Jody:  Matt and Mike, I’m confused.  There are 4 trillion books and articles about what the best diet is.  The fasting trial went awesome, but what should my everyday diet be? What is the perfect diet? Matt:  Well, a few years ago I decided that I would no longer discuss 3 things in public:  Religion, politics and diet. It’s a no win situation and the easiest way to get into a fight.  No one listens. Everyone has set opinions and just gets ticked off when you ticked off when you talk about it.  I’m out. Mike:  But we definitely have very strong opinions based on our medical training and the hundreds of books and articles we’ve read. We talk about it non-stop with each other because we don’t care if we piss each other off. Matt:  Oh, yeah, I love talking about.  Just not in public. Jody, if you turn off the recording, I’m happy to dive in. Jody:  Ok, sure.  Click. It’s off. Matt:  That sounded like you just made a clicking sound with your mouth. Jody:  What?!?!.  Come on, you know me.  Trust me. 2:00 – 4:00 Matt:  Alright, since it’s just us, let’s go.  Tell me what you do now. Jody tells us what he does now and we discuss. 4:20 – 5:30 Matt summarizes:  I just made this up.  Eat food, mostly plants, not too much.  And if you’re great, great grandmother wouldn’t recognize it, then don’t consider it food. Mike:  That sounds familiar. Jody:  Yeah, because he just ripped that directly off of Michael Pollan word for word. Matt:  How dare you accuse me……  Ok, ok. You got me. Problem is that I’ve read hundreds of books and thousands of articles on nutrition and food and I’ve yet to be able to sum it up more succinctly than Michael Pollan did in The Omnivore’s Dilemma more than a decade ago with that statement. So, if you haven’t ready that book, read it.  It’s definitely more complicated than that in general, but every other recommendation I could give comes with some caveats and explanation. That’s a great summary. And it gets you at least one pareto law there. You get at least 80% of the benefit. Michael:  Right, but we’ve got more than 2 sentences worth of time here.  Our goal is always 2 pareto laws, to get to 96%, so let’s dig in a little and go a bit deeper.  As much as you and I obsess over this stuff, I bet there’s a few things we could teach people. 5:30 – 7:00 Jody:  Can we start by explaining those two sentences. Matt:  For sure.  The beauty of them is that it conveys so much information is so few words, but a bit of clarification is in order.  First off, eat food. The next sentence explains that a bit, but a bag of Cheetos and a frankendog you get at the gas station isn’t food.  Calories don’t equal food. Your great great grandmother didn’t have snickers bars, lean cuisine meals, and powerade. So, don’t eat it. Your grandmother did have pot roast, venison, carrots, and spinach and onions from her garden.  Those are foods. Jody:  So, stay away from 99% of the things in the grocery store. Matt:  Exactly.  I was so proud of my kids the other day when a neighbor told me they were at her house and when she offered them a snack my 6 year old said “actually, we only eat things that come out of the ground.”  I acted embarrassed and apologized if it seemed rude, but I was totally pumped. My kids absolutely do not eat what I’d like for them to. They beg for ice cream and other junk that other kids get, but I was so proud that maybe it’s getting through to them. 7:00 – 12:30 Mike:  And the mostly plants part and not too much is pretty simple. The more micronutrient dense whole vegetables you can consume the better. In general we all are overfed due to the convenience of food in modern society and the social aspect surrounding meals.  So, generally, eating low calorie micronutrient dense foods is a generally safe plan, and the food that checks that box are vegetables. We’ve already talked on the podcast about calorie restriction and it’s health and longevity benefits, so go back and listen to that if you haven’t already.  Jody:  OK,