Going back to the top of this

conversation, we talked about how

everybody listening right now has a

variety of different health futures.

>> And which which health future they end

up in is going to be determined by the

everyday decisions they make.

>> Yes. Yes. So, I want to really zoom in

on some of those everyday decisions. We

talked about you and your biscuits. And

at the time you said you were you were

probably quite sedentary as a doctor.

Yeah. Sitting in a chair, patients

coming in.

>> Yeah. You weren't doing exercise.

No. Um I didn't fundamentally believe it

would make that much difference.

Hm. And this is such a great point.

You've You've really great point. So,

let's think about weight loss.

So, I would give advice on weight loss

to my patients. And I would say eat less

and move more. And I'd even sometimes

say that Belsen thing, you know, the no

fat people came out of Belsen. I've

never heard that before.

>> But it's a horrible thing to say to a

patient, isn't it?

>> What's Belsen? Well, that's in World War

II where they all starved.

>> Oh, okay.

>> So, the the point is you're saying to

somebody with an obesity problem It's

their fault.

>> It Yes, you're blaming them. That's

exactly the point. And that's what I

did.

And it's worse than that because

I give them that advice, and it just

about never works.

I did a horrible thing. I used to say to

them, "Right.

So, why don't you just have 2 Tbsp of

All-Bran a day?" Oh, breakfast cereal.

>> Yeah.

Uh with skim milk. And I would advise a

few multivitamins.

And uh a couple of pints of skimmed milk

a day.

That was my advice. And then when it

didn't work, who do you think I blamed?

Them. Yeah.

And this was all part of my epiphany.

I never joined the dots

that the failure was not theirs. It was

mine.

And that's horrible, isn't it? Imagine

25 years of I was blaming patients for

their failure to lose weight

and it was my failure

because I didn't give them advice that

worked. And if you keep giving the same

advice to people and it doesn't work,

shouldn't I have questioned

but is that happening in society

overall? How are we doing? How are we

doing

with health? How's it going?

It's a disaster, isn't it?

So, we need to do something different.

But for me, for 25 years, I did not

believe that lifestyle was key and now I

do.

And that's why I didn't I didn't

think that the biscuits made that much

difference.

Obviously, I knew basic nutrition, so I

made sure there's protein and and

there's iron and stuff.

I fundamentally

believed that

drugs is what I should be using

medication and that lifestyle was a sort

of

add-on.

Isn't that terrible? I think this is so

important because it really gets to

what I believe the average person thinks

as well. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Um we were talking before we started

recording about some of my friends. They

are There's There's two friends I

mentioned. One of them is a very very

successful businessman.

Um everybody knows who this person is

and they asked me this weekend, "Is

pizza healthy?"

And I just couldn't believe I It shook

It's gobsmacking. It's like, "Oh, what?

Pizza? What?" Cuz they were choose

trying to choose between They usually

have a big 12-in pizza for lunch and and

he was asking me, "What's healthier,

Steven? Nando's chicken or this 12-in

pizza he was going to get?" And I

literally looked at him like I was

looking at a [clears throat] ghost. I

was like, "A- Are you winding me up?"

And he was genuinely serious. He's

almost 60 years old now

and he doesn't know if a chicken breast

is healthier than a 12-in pizza. And the

other example that I mentioned to you

before we start recording is a very

famous Premier League football superstar

legend who you would assume had gone

through those sort of 15-20 years of

being an academy player and then a pro

athlete knows

what has sugar in and what doesn't. So

he was asking me, "Is is a big spaghetti

carbonara, is that healthy? Is that

health food?" Because he said to me

during his football years they were told

always to carb load. And again, this

it gave me a huge amount of empathy

because it made me realize how even

though there's podcasts like this where

we talk so much about health and even

though there's the internet now, the

this information is not getting through

to the average person for some reason.

And they too, I believe, but think

exactly what you just said, that health

is, you know, it's this sort of

accessory

where

>> [snorts]

>> my fate is determined anyway.

And if I do this health stuff, which is

a bit of an inconvenience cuz these

Percy Pigs taste great. Yeah. Um all

these these these candies taste great,

then I might be able to look a little

bit better, a little bit more

aesthetically pleasing, but my fate is

determined. The simple point

Yeah, nutrition, we're not teaching it.

So there's only three macronutrients.

There's only protein, fats, and

carbohydrate. And yet your friends there

haven't even got the three

macronutrients. And they are successful,

intelligent people. So somewhere we're

going badly wrong, aren't we? There is a

another example that's really front of

mind to me, which was, you know, I'm in

Dragon's Den at the moment and someone

came in and pitched a fruit snack

business.

And it's basically dried out fruit

pieces.

Now I looked at the back

>> Okay, I'm loving this already.

>> Yeah.

I looked at the back

>> Yes. and it said, "In the range of 60 to

70% sugar." Because what they've done is

they've taken exotic fruits like

mangoes, dried them out, and now you

have this little chip, which is this

just a piece of mango. 60-70% [snorts]

sugar. So I'm looking at the back of

this thing thinking

this is candy.

This is basically candy. Thank you. But,

I'm looking around and every cuz it cuz

it uses the word fruit

>> Yes.

people have this sort of halo assumption

that if the word fruit is on it, fruit

juice fruit will sell. Yeah.

>> [laughter]

>> And who And also it's a sort of who

cares about the consequence, but will

make a pile of money

selling dried up fruit and they miss

what you read on the back. Yeah. And

it's 60-70% sugar. I was like, this is

not a Okay. How's that? You know, what

if somebody had type 2 dia- what for

kids is we'll just give them

Yeah. And I

You've touched on another thing about

what's going wrong. So,

when we look at my practice and this

epidemic

and really as I've said already it's not

an epidemic, it's a pandemic. It's

everywhere. I go all over the world and

obesity, type 2 diabetes

uh poor metabolic health is in It's

everywhere. It's everywhere.

And I think one of the things

touching on what you just said

is so you you wake up and you have your

cereals for breakfast. Which you've got

some here.

>> Which we have some cereals there.

And then uh you'll have Why don't Why

don't you have a big glass of fresh

orange juice as well?

Great idea.

And then uh

Okay, that's your breakfast. But, then

on the way in you have a little snack

because And people do. They buy a bar or

some crisps or something like that.

And then even at school they might get a

muffin

mid-morning.

Fair enough. They might then have an

apple.

At lunchtime you're going to have some

sandwiches.

And then you've eaten your sandwich, so

you'll I don't know you might have might

have a cake or something or some ice

cream. Then you'll go home and then it's

time for you you know, maybe your chips

or your pizza.

What you've actually done is have sugar

with your sugar with your sugar, sugar,

sugar, sugar, sugar, all day long.

There's hardly any protein going back

then to those macro Where was the

protein to grow you?

You know, and that That's the thing

that that's changed over time that we

are

the snacking. So, I've I come across a

lot of young people

and their mother is saying, "I can't get

him to eat any proper food. He just eats

snacks all day long and it it won't I

can't They can't get protein in them."

And some of them are actually thin kids.

They're not all fat. Let's talk about

what you just said there and we can walk

through the day using Yes. the food we

have on this table. Now, I just want to

caution that we do have some people that

are probably out walking their dog

listening and can't see. So, we're going

to have to do a bit of a voice over as

to what's going on. But, you said wake

up in the morning, you have your cereal.

Yeah. Now, cereal growing up I thought

was a health food. Me, too. Yeah. Me,

too. How much sugar is in the average

standard bowl of let's say frosted

cereal?

Well, we can do this different way,

Steven.

This is actually like a test for you

laid out here.

>> Oh, gosh. Is that for Okay. Yeah, that

This is a test for you and I'll describe

it. So, what you've got You've got um

a bowl of We'll call them They're corn

flakes.

>> [clears throat]

>> Then you've got a potato a baked potato.

It isn't baked yet, but you could bake

it if you want.

You've got 150 g and this is boiled

rice, so it's not dry. It's boiled rice.

You've got a very ripe banana.

And at the end there, you've got a

delicious-looking chocolate bar. Yeah.

So, you've got there

uh some cubes of sugar and this is the

test bit, you see, as to how I'm going

to give you We'll score you in the end.

So, what I'd like you to do is consider

these relatively.

And each of those cubes of sugar

represents a 4-g tsp of sugar. Yeah. So,

if you could now just go along these and

put beside each food what you believe to

be the equivalent in terms of teaspoons

of sugar, and then I'll give you a score

and see how you do. Okay.

>> And those are the answers, so I'm going

to turn it down so you don't cheat.

Okay, so I'm going to score them as I

would have thought 2 years ago. Thank

you.

>> Because because 2 years I've interviewed

a lot of experts, so I'm I'm generally

quite shocked by all these things, but

>> Yeah. I'm going to score them as I would

have thought when I was 31 years old 2

years ago. Yes, that's great. Cereal,

honestly, Yeah. um I

>> And there's no sugar on it. It's not a

sugared cereal. It's just the dry

flakes. I honestly didn't think there

was sugar in that. Yeah. So,

if you would pushed me, I would have

Well, give it one, eh? I'll give it one.

>> Thank you.

>> But I didn't think there was sugar in

that.

>> Again, a potato, I didn't think there

was any sugar in a potato. So, even

giving it one feels like I'm lying

because I didn't think there was sugar

in a potato. And I'll be honest, rice, I

didn't think there was any sugar in

rice.

Okay. A banana, Ah. it tastes sweet.

Yes. So, my brain would have said one.

Yeah. But this uh this chocolate bar

that's in front of me,

I would have said

I'm going to say two.

Okay. Two or

I'm going to say three. Right. I'm going

to say three. I actually think it was

two, but All right. That's how much

sugar I would have thought was in all of

these things here: cereal, a potato,

white rice, a banana, and a chocolate

bar. Right, well To be fair, I still

kind of do, but I know better.

So, now I'm going to give you the

correct

figure.

Now, uh this is worked out from the

glycemic load that we already discussed.

So, I explained about the glycemic load.

And then,

so in clinical practice, I had a

problem.

My problem was in 10 minutes trying to

explain to you how you could eat

differently and why you should eat

differently.

And so I needed a way of quickly

communicating with children, with old

people, with a teacher

the consequences of dietary choices.

Mhm. So I came up with a new idea, which

was why don't we represent the glycemic

load

and instead of using

grams of glucose, which nobody

understands, and what's glucose anyway,

instead of doing that, we redid the

calculations

redoing it for tea four gram teaspoons

of sugar.

And that's my teaspoon of sugar

equivalent system, and I'm using that

now to give you the correct answer.

Okay. Right. So the the cornflakes is

one, two,

four,

five,

six, seven, and eight.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

eight.

And with no frosting No frosting.

>> on it. No milk, nothing.

The potato, obviously it depends on its

size. That's quite a big one.

So that one is one, two, three, four,

and there's more.

Five, six.

Is nine.

There they go. Equivalent of nine sugar

cubes. Is that nine? Yeah. Right.

I'm going to leave the rice till last.

That chocolate bar

is actually, you could do it for me.

Yeah. Is seven

and a half. So you

you can give it seven. Seven.

Seven.

Now the banana depends on the size and

how ripe it is.

A ripe banana has more sugar in it as

you probably know when you eat it, but

that let's say that banana is quite a

ripe one. It looks quite ripe. Let's say

that's six cuz it's a big banana. Oh my

gosh.

Okay.

Then, the final one

obviously is going to be the killer,

isn't it?

I thought rice was healthy.

Well, it I suppose it depends.

>> was really healthy. It depends. So,

one. This is 150 g of boiled rice.

Three.

Four.

Five. Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine and

10. So, that's the winner.

And I would say that's the single fact

around the world. So, my my teaspoon of

sugar.

There we are. That's one of my teaspoon

of sugar charts. So, what you've got

there is the food,

the glycemic index,

the the serving size, and then the

teaspoons of sugar there. So, this is

available. The Public Health

Collaboration is a charity I helped set

up with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

10 years ago. It's our 10th anniversary

tomorrow.

These infographics

There are actually far more than this.

This is there's seven more. They're

available in 35 languages. Volunteers

have translated this to go all over the

world.

It's not copyrighted. I want people to

steal it. Take it. Use it. So, the

>> [snorts]

>> the white rice fact

I would say

has astonished people all over the world

and led to me becoming far better known.

What what about orange juice? A lot of

parents, including my parents, give me

gave me orange juice. And I used to

think that orange juice was a health

food. So, I would literally I'd go to

the fridge, I'd get open the Sunny

Delight or whatever it was.

>> Delight.

>> And I would drink that. And I'd think

I'm going to be strong and big and my

body's going to love me.

Well, let's

So, there's there's a lot of sugar in

orange juice. There's a lot of sugar in

orange juice. And you've taken away all

the

Once you take it from the fruit

as it was meant to be and you juice it,

the sugar hit is fast. Mhm. So, what

that does

is

if you think if we go back to insulin

again,

>> [snorts]

>> um

so, you you you drink the orange juice,

your blood sugar goes up rapidly.

So, your body responds rapidly with

insulin.

Then, you what happens? Your blood sugar

falls.

But then you're kind of hungry again.

And that's what happened to me with the

biscuits, wasn't it? I ate biscuits.

My blood sugar is up. Then insulin comes

in heavy and slow, but too much. Then I

thought I was having a panic attack cuz

I had low blood sugar. And what's the

answer to that? More biscuits. And round

you go. Round. And that's how without

thinking, you'd start the day Starting

the day with a sugary breakfast

without enough protein in it is driving

hunger. And then you wonder why you're

ravenously hungry at at 10:00.

There was a few others that shocked me.

One of them was I was in Peru. And

obviously Peru's quite famous for

chocolate cuz of the cacao and all that

stuff. And so, we went to a chocolate

making class.

And he told us to make dark chocolate,

normal chocolate, and then white

chocolate. Yeah. And when I made the

white chocolate, this guy got me this

big glass cylinder.

And he goes, "Here's some white sugar."

He goes, "Pour it in." So, I you know, I

get it and I pour some in and I and he

goes, "No, no, no, no, my friend. Pour

it in."

>> Yeah. And I pour it and pour it and pour

it and pour it and pour it and pour it

and pour it. And I'm not kidding you. I

feel like, and I have to check the facts

here, so community note me on the

screen, Dario C. team, I feel like I

poured into this huge glass cylinder

Yeah.

it 80% of white sugar. Yes, you would.

>> And then It's true. Yeah, and then he

and then he said, "Put put some syrup

in." What? I said, "This is This is

white sugar." It was like some syrupy

stuff. Yeah. Real stuff. And I was like,

"So, white sugar um So, white chocolate

is like 80% white sugar." Yeah.

I've never eaten white chocolate since.

>> Yeah.

You That's so important. So, very often

people think they're a chocoholic.

That's really common [clears throat]

that people say to me, "I'm I'm addicted

to chocolate."

If you look at If you actually look at

how much sugar there is in milk

chocolate,

uh

you know, there's many teaspoons of

sugar in milk chocolate.

If you eat

90% dark chocolate, there's only about

two teaspoons of sugar in a bar.

And what you find with the chocoholics

is I say,

"Oh, if you're addicted to chocolate,

why don't you get a bigger hit and have

the dark chocolate?" And they say, "Oh,

I couldn't eat that. It's too bitter."

What they're actually addicted to is the

sugar.

What they're So, I've done a There is

for the the folks at home, there is one

of these sugar infographics on

chocolate on that subject of chocolate

because I want people to understand

the consequences of what they do.

So, just to illustrate this cuz I've

just

I've just looked up the stats, Yeah.

I think this is This is This is what I

saw, right? I've just looked up the

facts to make sure one thing is true.

When I made that bar of white chocolate

in Peru, Yeah. this

was the total ingredients, and this is

how much sugar I they asked me to put

into it. Blind. I looked at it and

thought, "Okay, so white chocolate is

basically like 70 odd percent just pure

white sugar and nobody knows." Yes,

exactly.

>> Exactly. The other one I've got a bee in

my bonnet about is smoothies. Yes, I

have one, too. I thought smoothies were

healthy. Yeah, no.

They're the I you know I'm on X or

Twitter quite a lot and that's the kind

of thing fills me with rage and I have

to take a photo with like my Look at the

sugar. Yeah,

uh there was Yeah, it fills me with

rage. I've got another thing. This is

fun. I've got another I've got a

question. Right, [clears throat]

Stephen.

>> [sighs and gasps]

>> Why don't we we could take all the blood

out of me, right? There'd be 5 L. We

could bleed me out right now. There'd be

5 L of blood in me.

Let's get it in a bucket, all right? 5 L

of blood.

How much sugar would be in that 5 L of

blood?

I've no idea. Well, it's an interesting

question, isn't it? Because it relates

to

the consequences of eating some of these

things.

So, I would just like you to estimate.

So, if let's say my blood sugar is

normal, Yeah.

um

if you have a normal blood sugar, I

would like you to guess how much sugar

is there in my entire blood system?

>> At one one cup like this.

Thank you.

>> [snorts]

>> No.

The answer is this. Let me show you.

That is all there is.

You're joking.

>> I am not. And you see immediately

>> One sugar cube.

>> That's all. And I'll do it on Twitter

for you, X. I can show you the

calculations.

So, you see if I have a banana

and I have diabetes, the there's too

much sugar for me.

You see, because glucose is number one

vital, but number two toxic if If have

too much of it.

The level of it in my blood is

controlled minutely.

>> Wow. It's controlled to this extent.

And I think that single fact, you didn't

know that, did you?

>> No, I did not at all. And it immediately

shows you how it's so easy to have more

sugar than you actually need.

Given that. And if your insulin stops

working.

>> Yeah, so

for me,

I've done an awful lot of this, so I

monitor my blood sugar with a continuous

glucose monitor.

And I get my blood sugar up on my phone,

so I can check at any time what my blood

sugar is, and we'll do it in a minute

and see.

But you see, if I if I eat a banana,

it doubles my blood sugar because I

can't regulate my blood sugar. Because

of the diabetes. Yeah. So a whole banana

is far too much for me

and will double

my blood sugar. Because you see, if I'm

only supposed to have this much, and I

have that much,

>> Gosh, yeah, that's what it's too much

for me, and I feel ill. If you love the

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