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Scot: And I'm sure there's a song that everybody references whenever your name is brought up.

Thunder: Yeah.

Troy: So I have to . . .

Scot: Do you know what song that is?

Troy: I have to bring this up because I have had AC/DC going in my mind all morning. And I would sing it but . . .

Scot: Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na.

Troy: Thunder!

Mitch: You're listening to "Who Cares About Men's Health," where we try to give you some information, inspiration, and a different interpretation of your health. I'm Producer Mitch. Scot, Troy, and I are taking a little bit of a break for the next few weeks. We'll be recharging our batteries and working on some new episodes that I'm sure you're going to love.

In the meantime, we've put together some best-of episodes highlighting some of the very best moments over the past 145 episodes. Wow, 145 episodes. We'll share what we've learned about the Core Four, showcase some of our different series, and feature some of our very favorite guests.

On this episode, we have our favorite nutrition specialist, . He's been a regular guest since the beginning. And his simple approach to diet is so refreshing compared to the stuff some of us guys see in magazines and on places online. I know he's completely changed my perspective on the food that I eat. So without any further ado, here is the very best of Thunder Jalili.

Scot: So what is exactly healthy eating? I mean, that's a term that's kind of thrown around a lot, right? And it depends on who you talk to. If somebody talked to me, I'd have a whole different definition than maybe Troy, than maybe yourself, or than maybe when you go to the internet, which is like, "You've got to eat all protein, man. It's all paleo all the time." That's the internet. That's my approach.

Troy: Isn't that how you're supposed to . . .? That's what I do. I mean, isn't that what you're supposed to eat?

Scot: That's my impersonation of the internet.

Thunder: Just gnawing hunks of beef all the time.

Scot: Exactly, right?

Troy: I kill my own food.

Scot: If you didn't kill it, you shouldn't need it.

Troy: Yeah. If you can't kill it with your bare hands, it should not be eaten.

Scot: So what is healthy eating exactly? Is it fewer microwave burritos? Is it more healthy food? I mean, what's that balance?

Thunder: So I have a really simple thing that I talk to with a lot of the freshmen that come into my Intro to Nutrition class.

Scot: We like simple. That's good.

Thunder: Yeah, because there is so much information out there about what is healthy and what is not. But the simplest way to look at it is if it is a whole food that is not packaged or processed, that is the healthiest form of food. So we were talking about bananas before the podcast. That's a great example of a healthy snack.

Scot: But on the internet, I think I saw a thing that said you should never eat bananas. This is the one food you should not eat if you're trying to lose body fat.

Troy: I've seen that too.

Thunder: But the microwave burritos are okay.

Troy: But bananas?

Thunder: The thing is natural foods tend to have less calories, less sugar, and less sodium than other foods that are processed. So if you really want to eat healthy, just try to cut out the stuff that is processed and focus on natural foods. It's really not that hard.

It's not like particle physics where it's really complex. You just go after stuff that came from a tree, came from a plant that is somehow unprocessed, and try to avoid the things that are in a box.

Now, you can't always do that. I understand that. But you try to minimize the stuff that came into a box or fast food. A few exceptions, like oatmeal, can come in a box or come in a bag. That's okay.

Scot: As long as the ingredients say, "Oatmeal."

Thunder: Oatmeal, yeah.

Troy: Oats. Keep it simple.

Thunder: Keep it simple. The unprocessed, either one-minute oats or old-fashioned oats, those are the way to go. Not the stuff that's in a box that has . . .

Scot: Apple cinnamon.

Thunder:  Yeah. It's interesting. If you actually look at one of those little paper packets of Quaker instant oatmeal . . . I mean, not to slam on all things Quaker. But if you look at that and you look at the amount of sugar that's in a packet, about 30% or more of the weight of that little paper packet is sugar.

Troy: Oh, wow.

Thunder: So that means you have . . .

Troy: That's unbelievable. Thirty percent?

Thunder: At least. And some flavors that you get have more sugar. So it depends on the flavor, right? I tell people, "Why don't you just buy your own oatmeal? Then you can add kind of stuff that you want to it and you can control the composition of the ingredients."

Scot: Right, like natural fruit. If you want to put a little natural fruit or some almonds or a little dollop of honey.

Thunder: Exactly. Or peanut butter, or you can put walnuts in there. You have all kinds of flexibility. And then it's actually filling, because the paper packets, they're actually quite small in order to get the amount of fiber that you need. If you're interested in reducing your heart disease risk, there's a specific amount of fiber you need. That paper packet doesn't cut it. You usually have to have at least two or three of them.

Now, if you do that, you've also plowed through at least 60 grams of sugar, which is a lot. That's as much as you have in, say, 18 ounces of Coke, more or less. I mean, that doesn't seem so healthy. But if you make your own oatmeal, you're not going to have that much sugar.

Troy: I love it. I mean, it sounds like just the whole message you're sending here is just keep it simple. Look at ingredients. Very simple ingredient lists, ideally stuff that's not even in a box, and you'll be eliminating so many of these hidden sugars, things that are just in there that we probably have no idea that are in there.

Thunder: Yeah, exactly. And we don't have an idea that they're in there because they are hidden. Flavored yogurt is another great example. There's a lot of sugar in flavored yogurt. I mean, it tastes great because it usually has a couple tablespoons of sugar.

Scot: And it doesn't take much sugar to crank up those calories either.

Thunder: No, it doesn't. And I mentioned earlier there is a route between eating sugar and having that eventually be converted to LDL cholesterol.

Scot: All right. So it sounds like if somebody wanted to start taking steps to watching their eating, it's just start trying to eat more natural foods, and start pushing out some of those canned, processed packaged foods. And that would be a good first step.

Thunder: Yeah. People travel, people have jobs, people are on the road. I mean, those are the times where you maybe can't stick to what you do, so fine, don't beat yourself up if you have to get processed stuff or fast food sometimes. That's the way it is. But when you're home and when you're in your regular routine and you can control it, that's when you follow it. And in reality, for most of us, that's 80% of our time.

Scot: If somebody's trying to lose weight, there are so many diets out there, there are so many ways you can go, and the internet is always screaming at you, "This is the best one. This is the best one. You should be eating all protein. You should eat all fat, all grapefruit." What is the best one?

Thunder: Yeah, that's a great question. It is kind of hard to decipher. I will say there are a lot of healthy eating options/varieties on what we talked about. So there's not just one diet I can pick to be perfect.

I will say, though, about diets in general is you want to pick something you can kind of live with.

For me personally, it doesn't make any sense to go on this weird eating pattern that you just want to lose 10 pounds or 20 pounds. It's completely different than what you normally eat, and you don't really like it, but you do it to lose the weight. And as soon as you lose the weight, you abandon everything. You're like, "Oh, good. Now I can go back to normal."

You want to pick something that kind of is normal and use that healthy normal to help as one of your tools to lose weight.

Now, beyond that, I think a lot of what people maybe don't appreciate is their timing of eating in an effort to lose weight. And what I mean by timing is our bodies are engineered to have kind of a fed state where we're utilizing nutrients and we're building stores for the future, and then have a fasting state, which is basically prevent defense, to use a football analogy, where we can kind of keep things going without completely falling apart.

We're meant to go back and forth between those two, and we usually don't because what happens is we're always in this fed state.

The typical person wakes up in the morning whenever they have to wake up for work or school, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, whatever. And then they start eating with breakfast, and they have snacks, and they have lunch. Then they have afternoon snacks and they have dinner. Then they have something after dinner, and then whatnot. Then it goes on until, say, 9:00 or 10:00 at night, and then they go to bed whenever they go to bed, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00.

So if you look at the totality of that, you end up having this condition where most people have some amount of food every two or three hours for 16 hours in the day, from 7:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. That really keeps your insulin levels up the whole day. It keeps you in this fed state the whole day.

The fed state is characterized by building fat and building things, and it gives you just a limited time to be in what we call the fasting state. And so you kind of lose out on that opportunity to really get into a fat-burning condition, which happens after you've been food-free for, say, 12 hours or 14 hours or 16 hours.

So what I would tell people to think about is do whatever healthy eating pattern you can live with to lose weight and watch your calories if you want. You don't have to restrict yourself too much. But then think about how long you are without food, and that should be a minimum of 12 hours. And if you're 14, that's even better. Some people do 16. That's okay, too. But the point is there has to be that sustained amount of time.

It doesn't have to be the exact same timing every single night. But the point is some timing.

Again, you think about what were humans like 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 years ago? Troy and I are running around in the forest looking for something to eat. Troy finds a squirrel and he strangles it, and that's his meal.

Troy: I still do. That's my morning routine.

Scot: Where am I in this scenario? Was I killed by the sabretooth a couple weeks ago? I'm no longer around, or what?

Troy: You would not have survived 20,000, 30,000 years ago, Scot. I'm sorry. It's just me and Thunder.

Scot: You're probably right. I have allergies and I'm nearsighted.

Troy: You would not have made it.

Thunder: Survival of the fittest. But after Troy eats the squirrel, he may not get lucky and find another squirrel until the next day. I mean, it would be terrible if he just basically dropped and couldn't function anymore because he had to go 20 hours without food.

So our physiology is meant to keep us going, to have these alternate macronutrient options that we can utilize for energy. And we have a progression we go through. It starts with glycogen in the liver, and then it can go to your fat stores. But you just need enough time for that to occur. And I think that is what we miss a lot in modern society with our constant snacking.

Troy: It's really a different way of thinking because we focus so much on what we eat. And you're just saying it's more about the pattern where we're eating and having this period of fasting on a regular basis.

Thunder: Yeah, I would say it's just as important. I don't know if it's more important, but it's just as important. And yeah, you're right, we focus just on what we're eating and we don't pay enough attention to this.

One of my college buddies . . . It's funny. We were talking about a week ago, and he has lost about 10 pounds recently. He's a really fit guy. He works out. He rides bikes. He's my age, and he looks great. But he has a little bit of excess fat. He lost about 10 pounds. And he said what he did is he just tried to go for this bigger period at night where he's just allowing himself to get into a fasting state.

He used to be the kind of guy who would have to have a protein shake before bed because "that's going to build muscle." And when he cut that out, he lost 10 pounds in a fairly quick amount of time.

Scot:Wow.

Thunder:And you think about it. Those protein shakes can be 500 to 800 calories. And they're going to bump up your insulin, and then your insulin levels will be high for a few hours, or at least higher than baseline, and then your glucagon won't really have a chance to get up and be sustained at a high level because next thing you know it, you're waking up at 6:00, 7:00 a.m. to get ready to go to work, and you're having your breakfast and whatever else.

Scot: So you've completely rocked my world here, and I've got untangle a few things with you here. There was a notion at one point that you should graze throughout the day, eat healthy throughout the day, every three hours. So I've followed the Zone diet for a while, which I think is a pretty good eating plan. It's 40-30-30 nutrition. You figure out your calories based on your lean mass. It tends to be fairly healthy.

But they're saying you should eat every three to five hours, and you should have a little snack before bed. You're contending maybe not the best idea.

Thunder: Yeah. I'm okay with the eating three to five hours. That's fine. But as long as you work out that period at night.

Scot: Fourteen or 16 hours okay.

Thunder: Yeah. Sixteen is hard for some people. At least shoot for 12 to 14.

Scot: All right.

Troy: It sounds like 12 to 14 seems very practical. If you're eating at 6:00 . . .

Thunder: It's not hard.

Troy: . . . and you don't eat again until 8:00 the next morning, you're at 14.

Scot: Fourteen to 16 hours, I'm afraid that there's going to be some hunger that I'm going to deal with. And I know that when I'm hungry, then I start making poor decisions, like straight to the cookie dough, right? And then that's . . .

Troy: You just give up.

Scot: Yeah, I do. I go in a crisis mode. So is there a way that you would recommend to manage that, or do I just need to man up and deal with it?

Troy: Get used to it.

Thunder: Yeah, you get used to it. But I'll tell you what, I think the hunger is not as bad as you think. What I've noticed with . . .

Troy: Like we said, Scot, you would not have survived 20,000 years ago.

Thunder:Remember that thing in the woods?

Scot: "Go on, guys."

Thunder: We would be using you as the decoy for the cave bear who's after us. But what I've noticed with myself and with other people who've done this sort of approach, you actually kind of feel hungry about five or six or seven hours after your meal, and then it goes away. And most of the time when I wake up in the morning, even if I was a little hungry when I went to bed, I am not hungry at all in the morning. And that's pretty common and you get used to that.

Short answer, man up. You'll get through it really quick, and you'll be surprised, it won't be that bad in the morning.

Scot: Here's my thing. When vegetarian food starts to try to pretend it's meat, that's when it fails in my mind.

Thunder: But a bean burger is not a burger. It's a bean sandwich. To me, that's a different thing.

Scot: Why do you think men should understand macros, and what is the benefit of understanding the macros that we're putting in our body?

Troy: And by macros, you're talking protein . . .

Scot: Protein.

Troy: Carbs.

Scot: Carbs. Fats.

Troy: Fats.

Scot: Yes.

Thunder: So I think it's important to understand macros because I see misconceptions about macronutrients that drive people into funny food behavior. So in other words, some people will avoid certain types of vegetables or certain types of fruits because they're concerned about carbohydrates. Or some people go out of their way to eat excessive amounts of animal protein because they're so concerned about getting enough protein.

So the macros on their own are not harmful, but having misconceptions can really make you do funny things with your diet that may not give optimal health.

Scot: And I have to admit, that's exactly part of my journey. I would have these perceptions that I needed to get a lot of protein, so then a lot of my meals would revolve around four or five ounces of chicken, eliminating other things, right? Or I would think carbs are bad, so I might not eat rice, which actually is rather healthy for you, isn't it?

Thunder: Right.

Scot: So it was absolutely doing what you just said. It was kind of skewing my perception of the things that I eat.

Thunder: Take that to a practical level and you're thinking about, "Well, I need to get so much protein, so I'm going to make the center of my plate steak," or chicken, or something like that. So you may end up consuming a lot of that, and that kind of makes you full, and you really don't have that much room left on your plate for vegetables or for fruits or for beans or for other things that have clear health benefits.

It may not be because you don't want to eat them, but because you've already eaten so much of the meat that you just don't have that much room left. So that's kind of what I see macronutrient misconceptions leading to.

Scot: So back to Dr. Madsen's question here. How much protein does a person really need, and are we getting enough, or are we getting too much?

Thunder: Yeah, great question again. And that's really dependent on the individual. Why don't we pick on Troy and use him as an example?

Troy: Please. That's what I'm here for.

Thunder: Troy, how much do you weigh? You got to share it with all the listeners.

Troy: Scot, do you know how much I weigh?

Scot: Well, no, I was going to jump in . . .

Troy: You're raising your hand. He's like, "I know the answer."

Scot: He's 157.

Troy: I'm 155. How did you know that? Have we talked about this?

Scot: I used to work at a carnival. You know the guy that would guess weights?

Troy: How old am I?

Scot: That was another . . .

Thunder: When's his birthday?

Troy: When's my birthday?

Scot: That was another guy's game.

Troy: Oh, that was the other guy. You're here for weight. You're pretty good. Yeah, I stay right about 155.

Scot: So when you ask this question, is it the amount you weight or amount of lean tissue that you have?

Thunder: Yeah, it's a loaded question. If you have a healthy body weight, you go with the amount that the person weighs. If the person is very overweight, then we may have to consider a different calculation.

Scot: All right.

Thunder: But since Troy is in great shape and he's lean, we're going to go with his body weight of 155. And we need to do a little bit of math. We have to convert his body weight into kilograms. So we've got to divide 155 by 2.2. And while you're doing that, Scot . . .

Troy: Quick math, Scot.

Thunder: . . . Troy, I'm going to ask you how would you characterize your activity level? Do you think you're somewhat normal activity, kind of borderline sedentary? Or do you make an effort to exercise and be active on a daily basis?

Troy: I exercise and I'm active.

Thunder: Okay. So for someone who exercises not like an elite-level athlete, but they exercise, say, five days a week and they're semi-active, then we'd probably think that they're going to need 1 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. So once we get his weight in kilograms, which we have as 70 . . .

Troy: I'm probably a little bit low.

Thunder: . . . we would just multiply it by, say, 1 and that would give you 70 grams. If you wanted to have a range, on your sedentary days maybe you'd need 0.8 times 70, which is 56 grams, if I did my math right. Or on an active day, you'd do 1.2 times 70. And what does that come out to? Eighty-four.

Scot: Wow, that's super low.

Thunder: So that's your range.

Troy: And that's all you'd need?

Thunder: It's always like that. Most people need less protein than they actually think. So if I have a university student who plays tennis, or is on a ski team, or is a basketball player on the University of Utah team, and they're always working out and they're very active, maybe I would put them at around 1.5 or 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram body weight. You'd come up with a level like was recommended for you, Scot. But for us, as regular guys who exercise and recreate for fun, we just don't need that much.

Scot: Even that 1.5 only puts Troy to 105 grams, so still nowhere near the number that I thought I needed to get. That changes a lot in my life.

Troy: Wow. But just to reiterate, even if I'm super active, and you're talking your super athletes, high-performing athletes, even in those cases, someone like myself with my weight, even in those cases, it's only up to 105 grams of protein a day that you're recommending. That's all you need.

Thunder: Yeah. If you're 70 kilograms, you're a triathlete, so you're training like crazy, maybe you need 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. That's 140 grams of protein.

Scot: Maybe.

Troy: Maybe, and that's even questionable. Again, you look at the amount in most meat products, if you're eating a lot of meat, you're probably well over that every day.

Thunder: Yeah.

Scot: I want to have Producer Mitch step in. We were talking about the number of grams of protein we were eating. At one point, Mitch . . . This is what happens when you go onto the internet and you decide you want to be all ripped. You end up eating 200 grams of protein a day.

Thunder: That's fantastic.

Troy: Two hundred grams a day.

Scot: That's heroic. What was that like?

Mitch: Hi, I'm Mitch, and apparently I don't know how to care about my health.

Troy: It's all right, Mitch.

Mitch: So, last summer, my partner and I were going to be on camera on a documentary and we were like, "Oh, we better get tight. We better put some muscle on." And one of the calculations that we found online stuck me around 1.8 to 2 grams per pound, not lean body mass.

Troy: Per pound?

Mitch: Yeah. And so I was at over 200 grams of protein a day I was trying to get with as low of carbohydrates as possible. And that was . . .

Scot: Wow. And how'd you feel?

Mitch: Miserable every day. I mean, you wake up and it's like, "I need to eat six eggs this morning," or, "I need to eat three or four giant hunks of chicken breasts three or four times a day."

Thunder: You're literally choking that down.

Mitch: Yeah. And protein shakes too. Yeah, your body is just like, "I can't swallow this anymore." And there were protein shakes I was trying to do and it was just . . .

Scot: How was your energy?

Mitch: I was pretty tired. I was wearing out. And we were trying to do doubles and work out as hard as we could. This is starting from zero, too, I understand. But we went online and there were all these people on Reddit that are posting their pictures. And these dudes just get yoked in like six months, and all it took was caring about their macros. Anyway.

Troy: That's a huge amount. So you were almost at four times the recommended amount of protein if you were at 1.8 to 2 per pound.

Thunder: You were doubling what you really should have been eating.

Scot: Mitch comes into your office and tells you that, what do you tell him?

Thunder: Well, I'll tell him he can be happier and save some money if he cuts his protein in half. And I don't really see any downside.

Scot: All right. So some of the noise you hear: carbs are fattening, low carb diets are healthier, bread/pasta/rice is bad, fruit has sugar in it and that's bad. I mean, the list goes on and on. Thunder, as a nutritionist, when I say carbs to you, what do you think about?

Thunder: I actually think of carbs in two categories. I think of carbs that are natural that come from plant products, and I think of carbs that are refined and added in the food processing.

Scot: And do you find that people tend to think of bread and pasta and rice and sugar as carbs when people talk about carbs? Do they kind of have one idea over the other?

Thunder: Yeah, to me, it seems like most people, when they talk about carbs, they talk about the processed carbohydrates that are out there. Like you mentioned, breads and rice and pasta and any kind of added sugar that's in foods.

I think sometimes people will forget that there are carbohydrates in plant products. If you have beans, or if you have any kind of fruit, many kinds of vegetables like carrots, they have carbohydrates. And I think we tend to diminish that a little bit. But those are the kind of carbohydrates that we need to be seeking out.

Troy: Your first response was, "I think of carbs as good carbs and bad carbs."

Scot: I don't know if he said that. Do you think of them as good carbs?

Thunder: I don't know if I said good or bad.

Troy: I guess that's how I interpreted it. You were like, "The carbs in foods," and then you were like, "The carbs that are added to stuff." So you don't think of those as good and bad? You think they're all kind of the same, or do you break them down into good and bad carbs in your mind?

Scot: For what it's worth, I think the same. I think many . . .

Troy: I guess that's what I heard, yeah.

Scot: . . . of us process carbs as good and bad.

Troy: Exactly.

Thunder: So I would agree with you in the sense that I look at carbohydrates that come from natural, unprocessed sources as more "good," and the carbs that are added in any kind of refining process as bad.

And a super simple example is look at any kind of soft drink. It has carbohydrates in it. But it's what we would consider a bad carbohydrate because you're just adding a sugar. You're adding high fructose corn syrup. Versus the carbohydrates you may find in a piece of multigrain bread that's made with unrefined flour, or perhaps carbohydrate that's in a sweet potato. So those are different.

Troy: So it sounds like really, in your mind, you're breaking it down like, "Yeah, these are kind of the same thing, but you're getting a whole lot more good stuff with these carbs than you are with these carbs."

Thunder: You are. You're getting a whole lot more good stuff, and probably your dosage is a lot lower, too. I think that's the other thing that people sometimes forget about when you look at carbohydrates from a natural source versus an added source.

So when you have a typical soft drink, we buy 12-ounce cans. Most people actually don't have 12 ounces of a soft drink. They'll get something bigger, whether they get it a fast food place where they may be getting 24 ounces or 36 ounces. So they're getting a big dosage. They may be getting 100 grams or more of sugar from that. Maybe 120 grams if it's a big enough drink.

You compare that against apples or going back to our sweet potato example, it's going to be less than what you had in the large soft drink and it'll be in a matrix that's packed with fiber and other things so the digestion and absorption is slower. So it's easy to get too much carbs from processed foods because the dosage is higher.

For me to get to equivalent dosage, I may have to eat a lot of sweet potato, or I may have to eat five apples or something. Most people don't sit down and plow through five apples that's equivalent in carbohydrate to a Coke.

So here's something one of my students told me I'll share with you guys. I kind of liked it. When you're thinking about carbohydrates and you're in the grocery store, all the stuff on the edges of the grocery store tends to be better than the things in the middle of the grocery store.

And I thought about that. I thought, "Hey, he's right, because all the cookies and chips and refined stuff tends to be in the middle in the boxes, and all the produce tends to be at the edges of the grocery store."

Troy: So your shopping mantra should be "live on the fringe."

Thunder: "Live in the fringe," yeah. The closer it is to the plant that it came from, the better that carbohydrate is. That's the bottom line.

Scot: Really, it should be the easiest show of the season if you believe what the internet says, because the internet says fat is evil, fat will make you fat, it increases your cholesterol, it causes heart disease, you shouldn't eat it, you should go get the low-fat and fat-free foods instead. But that might not necessarily be the truth.

All right. I want you to pretend you're looking out . . . Because I know you teach as well, and you see your student Scot in the middle of one of the rows.

Thunder: Is he on his phone again?

Scot: No, he's not, but he's like, "Saturated? Polysaturate?" Make it simple for me.

Troy: What's good and what's bad? Yeah, keep it simple.

Thunder: Man, it's so hard to say what's good and what's bad because a lot of the effects of fat are going to depend on the context of what you're eating in general.

Take saturated fat, for example. So if you look at ground beef, which is a source of saturated fat, most people say, "Hamburgers have saturated fat." True. So there are different kinds of saturated fat in there. There's one kind that has been shown experimentally that it could raise your LDL. It could also raise your HDL, which is good. But there's another kind of saturated fat in that same ground beef that doesn't raise your LDL at all. So it's kind of hard to say, "This is all good. This is all evil," because of those subtle differences.

Now, having said that, if to make the simple version, the fats you get from plants tend to be more healthy. The fats we get from animals tend to be more unhealthy. And especially when it's in the context of fast food, right?

So the same saturated fat that's in fast food, if I have a little bit of it and it's maybe as part of meat or chicken, and there are a lot of vegetables that I'm eating with, it may not be a bad thing. But then when I take that fat and I put it in a super-sized meal, now it's with all this other stuff that as a package can make it bad.

So I guess two rules. Let me try to summarize this simply. Fat that's in its natural state with unprocessed foods is not that bad. And when we take saturated fat and we put it in the context of processed foods, so think bacon, think fast food, stuff like that, that is bad. So that's the simple version of it.

Scot: But what about this? When I eat a lot of fat, it's going to make me fat. Is that true?

Thunder: That is not necessarily true. It kind of depends on how long you're eating, and how much you're eating, but generally not true.

Scot: All right. One of the dangers when you're eating is hidden sugar. So we've talked about sugars, refined sugars, how it's easy to eat a lot of them, which gets you a lot of calories, which then could cause you to gain weight. Plus, there are also other negative health benefits around those types of added sugars to foods.

So we're going to play a little game called "How Much Hidden Sugar?" Thunder has come in with five different food choices, and Troy, you and I are going to try to guess how much hidden sugar is in these food items that many people might consider healthy.

Troy: Yeah, and these are all pretty much all food items that I eat, and I consider healthy. So I'm really curious what we're going to find on these.

Scot: All right. So "How Much Hidden Sugar?" Thunder, what are we going to start with here?

Thunder: We're going to start with something that most people consume every day, and that is bread. So if you think about your typical slice of grocery store white bread.

Troy: Added sugar. I've never thought of added sugar in bread.

Scot: Nope, me neither.

Troy: And if someone asked me, I'd say, "No, there's no added sugar."

Scot: I would have said no as well.

Troy: So now that we're asking the question, in two slices, I'm going to say four grams then, one teaspoonful.

Scot: I'm going to say one in each, so I'm going to go eight grams, two teaspoons.

Thunder: We're closer to Troy. It's actually three grams, which is about a teaspoon, a little less than a teaspoon.

Troy: Still, I'm surprised. Like I said, because we're doing this, I assume there's hidden sugar. If you would've asked me prior to this, I would have said no.

Scot: Number two, the game is called "How Much Hidden Sugar?" What's your second one?

Thunder: So this is in honor of Troy, because he is a Taco Bell fan.

Troy: Oh, we can't say that.

Thunder: How much hidden sugar in a Taco Bell bean burrito?

Troy: Can we say Taco Bell?

Scot: We could beep it out. But every time you say Taco Bell, I have to hit the beep button. So if we can stop now, that would be great.

Troy: We'll say I'm a fast food very popular Mexican restaurant fan. It is one of my favorite places to go if I am going out for fast food. And I consider it a healthy option compared to other fast food.

Scot: Okay. So a bean burrito from this particular establishment.

Troy: A bean burrito at this particular establishment. Prior to this, I would have said none. Again, kind of like the bread thing, I just don't think of it as having sugar. I think of it as relatively healthy.

Scot: Yeah, because you wouldn't think . . . Inside, it's got beans.

Troy: It's got beans.

Scot: Right? Cheese.

Troy: It's got cheese. And that's it.

Scot: Lettuce?

Troy: No.

Scot: No lettuce?

Troy: It's beans and cheese. It's very simple.

Scot: You got the tortilla, so there's probably some hidden sugar in that.

Troy: Okay. Maybe that's where there's hidden sugar. So again, I'm going to go with the bread answer. It was three grams in two slices of bread, so I'm going to say two grams because we're talking about just one tortilla.

Scot: My strategy is to always double what you say. I'm going to say four grams.

Troy: You're going to double my number.

Thunder: You guys are both close. It's right in the middle, three grams.

Troy: Three grams? Again it's three grams.

Thunder: The question I would ask is do you just eat one bean burrito or more than one?

Troy: Oh, it's at least two. So there I'm getting six grams.

Thunder: Because they're not big.

Troy: They're not super big. Yeah, you've got to get two. So right there you're at six grams, one teaspoon and a half at that point.

Thunder: Yeah. Number three, everyone's favorite healthy snack, yogurt. So how about a flavored yogurt like strawberry-flavored or blueberry-flavored yogurt that we all like to buy?

Troy: Yeah. And it's healthy, you would assume.

Scot: One would assume. I'm going to say there's three teaspoons of added sugar. So how many grams is that?

Thunder: That would be 12 grams.

Scot: Oh, I'm going to go higher than that. I'm going to say there are five teaspoons of added sugar in that whole cup.

Troy: Twenty grams? I was going to say 10. So I guess we're sticking with our pattern. You're going double. I was just going to say 10. So you're saying 20.

Thunder: Okay. The correct answer is actually 10 grams of added sugar.

Troy: Wow, 10 grams.

Thunder: Now, it's going to vary depending on what kind of yogurt you get, what it's flavored with. Vanilla yogurt typically has a lot of sugar, or honey-flavored yogurt has a lot. But 10 grams. That is two-and-a-half teaspoons.

Troy: In one thing of . . .

Thunder: In a small container.

Scot: So again, visually imagine yourself going over to the white sugar container in your kitchen, taking one, taking two . . .

Thunder: And a half.

Scot: . . . and a half into that little small cup and mixing that in. You would never think of doing that.

Thunder: Yeah, most people, if they put a teaspoon of sugar in a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, they're thinking, "Oh, that's a lot of sugar."

Okay, number four, another supposedly healthy food. You guys know the instant oatmeal packets that come in paper packet, you just add water, and you've got a healthy breakfast?

Scot: Yeah, oatmeal is great for your health. You've got that good soluble fiber in there, good for your heart, right? Perfectly healthy.

Thunder: So think about that paper packet. It doesn't matter what flavor you like, apple cinnamon, maple. Whatever flavor . . .

Troy: And there's got to be flavor.

Thunder: . . . they've all got about the same amount of sugar. So how much do you think that has?

Troy: I'm going to go again with the yogurt. I'm going to say it's 10 grams.

Scot: I'm going to go six grams, so one-and-a-half teaspoons.

Thunder: You should have fell back on your strategy of just doubling.

Troy: Oh, no. So 20 grams?

Thunder: It has 18 grams.

Troy: That's insane.

Thunder: You're talking four-and-a-half teaspoons of sugar in one of those little paper packets of oatmeal.

Troy: That's insane.

Thunder: Now, do we really just eat one of those for breakfast?

Troy: There's not much in there.

Thunder: Because they're pretty small. A lot of times people eat two, so now you're doubling that. You're at 36 grams of sugar.

Troy: That's nine teaspoons.

Thunder: And you're looking at nine teaspoons of sugar.

Troy: So nine teaspoons. That's my breakfast. Just eating some sugar. That's crazy.

Thunder: Just put nine teaspoons in a bowl and go crazy.

Scot: Might as well go get those Sugar Smacks.

Troy: I know.

Scot: Seriously.

Thunder: I think those have like six grams of sugar.

Scot: Yeah?

Thunder: Yeah. A lot less.

Troy: So there are less grams of sugar in Sugar Smacks than there are in flavored oatmeal?

Thunder: Correct.

Scot: All right. "How Much Hidden Sugar?" number five.

Thunder: Okay, energy bars. Everyone loves to have energy bars. They're quick snacks. You use them when you're exercising or you're in between meals. So think of a typical energy bar you like.

Troy: Yeah, and this is something I used to consume on a regular basis. And then I looked at the amount of sugar in it and I said, "Wow, I can't believe it." I'm going to say 15 grams.

Thunder: Okay, good guess.

Scot:Four, 8, 12 . . . So just about four teaspoons of sugar.

Troy: Yeah, in one bar.

Scot: I have heard some people say that these things are just about as bad as a candy bar. I'm going to go with six teaspoons.

Troy: Twenty-four grams.

Scot: So 24 grams.

Thunder: You guys both underestimated.

Troy: Are you kidding?

Thunder:The one that we looked up has 31.6 grams of added sugar.

Troy: You've got to be kidding.

Thunder: Yeah.

Troy: That's insane.

Thunder: That's a lot.

Troy: This is not just some random . . .

Thunder: Nine teaspoons.

Troy:  . . . energy bar you looked up. This is a brand name, very common energy bar . . .

Thunder: Correct. Brand name.

Troy: . . . that I have consumed on a regular basis.

Scot: First name pretty close to the beginning of the alphabet.

Troy: It blows my mind.

Thunder: Most people out there have had this bar at one time or another. Again, not all of them are going to have this much, but most energy bars do have a pretty substantial amount of added sugar.

Troy: So 31 grams?

Thunder: Thirty-one grams.

Troy: And that is our winner for the most sugar . . .

Scot: That is our winner.

Thunder: That's our winner.

Troy: . . . of everything we've talked about. That's crazy.

Thunder: One other thing I wanted to add to this. So we talked about white bread, bean burrito, a flavored yogurt, a flavored oatmeal, a [inaudible 00:35:11] bar. It's entirely possible somebody would eat all of these foods in one day. None of them seem to be too outrageous.

Scot: So let's add that up.

Troy: Sixty-six grams of added sugar.

Scot: Which is how many teaspoons?

Troy: Sixteen teaspoonfuls.

Thunder: Sixteen teaspoons of added sugar. That is a lot.

Troy: Sixteen and a half. That's crazy.

Scot: Yeah. Again, imagine going to the thing of sugar and just throughout the day doing 16 of those teaspoons.

And I think that's a great point. I looked up how much added sugar that you should have, and according to the American Heart Association, they say men should only have 9 teaspoons, or 150 calories' worth, in a day.

Thunder: Right. And we just had these five foods that we thought were fairly healthy, and they actually added up to 66.

Mitch: If you liked anything you heard on today's best-of episode and want to hear more, a list of episodes featured today is in the show notes. And if you have any questions for specialists or have a story to share, don't hesitate to message us via email at hello@thescoperadio.com. Thanks for listening, and thanks for caring about men's health.