on this, but chicken McNuggets are highly processed and hyperpalatable and usually consumed not in a balanced meal. Whereas if you have something like prosciutto, a little bit of prosciutto in a meal, and it’s just salt and you’re keeping your sodium levels intact. I don’t see any major risks from that. So I think it’s really about context, but certainly when you look overall, I think the of reduction overall would be important for public health.

[00:38:05] Melissa: Right. So watching those processed meats, reducing that. The fresh meat seems to be, like you said, if we keep that moderate, there’s certain populations, probably not in the U.S. that maybe some in the U.S. that, that could increase that a little bit to get those nutrients met.

[00:38:22] Ty: Yeah, I think so. When you look globally, like we do some work in Mozambique. There’s actually quite low intakes of animal source foods in particular. Increasing, for example, unprocessed red meat could actually be a real positive benefit for those populations.

[00:38:38] Melissa: And you mentioned diversity, and I’d really like to put a finer point on that because some of my listeners might be familiar with this, but others might not.

The diversity that you’re talking about with foods is different foods have different nutrients. And so if you are having a wide variety as we talk about more variety in the diet, then you’re getting a wider variety of nutrients, right?

[00:39:01] Ty: That’s absolutely right. And I think when you get into this discussion about animal source foods, there can be in the U.S. and other high income countries, this push to reduce as much as possible.

And I think it’s important to just notice and recognize animal source foods have complimentary nutrition profiles to plant-based foods. And so they have different nutrients that help together provide the nutrients you need in a healthy diet. And so the more diversity you have, the higher your chances of meeting all of those nutrients, and that’s an important aspect.

And of course, so many other non-essential nutrients that can have benefits, there’s phytonutrients and different compounds that can be beneficial. Fiber, et cetera.

[00:39:42] Melissa: Well, thank you for saying that, because that was gonna be my last or my next question for you was to address that how animals and plants can be complementary, because like you said B12 is only in animal foods.

It’s not in plant foods. Certain nutrients are more available and bioavailable in plant foods. And so having those together, it’s not necessarily one or the other. For some people, vegan is what they wanna do and that’s fine for them. But for most people having plants and animals together is a healthy balance.

[00:40:15] Ty: Exactly. And if you look in the U.S., I think it’s about two to 3% of the population that actually are vegan. So it is a very small minority. More power to you if you can do it and be healthy, but especially for young children, you gotta pay attention to the nutrient intake, make sure that you’re getting all the nutrients you need.

And in general, a balance between those different food groups is really important.

[00:40:37] Melissa: Yeah. And I talk about this on the show quite a bit. One of my guests said we don’t need more plants. We need better plants. So I really wanna emphasize you’re saying in the U.S. we could do better by getting more pulses, nuts, and seeds and some more whole grains.

Absolutely.

I don’t think anybody can argue with that. Well, where can people find more information? I know you’re on Twitter and you have a lot of engagement on Twitter. I love seeing that. I’m, I’m a big Twitter fan versus some of the other social media platforms, but it’s a great platform for somebody who’s sharing and discussing research.

So what’s your Twitter handle?

[00:41:14] Ty: Yeah. So that’s just Ty R Beal. So T Y R B E A L. And I’ll post things that I’m working on – recent research and then anything that I find interesting, I really am seeking to be a balanced voice and try to be a voice of reason, but also not shy away from some of these controversial topics.

So I really appreciate feedback there. And as long as people are respectful, I will, I’m totally interested in engaging in discussions.

[00:41:43] Melissa: Absolutely. Very good point. I usually dodge some of the trolls and haters on Twitter or sometimes LinkedIn, believe it or not, but they’re there from time to time.

So yes, we want to have a respectful and meaningful dialogue for sure. And then you have some articles and things that you’ve shared with me that I will put those links in my show notes at soundbitesrd.com. Is there any other websites or sources that you wanted to recommend people look to for more information?

[00:42:13] Ty: No, I would just say if you want to hear any of the latest research, just follow me on Twitter. I think the couple of the articles we discussed, you’ll probably link to in the show notes. So that’s where to find more.

[00:42:36] Melissa: Okay, great. Thank you so much. And if people post any comments on the shownotes or reach out to me, I’ll share any of those questions or comments with you as well. Great. It’s been great talking with you and for everybody listening as always enjoy your food with health in mind, and some of those micronutrient deficiencies and food sources. Till next time.