With the start of the new year many of you may have heard of the Netflix documentary “You Are What You Eat” and be considering changing your own lifestyle based on the results the program showed.
Before you run out to the supermarket and buy every vegetable in sight and throw out every bit of meat left in your fridge and freezer, there is actually a fair bit to unpack and consider about this show. Just like with everything, we need to approach this with nuance and consideration, so this episode will be giving you everything you need to know when it comes to following the advice given in the show.
In this episode I share:
- My breakdown of the study the show is based on and whether or not it is credible
- The key results and takeaways from the show and what it says about plant based diets
- What are telomeres and how the interventions in the show impacted these
- The big considerations to be aware of when taking the documentary’s results
- What you should do and not do after watching the documentary
- The different varieties of plant based food
- What is a microbiome and how does eating more plants help?
- Examples of plant based foods that are high in protein
- The mistake I saw people do after watching similar documentaries in the past
Key Quotes
“What is helpful is to eat more plant based food and increase the diversity of plants.”
“Whilst the people on the plant based diet lost more weight, those on plant based diets also lost considerable amounts of muscle mass”
“It’s easier to eat more protein in animal based foods.”
Episode Resources
Jessica Spendlove Website – www.jessicaspendlove.com
Jessica Spendlove Keynotes – JessicaspendloveKeynotes – Jessica Spendlove
The High-Performance Profile Quiz https://jessicaspendlove.com/quiz/
Jess Spendlove Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/?hl=en
Jess Spendlove LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spendlove-64173bb8/
About Your Host
Jessica Spendlove | Wellbeing Speaker & High Performance Strategist
Jess Spendlove is an international wellbeing and high performance speaker, coach, and advisor. With over 15 years of experience across corporate leadership, elite sport and the military she is known for helping ambitious leaders and teams optimise energy, build resilience, and sustain peak performance.
As one of Australia’s leading performance dietitians and a trusted voice in executive wellbeing, Jess delivers science-backed strategies that empower individuals, teams and organisations to thrive under pressure and achieve long-term success.
Episode Transcript
The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy
Jess (00:09.858)
Today I wanted to decode the latest Netflix documentary, You Are What You Eat. Now, I’m sure many of you have either watched it, heard about it from friends or family, or seen people talking about it online.
because it’s in high circulation and it’s also the start of the new year. And I know a lot of people are looking at setting their 2024 up for success, wanting to have their best year, particularly when it comes to their health and nutrition being set and nutrition being such a fundamental, profound.
and nutrition being such a fundamental component of living your best life, I thought it was important to take you through the documentary, The Harvard Study, which is the actual scientific literature centered around the core of the documentary, take you through some of the considerations, the key findings, and also what I consider the most important point to be the practical application and how you can walk away and apply it to your everyday life.
Jess (01:19.806)
Now on that note, let’s get into today’s episode.
Jess (01:38.814)
Now team, unless you’ve been living under a… No, I don’t wanna start saying that.
Jess (01:46.562)
Team, I thought it would be great to do a dedicated episode about you are what you eat and take you through the Harvard study and take you through the Harvard Twin Study, which is featured throughout the documentary. Now, the study itself is a very high quality study. It was conducted at Harvard University and it is very…
It was conducted at Harvard University by leading researchers and the design of the study itself was highly credible. Now, the methodology or the style of the design is what you would call a single site, parallel group, dietary intervention, randomised control trial. Now, what that means for anyone who hasn’t watched it is that 22 identical twins were allocated to either
a plant-based diet or an omnivore diet. So from each set of twins, one person was placed on a plant-only, vegan-based diet, and the other was placed on an omnivore diet. An omnivore diet means that they eat plants and animals. So they were consuming dairy, they were consuming eggs, meat, chicken, fish, et cetera.
The study ran over eight weeks, and for the first four weeks, all of the twins were provided meals. So those that were on the vegan-based diet or the plant-based diet means the same thing. They were provided with plant-based meals for the first four weeks, and the twins that were on the omnivore diet were provided with meals seven days a week that fit that dietary intervention. Now, the most important thing to call out is that the omnivore diet
healthy, well-balanced omnivore diet. So they weren’t just placed on some rubbish, poor quality diet and comparing it to those on a plant-based diet, they were both healthy, well-balanced, well-rounded diets. So the first four weeks, meals were provided, which the significance of that is that adherence can be really high. But the second four weeks of the study, twins were then, the twins then had to prepare their own meals. So for those that were on the plant-based,
Jess (04:01.36)
those on the vegan slash plant-based, so for those on the vegan-based diet, they had to prepare plant-based meals only, and those on the omnivore could prepare, and those on the omnivore diet were preparing meals with animal-based products, as well as consuming lentils, legumes, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and the rest. Now, the significance of this study is that it was conducted with identical twins, and,
So now the significance of using identical twins is that they are using individuals with identical genes. So the significance of placing one on a plant-based diet and then another on an omnivore diet, they are controlling for as much noise as possible. The second thing to call out, aside from the dietary intervention, was that a number of different tests and measurements were taken at the start, throughout,
Jess (05:01.32)
of the dietary intervention to assess the effects of the intervention. So some of the so what was tested was bloods, blood so blood tests were done biomarkers were looked at things like cholesterol, fasting insulin, stool sample so they looked at the microbiome
Urine testing was done, chronological or biological age was measured. They also looked at body composition by doing a DEXA scan, which was able to look at fat mass, muscle mass, and also visceral fat. A number of tests were done, as I mentioned, at the start, throughout, and at the end to assess the effects. Now, the interesting piece of the…
Jess (05:54.886)
Now, an interesting thing to call out is when I went looking for the research paper that was published, which was in late 2023, there wasn’t much mention of the exercise intervention which featured in the Netflix documentaries. So I’m actually not sure if there are multiple papers that have been produced from this study, but the one in…
but the one that I found centered purely around the dietary intervention and also called out the cardio metabolic effects as well as the weight loss.
Jess (06:33.302)
But the study that I was able to find, which was published in late 2023, focused particularly around the dietary intervention and some of the results around the cardio metabolic effects as well as the weight.
Jess (06:49.954)
cardiometabolic effects and some of the weight changes that happened.
Jess (06:58.266)
Mm-mm-mm.
Jess (00:00.714)
So the reason I call that out is because the design of the study itself was well-designed. Highly credible study, grounded in science, conducted by Harvard University, and conducted by Harvard University. Now, when it comes to the key findings from the study, they looked at a number of effects. They wanted to assess cardiometabolic health. They wanted to assess chronological age and biological age.
They also wanted to look at body composition, fat mass, muscle mass and visceral fat. Now…
In no particular order, here were some of the significant results from the study. So the plant-based group saw a number of improvements when it comes to cardio metabolic health. So this is considering things like cardiovascular disease.
Jess (00:57.866)
So this is considering things like cholesterol levels, insulin levels, overall weight, fat mass, visceral fat.
Jess (01:10.706)
Now when it comes to the findings from the study, in no particular order, these are some of the key features to call out.
The twins that were on the plant-based group had significantly improved cardio metabolic outcomes. In particular, they had greater reductions in low density lipoprotein cholesterol or LDL cholesterol, and they also had improvements with their fasting insulin levels. Now, LDL cholesterol is what we often, what is often known as bad cholesterol, and it depends what country
you’re listening from, but for most people with high levels of cholesterol, it’s often the LDL fraction that we are wanting to reduce. So the twins that were on the plant-based diet had reduced LDL cholesterol in comparison to those that were on the omnivore diet. Now, fasting insulin levels were also reduced
the vegan or were reduced in the vegan group compared to the omnivore group.
The other notable change for those that were on the vegan diet is that they had greater overall weight loss and they had greater loss of visceral fat. Now visceral fat is that internal fat that is around our organs that is something we really need to be considerate of. It is indicative of metabolic syndrome, cardiometabolic effects and it’s something that we are wanting
Jess (02:56.224)
to limit. It’s definitely the most dangerous type of fat. Now they did touch on this next point that I wanted to call out in the documentary briefly but I really would have preferred that they really highlighted the significance of this which was whilst the people on the plant-based diet lost more weight because they did a dexa scan which allowed them to look at their fat mass
Jess (03:26.164)
plant-based diet lost considerable amounts of muscle mass. Now this is never, now unless someone is obese or morbidly obese and they have excess muscle because that the thing is when we gain weight we gain fat and muscle and when we lose weight we gain we lose fat and muscle. We can never exclusively only gain or lose one or the other but what we can do is through specific
strategic interventions with exercise and nutrition, we can target what we want to lose. So the loss of so much muscle mass is a high consideration and something that is a high consideration point because particularly as we age, muscle mass is incredibly important and incredibly indicative for our longevity. So that is definitely something which I really wish they’d called out in more detail in the documentary.
itself because we don’t want to just lose any type of weight. We want to be losing visceral fat and we want to be losing excessive amounts of fat and we want to be protecting as much muscle mass as possible.
Jess (04:45.366)
The other significant finding which the documentary focused on was the reduction in biological age for those that were in the vegan or the plant-based group compared to the omnivore group which is something that they noted was something they were quite surprised that within eight weeks there was change that was already seen. One of the ways in which they tested that was by measuring the length of telomeres. Now telomere length…
Now telomere length, the length of our telomeres shorten as we age and is and
Jess (05:27.742)
shorter telomeres, like the significance of this is that shorter telomeres have been associated with increased incidents of disease and poor survival. Sorry, I scrapped that bit.
Jess (05:44.43)
I’m gonna just start that whole section again. One of the other significant findings that was noted in the documentary was the reduction in biological age for those participants that were in the plant-based diet, for the plant-based intervention. Now…
Jess (06:08.884)
They assessed this in a few ways. One of the ways they called out was by looking at the length of those, length of telomeres. Now telomeres…
Jess (06:24.206)
Telomeres are specific DNA protein structures that are found at the ends of each of our chromosomes. Telomeres play a vital role in preserving the information in our… Sorry, Sam.
Jess (06:42.366)
Now telomeres are specific DNA protein structures found at the end of each chromosome. Therefore telomeres play a vital role in pres- This is so fucking… Not great.
Jess (07:04.958)
Now the significant… God.
Jess (07:10.626)
Telomere lengths shorten as we age. And in the study, what was found that those on the vegan or the plant-based group actually had increases in their length of the telomeres, which they did note that they were surprised that over only an eight week period that this change was seen. I do think this is one of the more significant findings of the study and is a consideration for going on a plant-based diet. Mm.
Jess (07:54.738)
Now, in terms of now before I go into some of the practical applications for everyday life
Jess (08:08.146)
Now, I think it’s important to flag some of the considerations around the study, the documentary.
And now I think it’s important to flag some of the considerations around the documentary. While all in all I do think this documentary is worth a watch, I do, and looking at the study that the documentary is centred around, there is some significant findings here which we can use and which we can use to inform better health practices. It is really important to note that the documentary was set in America and focused on a lot of
farming practice and focused on farming practices that happen there. A lot of my listeners are in Australia and it is it is
Jess (09:00.93)
Team, there’s a few considerations I want to call out though while watching the study. Team, there are some considerations I want to call out when watching the documentary. The first is that it was set in America. And whilst…
Jess (09:20.57)
set in America who have different laws and different farming practices to what we do have here in Australia. So I think it is really important to call that out because I know a lot of my listeners are based in Australia and New Zealand and we do have different laws and regulations around farming and farming practices here. I do believe that the awareness that the documentary
Jess (09:51.084)
is not a bad thing. The sustainability piece, climate change and the consumption of meat are something that I believe all humans should be aware of and whilst I personally am an omnivore myself
Jess (10:18.034)
And whilst I think it’s important to call out that I am an omnivore, I consume meat, dairy, as well as plant-based foods, I do believe that it is a really important factor that human beings need to be considerate of where their food is coming from and the impact that it is having on the environment, particularly when it comes to climate change.
Another thing to note, which I’ve seen a lot of people starting to talk about is where the funding for the study and the documentary has come from and particular conflicts of interest. I think it’s important to call out when it comes to the actual study itself. The study is very credible. It’s been conducted by leading researchers at one of the best universities in the world.
Jess (11:11.776)
helping people eat more plant-based foods, which again in my opinion is not necessarily a bad thing. What I don’t think people need to do is rush out and overnight become plant-based or vegan. If you are someone who is wanting to explore this way of eating, by all means go ahead. There is never going to be any harm.
Jess (11:39.374)
There is never going to be any harm from eating more plants. Unless it means you go extreme, we remove all animal products, we don’t have the health and the nutritional literacy to understand what we are replacing and where the gaps in our nutrition are. I think we really saw this within the study with the participants on the plant-based diets, who yes, they had significant cardio metabolic effects, they had significant cardio metabolic improvements, they had reduced visceral fat,
overall lost more weight. A lot of the weight that they did lose was from muscle mass which is not what we want. We always want to protect muscle. We want to gain as much as we can in our 20s, 30s and 40s and when we get into our 50s we want to maintain it as much as possible. Sarcopenia which is the loss of muscle mass is a real consideration as we age with is a real consideration and if we
about aging with grace, we need to be focusing on our lean muscle mass. So that is something that we really need to focus on when we’re looking at how we eat and when we’re making decisions around our nutrition and what is going to be most supportive for ourselves. This is why I am very pro people working with their own health practitioners, someone who can guide them, who can support them, who can help them be accountable, who can help decipher
the scientific knowledge, the documentaries, all the information that’s out in the social media world and drill it down and decode it so it is specific to you, to your lifestyle, to your goals, to your medical background, to how you like to eat. Personalized nutrition and personalized health is the way of the future and it’s probably one of my main criticisms about the information economy and the education economy
access to right now. The thing is when we’re hearing what other people are doing, when we’re hearing about leading research, we still are not necessarily, we still don’t necessarily have that skill set to distill it and apply it to our lives, which is why I would really encourage anyone with a health or a nutrition goal in 2024 to seek out support. That could be someone like myself, that
Jess (14:09.228)
is within their local area if they want to work face to face. I would just really encourage you to seek out that support and not watch one documentary and change the entire way that you live your life and the foods that you eat.
Jess (14:27.998)
In saying all of that.
I think there are a lot of practical applications that we can extract and a lot of people can apply to their everyday life to maximise their wellbeing and their health now as well as their performance. Now, the first thing that I really liked about the documentary and the study is that it highlights the benefits of eating more plant-based foods. As I’ve just said, it doesn’t mean we have to go and become vegan or plant-based. If you want to, please by all means of course do that,
Don’t think that is the only way. What is helpful is to eat more plant-based foods, increase the diversity of plants. Now, if you’re like, what is she talking about plants? Is she talking about like actual plants, flowers and trees? No, I’m talking about anything that is grown from the ground. So that is whole grains, nuts and seeds, lentils and legumes, fruits and vegetables.
herbs and spices. When it comes to food that is what a plant-based food is. It is something that is not a derivative of an animal or is an animal. So that’s why dairy and obviously like eggs, meat, fish and chicken, they are considered animal-based products. So the first practical application, there are benefits for everybody to increase their plant-based intake across the board.
Jess (15:58.998)
The second point I wanna make, which is a great continuation of that, is that eating more plants is supportive of an enhanced microbiome. Now I’m going to do a few episodes specifically dedicated to gut health, the microbiome, how to eat for it, the gut brain access, fermented foods, all of these things that you’re probably hearing about. I will do a few dedicated episodes on that. But one of the call outs from the study in the documentary in relation to eating more plants
that is supportive of improving your gut microbiome. Now, very quickly, the microbiome is the environment of your gut and it looks at the different bacteria, the different fungi, the different parasites, and basically that entire ecosystem that is present in our gut. Truions and trillions of different bacteria. The number one predictor of a healthy microbiome is eating more plants. There was a significant study,
Thanks for watching!
which found that individuals who ate 30 or more different plants per week had a more diverse and optimized microbiome than those eating 10 or less. So this is why eating more plants and a more diverse range of plants is supportive for every single human being. Now, the next point which I have touched on, but I just really wanna call it out here, is regardless of how you’re choosing to eat,
intake. Whether you’re eating animal-based foods, whether you’re eating exclusively plant-based, the amount, the timing, the frequency and the intake of your protein foods is significantly important for the gaining and the maintaining of lean mass. Now when it comes to protein intake and gaining and maintaining lean mass, we’re talking about a few things. We’re talking about the total amount, we’re talking
Jess (18:00.08)
timing. What we want to be doing is pulsing our protein intake consistently across the day. If this isn’t your first episode, you’ve heard me talk about this for a number of different reasons, but maintaining a gaining lean mass is one of them.
Jess (18:19.282)
Now, one of the main struggles people have when they become plant-based and they’re not educated on this piece is that plant-based foods are not as bioavailable or as in abundance of protein as what animal-based foods are. So this simply means that the amount of protein that is naturally in animal-based foods is a higher…
is a higher quality in terms of the bioavailability, but it’s also, it’s easier to eat more protein in animal-based foods. So that is really something which anyone eating predominantly plant-based or anyone looking to exclusively become plant-based really needs to consider. Now, plant-based foods that are high in protein are things like lentils, legumes, soy-based products. Nuts and seeds have some protein, but they would be more of what I would
would classify as a healthy fat and then it will be looking at other things like plant-based protein powders as well. So it’s not a negative at all, I really don’t want people to think that’s what I’m trying to say but what I’m saying is protein intake is incredibly important for gaining and maintaining lean muscle mass and when we’re looking to become vegan or we’re eating exclusively plant-based that is something that is more challenging unless we’ve got the
understand what we need to do and the foods that we really need to focus on. So that’s something which really is a call out.
So that is something which I really wanted to call out here and just make people aware of, because that isn’t something that is explored in the level of depth in the documentary. They only really quickly touch on it when they look at the DEXA scans. But for me, in my practice, in my application, in looking at the longevity research, in understanding the effects of sarcopenia and the reduction of muscle mass as we age, we really need to be protecting our muscle mass. That is expensive assets
Jess (20:23.856)
optimizing when we can in the first half of our life and maintaining it as much as possible or putting strategies in place to even try and enhance it there as much as possible.
Jess (20:39.882)
So in saying all of that, it’s the new year and I know that a lot of you will be considering health. I know that a lot of people are considering their health and their nutrition and what they want to improve. The main thing I want you to understand is that we don’t want to change everything.
Jess (21:02.634)
So in saying all of that, I definitely think the documentary is worth the watch. So in saying all of that, I think the documentary is worth the watch and there are definitely some points which can be taken and extrapolated and applied to your life. I think the main things to call out is we don’t wanna go changing everything. Health literacy and understanding.
Jess (21:32.598)
So in saying all of that, I definitely think the documentary is worth the watch, but there are a number of factors just to be considerate of when we are watching something like this. Some of those again are the documentaries set in America and a lot of people listening to this will be based in Australia. Also the angle of the documentary definitely…
Jess (21:55.966)
So in saying all of that, I think the documentary is worth a watch, but I just want you to approach with curiosity and consideration. Don’t.
When the Game Changers documentary came out, I saw a lot of people.
change to vegan overnight, but they did so without being informed, without being educated and without really truly understanding what they were doing. I think some of the factors that I’ve called out about eating more plants and optimizing your plant intake but considering your protein is something universal. Regardless of who I am working with, they are messages that I am promoting because they are grounded in science and they are focused on optimizing your well-being now as well as your longevity.
The thing I really like about focusing on plant-based intake, it’s calling out gut health, which is kind of the sexy cousin of just eating more vegetables. Gut health really justifies the reason why we want to diversify our plant intake, which is anything grown from the ground and includes vegetables. At the end of the day, I think most people could benefit from eating more meatless meals, but again, really we want to consider the protein levels of those meals.
meals looking at our lentils, our legumes, our soy based products or looking at ways we can boost that up using certain whole grains like quinoa which is quite high in protein as well. The average person should be aiming for around 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body mass per day. For some really active people or athletes that’ll be up closer to 2 grams but when we look at considerations to what is suggested from the dietary guidelines they are a lot
Jess (23:44.628)
Oh.
Jess (23:48.739)
so I scraped the whole protein thing there.
I do think the majority of people would benefit from at least introducing some meatless meals. And for those of you that are already plant-based, amazing. But one thing I want you to look at is the amount of protein you are consuming and looking at plant-based foods that are rich in protein to make sure that we are maximizing that. It is so incredibly important for your muscle mass now, but for your longevity and your quality of life in many years to come.
joining me for today’s episode. I hope you like the rundown and my thoughts on you are what you eat. If you’ve watched it let me know what you think. If you found today’s episode helpful I would love for you to share it with a friend. If you’d like to support navigating a personalized game plan for your well-being and performance in 2024 I have two coaching spots available and between you and me in late February I will be launching a brand new group
where I will help you reset your behaviours and rewire your subconscious. You will be w-
and rewire your subconscious. Together, we will co-create a personalized wellbeing and performance program tailored to your life, which is the true key to success. This program will be a beta launch, which means that the program will be released at a 50% reduced fee compared to what the program will be when it launches officially in later 2024. Numbers are limited and as I meant,
Jess (25:33.104)
Thanks for watching!
If you’d like more information before I officially promote it in the next few weeks, you can email me Jess at jessicaspenlove.com and I can send you some more information. Otherwise team, thank you for joining me for another episode of Stay At The Top and I’m looking forward to an amazing 2024 with you all. Until next week, I will see you all then.