In this article, Dr Joe Kostrich and Ian Blackley discuss the impact of government dietary guidelines on public health, the rise in chronic diseases, and the importance of returning to natural, whole-food-based diets. They share personal insights and practical advice on improving our eating habits for better health.
Ian Blackley: Doctor Joe. Hello, how are you? Where have you been?
Dr Joe: Oh, very good. Thanks. I’m blankers. No, like, you’re not being a busier day than anticipated.
Ian Blackley: Oh, that’s okay, mate.
Dr Joe: So I decided I did apologize for everything.
Ian Blackley: No good if that’s okay, honestly, we played a bit of music.
Dr Joe: Everything cool.
Ian Blackley: It was fine.
Dr Joe: Next.
Ian Blackley: It was fine and I knew you’d pop your head up eventually. That’s OK. That’s alright, mate, not a problem. Not at all. Now, what are we going to talk about tonight? Do we have a chronic disease epidemic because the government has fattened us up? It’s got my interest.
Dr Joe: Yeah.
Ian Blackley: That other yeah. OK, if you don’t.
Dr Joe: For a short answer, the question is yes, and it is really a shock, and people will do a double take and say, look, you know, surely that can’t be the case.
Ian Blackley: We.
Dr Joe: And no, the government doesn’t come around and, you know, sit you down and get a spoon and put food into your mouth. However…
Ian Blackley: Full screen view.
Dr Joe: It is very interesting and I suspect there might be some listeners who remember the 1970s. For those who don’t, if you look at pictures from the 1970s, there is something very striking compared to today. You see far fewer people who are overweight or obese. In 1976, the American administration was advised that they needed to do something about the fact that 13 to 14% of Americans were overweight or obese and 2% had diabetes. Something needed to be done about it, which is not unreasonable.
Ian Blackley: Yeah.
Dr Joe: And that led to the first government dietary guidelines. These were government dietary guidelines telling people what should be eaten, and the aim was to reduce overweight, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.
Ian Blackley: This.
Dr Joe: Fast forward to the early 1980s when the first guidelines came out. Fast forward 45 years later, and in the United States, the rates of overweight and obesity have gone up fourfold. So obesity, instead of being about 13%, is now 40%. Diabetes, instead of being 2%, is now 8%. So a three and fourfold increase after the government got involved and started telling people what to eat. Despite that, the next version of these dietary guidelines is going to come out in the next few months. It is currently being reviewed and is under discussion, but it won’t make any difference because there is no intent and never has been to admit that maybe we should actually look at the results of what we’re doing and question whether what we’re doing is working or not. You don’t really need a degree in anything to be able to say, well, if your aim was to reduce the incidence of something and what you are aiming to reduce the incidence of has not only just gone up a little bit but gone up three and fourfold, maybe you need to fundamentally question the basis of what you’re recommending. But they won’t and they don’t. So to that extent, could it be said that the government is totally, quite frankly, does not care about the effects of what it’s recommending to people? I suspect the answer to that one, sadly, is yes.
Ian Blackley: Yes. What are they actually recommending?
Dr Joe: And the kids?
Ian Blackley: What are they actually recommending to people, Joe?
Dr Joe: Oh, it’s typically, if you look at the food pyramid or what they redesigned in America’s food plate, it’s typically a high carbohydrate diet and specifically high in grains. Like saying 52 to 56% of what you eat in terms of your calories should come from grains. Now that is very, very new in human history. Humans, for most of their existence, were hunter-gatherers and variations on that theme. If you think back to the 70s, your standard meal was meat and three veg, maybe fish and three veg or chicken and three veg. But then it was decided, oh no, this is terrible. That’s all causing heart attacks. We’ve got to get rid of that. And we replaced it with lots of carbohydrates, and those carbohydrates are typically refined. They come in pretty boxes and often have three or four or five government stamps on them to tell you that it’s healthy. People get, understandably, quite frustrated because they say, I’ve cut the fats out of my diet, but I’m getting heavier. Why is that? While the body doesn’t store sugar, it doesn’t store glucose or carbohydrate. It stores it as fat. So therefore, when you’re eating lots of carbohydrates and more than the body is going to burn up, the body will convert it into fat and store it. But it actually gets even worse than that because when we eat lots of refined carbohydrates, the body produces insulin, which is the body’s hormone for getting glucose out of the bloodstream. So the body’s doing what it needs to do.
Ian Blackley: Hmm.
Dr Joe: And insulin is the fat storage hormone. So people have had their breakfast cereal and toast and what they’ve been told to do—don’t have bacon and eggs, have cereals and toast. And then as a consequence of that, a whole lot of glucose and sugar has gone into the bloodstream. The body produces insulin because it wants to get the glucose out of the bloodstream because too much glucose in the bloodstream is where you get diabetes. It does that by converting it and storing it as fat, and then your body is effectively tipped into fat storage rather than fat-burning mode. So you shoot off to the gym or do some form of exercise and you’re trying to lose weight while your body is in fat storage rather than fat-burning mode.
Ian Blackley: Right.
Dr Joe: It’s not as if the science and the data and the evidence isn’t in. Low carb diets, whether they are keto or Paleo or Banting or South Beach, or a myriad of these low carbohydrate diets, some of them have actually been shown in clinical trials to put type 2 diabetes into remission. I really want to separate type 2 from type 1. Type 1 is generally a genetic condition where your body doesn’t produce insulin, and really that’s not influenced to any great degree by diet. It’s not caused by any lifestyle factors.
Ian Blackley: Right.
Dr Joe: Yeah, right.
Ian Blackley: Your body isn’t producing the hormone, but the explosion in diabetes has been typed. Really. Which is very, very strong and there was a genetic component, but it is much, much, much more a lifestyle-related condition and it’s strongly associated with a high carbohydrate diet and being overweight or obese. All those things go together. You can have one without the other, but they largely go together. And you know, again, the proverbial visitor from Mars would come and have a look at the charts and say, hang on. Since 1980, there have been these significant increases in these conditions, which you’ve said what you’re doing is designed to decrease. Could you stop and pause and maybe reflect that what you’re doing isn’t working? And by the way, there is other data that’s been done here that shows that what you’re telling people not to do, which is essentially cut down on the carbs, has the exact desired effect of what you’ve said you’ve wanted to do. So why all this happens is a good question. And historians of the future may well delve into it and find the reasons. Interestingly, having slackers and this may be a little bit controversial, but why not RFK Junior? If he gets the nod and confirmation as Health Secretary in the United States. Yeah, everybody lives on about what he’s saying about vaccines. But what he’s also very, very interested in is the food chain in America and the whole food system.
Ian Blackley: Yeah, I’ve heard that. Yes, I heard that. Yeah. And there’s nothing wrong there.
Dr Joe: His reason for that is, yeah. And if you and there’s a reason for that, he is saying we do have a chronic disease epidemic and conditions, you know, like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and a number of forms of cancer do have a, you know, variably small to significant lifestyle component. And in terms of that, a reasonable component is our diet. And it’s not just the carbohydrates, it’s the additives, the preservatives, the chemicals, the pesticides, and even perhaps some of the microplastics. And if you look at RFK Junior, if a guy is knocking on the door of 70, he doesn’t look too bad. Oh, you know, and he’s had his own demons and problems. So you know, people get very concerned about his views on vaccinations. But his biggest issue is actually chronic disease, right? And the food chain and the dietary guidelines and the influence of what might be called big food and big ag in terms of policy settings and their influence in turn on dietary guidelines. Now here in Australia, we don’t tend to often be very original when it comes to this. So we, you know, we claim we do our own thing, but really we just follow America and these trends. So our figures are not as bad as America in terms of obesity and type 2 diabetes. But if you look at international data, we’re usually in the top five, so that’s not really good. And for the exact same reason, our public health boffins and Dietetic associations have also just tugged the forelock effectively to what the Americans have done and said, well, you know, they must know what they’re doing. So we’ll just do the same and say they do their own research, but I’m not totally convinced. So there will be a shakeup. And if Kennedy manages to shake up the thinking in America, then we may well fall into line in due course.
Ian Blackley: Alright, thank you.
Dr Joe: But the good news is that we don’t have to wait for any of that. And then it’s the beginning of the year. And people who are thinking, well, what can I do to improve my health? Probably, you know, number one is having a look at your diet. What are you eating? Yeah, and it doesn’t have to be junk food. Like, we’re not talking about the drive-through which most people don’t do three times a day. We’re talking about a lot of the foods that come in boxes and packages in the supermarket. So the middle aisle, processed foods, and that we can reverse those.
Ian Blackley: Yeah, probably processed foods, that sort of thing. Yeah. Joe, can we just, can we just take a break now? I’ve got to take a break here and we’ll get back with you.
Dr Joe: Right.
Ian Blackley: Very, very soon. Alright, just so.
Dr Joe: Friday.
Ian Blackley: You’re on the 882, 6PR. It’s 18 after right with Dr. Joe Costa.
Dr Joe: On Pro 6PR it’s Saturday night with Ian Blackley.
Ian Blackley: Going by Dr. Joe Kostrich. Hello. You’re still there, Joe. You haven’t. I’m sorry to interrupt, mate, but you know that’s, you know, you know we’ve.
Dr Joe: Yeah, I’m here now. That’s funny. You gotta pay the bills.
Ian Blackley: We’ve got to pay the bills. We’ve got to do it, but that’s. Yeah, very, very interesting. So continue please.
Dr Joe: So I’m supposed to get back to detaching yourself from listening to what the government says, and I think, interestingly, I’m just going to divert for a moment in America. I’ve been a Prasad who has a substack. He’s a Californian haematologist and oncologist, and he’s a real stickler for evidence and data, which a lot of medical associations hold themselves out to be, but unfortunately are not necessarily. He’s commented that trust in health authorities in America has fallen from 70 odd percent to under 40%, and he’s personally surprised it’s not lower than that. So you know, people don’t need to wait to be told what to do. Our ancestors didn’t need to be told what to do, and people say, oh well, our ancestors didn’t live as long. They didn’t die from type 2 diabetes and its complications or a whole load of other lifestyle conditions. They may have been killed by predators. They might have been killed by elements, particularly the cold. They might have been killed by tuberculosis. So it’s getting back to what human beings have eaten since the beginning of human existence, which is what we could otherwise hunt for or gather. So we’re talking about meat, fish, and chicken, and I appreciate some people would prefer vegetable proteins and that is an alternative.
Ian Blackley: Which?
Dr Joe: Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, berries, and drinking mainly water. So if you go to the supermarket and a lot of the supermarkets have a similar configuration, if what’s in your trolley is mainly around the perimeter and typically around the perimeter of the supermarkets are the fresh fruits and vegetables, the meat section, the deli, the frozen goods. And you know, people say, oh, frozen vegetables. OK. Yeah. Look, they are, and particularly for people in remote areas, it could be hard to get fresh fruit and vegetables, so frozen berries or frozen vegetables are a very, very reasonable alternative. If most of what’s in your trolley has come from that, then you haven’t got a trolley full of muesli bars and snack foods and soft drinks, and a whole lot of other similar cases.
Ian Blackley: And you say it all the time when you go to the supermarket, don’t you? You see people that have horizontally augmented to the stage of that doesn’t look healthy and their trolley is just full of absolute…
Dr Joe: Yeah. And when you think about it, if we go to the petrol station and you’ve got the choice of, you know, 91, 95, 98, or diesel, I’ve yet to meet a person who will deliberately put the wrong type of fuel into their car. Like your car runs on 95 unleaded. You’re not gonna put diesel in, but yet when we go to buy our food, we’re effectively doing exactly that when we’re filling it up with all these processed and packaged foods. Now, can we have a little bit of those? Yes. Can we have some bread? Yes. Should we really try to minimize breakfast cereals? I think the answer to that one is yes. You can have some oats.
Ian Blackley: Yeah.
Dr Joe: That’s fine. But if we go back and think about how some people today, maybe how their grandparents or even great-grandparents would have eaten. And if you brought somebody today who maybe, you know, passed on, say, anytime before the 1960s and took them to the supermarket, what they’d probably say is, what is all this stuff? And you say, well, this is food, and they’d say it doesn’t look like it. So again, it’s very, very recent changes in human history. And look, for those that are interested and wanting to go down rabbit holes, you can look at the story of Ancel Keys, who was the sort of father of the idea that fats in the diet are bad, which has been very quietly discredited and removed.
Ian Blackley: Yeah, yeah.
Dr Joe: Oh, and also, you know, the influence of various bodies that have caused a largely grain-based diet, which is now sort of morphing itself into what’s called plant-based, and then that gets wrapped up in climate change discussions. But ultimately, it’s going back to what is the human body designed to run on or what’s your car designed to run on? You put the fuels in that are best for it. The human body is best designed to run on what it’s always run on, which is proteins, good quality fats, and a little bit of carbs. The body does not need any carbs. Now, there’s nothing wrong with having some carbs in your diet, but the body does not need them. There are essential amino acids, which are proteins, and there are essential fatty acids, and these cannot be produced by the body. The body needs them, particularly the Omega-3s, and obviously, the body also needs vitamins and minerals because the body cannot produce them.
Ian Blackley: Yeah.
Dr Joe: So even, and again, you don’t need a medical degree. You don’t need a degree in dietetics. You just go back to very, very basic principles of what the body needs because it cannot produce it. So when you go from there, you’re gonna be 90% of the way there, and you can ignore what the government tells you.
Ian Blackley: Right, and you were talking earlier about back in the 70s. You know, the shape of our bodies was a lot better, and you sort of think about the 70s and the 80s, and things have gradually gotten worse in the 90s and the 2000s, etc. Back in the 70s, I mean, we weren’t online, there weren’t kids sitting inside with their iPhones or iPads and stuff like that. You know, if you sit on your backside and you’re online all the time or you’re staring at a screen and you’re not out there, because back in the 70s we never did that, did we? We were out running around, playing sport, doing this, doing that. We were outside because we didn’t have that sort of apparatus to actually keep us stuck to one spot and doing not much.
Dr Joe: But that’s exactly right, and that is also a factor.
Ian Blackley: We need exercise, don’t we?
Dr Joe: Yeah, we do. But exercise is important. There’s an adage that says you can’t outrun a bad diet. So exercise is important and it will help with weight loss, but by itself, unless you’re doing a few hours a day, it will not do it by itself.
Ian Blackley: Yeah. It’s a combination of things, isn’t it?
Dr Joe: But then we’ve also got this issue with kids, and understandably, people are concerned about dangers. But it’s the immediate rather than the long-term danger which focuses the mind. So yes, you don’t want to let your kids run around and play because something bad may happen. They might fall out of a tree or, God forbid, cut themselves. Probably not. So you have them inside on screens where they won’t cut themselves or graze their knees, and that’ll be all good.
Ian Blackley: Yeah.
Dr Joe: And you know, there are consequences to that. So I think we’re at one of these points in time where we just need to have a bit of a reset and ask ourselves, you know, like it’s very rare now for children to walk to school or ride a bike to school. And I’m not saying we can go back to the 70s, but somewhere between that and where we are now with what’s sometimes called helicopter parenting.
Ian Blackley: I was just about to say that it’s the growth and the boom of the helicopter parent, really.
Dr Joe: Oh, we need to make the…
Ian Blackley: Yeah.
Dr Joe: Yeah, we need to sort of pivot back to something that says, yes, children need to be more active. It doesn’t need to be completely supervised. I mean, probably the days of, you know, go out and enjoy yourself, be home by 6:00. I don’t know whether we’re gonna get back to that or not. Maybe in 10 or 15 years’ time, who knows? But somewhere between that and I can’t let you out of my sight and probably the simplest way for me to do that is for you to be on a screen.
Ian Blackley: Yeah. There you go.
Dr Joe: It’s probably where we might land.
Ian Blackley: Yep, you say it all the time, don’t you? Can you just run through quickly your diet of a day? What do you have for breakfast, lunch, dinner? Alcohol?
Dr Joe: Yeah.
Ian Blackley: Glass of wine. What do you do?
Dr Joe: Oh, what are…
Ian Blackley: Come on, fess up. Come on.
Dr Joe: And I should preface this by saying that what I do is not necessarily suitable for everybody. I typically don’t have breakfast. I learned some years ago that the notion of breakfast being the most important meal of the day has no science behind it.
Ian Blackley: Right. I don’t either.
Dr Joe: But it is a marketing slogan from Mr. Kellogg’s, although… Oh my goodness, I’m sorry.
Ian Blackley: Yeah.
Dr Joe: I typically don’t have breakfast. For lunch, I may have some tuna or a bit of cold meat. Sometimes I will be “naughty” and have a protein bar. Yes, they’re processed as well, but at least they’re low in carbs. For dinner…
Ian Blackley: Yes.
Dr Joe: We’ll typically have, like tonight for example, some grilled chicken breast with salad. Other nights, we might have some chops, or probably not so much in summer, a roast in winter, or maybe something on the BBQ with some salads, maybe some sweet potato or potato. We don’t have a lot of noodles or rice. I’ll typically have pasta if I go out, but very rarely cook it at home. It’s not that pasta is bad, but traditionally, Italians have pasta as a starter course, not a main course. People say, well, you know, the Mediterranean diet is really good. Yes, it is, but it doesn’t have a lot of pasta. So yeah, it really is the basics. We virtually don’t have any soft drinks in the house. Our kids, who are adults now, have been brought up on drinking water rather than fruit juice or any soft drinks or choc milks. And again, it’s not saying that you can’t have it on occasions. So that would really be the basics. And yes, some nights I will have a glass of wine, which I quite enjoy. That is my indulgence. And now and again, I might have a sweet treat as well, but if it’s a sweet treat, I know that it’s got some sugar, unlike a whole lot of other foods, particularly processed foods that have hidden sugar content.
Ian Blackley: You don’t know about.
Dr Joe: Yeah, unless you read the label.
Ian Blackley: That’s right. What’s wrong?
Dr Joe: They’re not even sweet.
Ian Blackley: Yeah, that’s right. It’s a bit scary at times. My worst habit is, I’ll eat chicken, I’ll cook chicken, steak, lamb, or whatever.
Dr Joe: Yep.
Ian Blackley: But my worst habit is buying those little plastic containers of salads, you know, the pasta, the devil’s salad, the coleslaw. I mean, they’ve gotta be bad for you, but that’s what I just keep doing.
Dr Joe: But eating healthily is not a religion, so not everything that passes your lips has to be looked at through the prism of whether it’s good or bad. You can eat some foods because you enjoy eating them, but they’re more like the icing on the cake.
Ian Blackley: Yes.
Dr Joe: Yeah. For dinner, to get back…
Ian Blackley: Yeah.
Dr Joe: For us, it’ll be some salmon or some chicken or chops, and some nights sausages as well, which is fine. So over the course of the week, mostly it’s going to be protein with some vegetables or salads for dinner. And if you stick to that, those are the basics. I really want to emphasize that what I do suits me.
Ian Blackley: Yeah. There you go.
Dr Joe: And I suppose my partner, but that doesn’t mean that particular configuration suits everybody. Some people do get hungry in the morning and those people do need to have some breakfast. For them, if I was going to make any suggestion, it would be some eggs, maybe with a bit of sautéed mushroom or spinach, or some bacon or sausage.
Ian Blackley: Yeah.
Dr Joe: If you want to do that, or maybe some yogurt with some berries and a more protein-infused granola of some description. Some people like to have a protein shake for breakfast because it’s convenient. And again, we live in a modern world. We can’t be purists about this, but we can collectively get more of what we’re doing right for our bodies than what we’re doing now.
Ian Blackley: Excellent. Alright, Dr. Joe Kostrich, mate. Good to talk to you as always and very informative, very informative.
Dr Joe: It’s actually a pleasure. Good to be with you.
Ian Blackley: Yeah, you too, mate. I’ll talk to you at some other stage. Have a good rest of the evening.
Dr Joe: Alright.
Ian Blackley: Alright, Joe, see you mate. Bye-bye.
Dr Joe: Thanks for listening to Doctor Joe Unplugged.
Ian Blackley: Yeah.
Dr Joe: If you enjoyed this discussion, please like, share, and consider subscribing. Tell your friends. If there are topics you’d like to see covered, be in touch through the chat or email info@doctorjoe.net.au. We will be uploading new content each Monday and soon will be putting these videos out on X.
Ian Blackley: Man.
Dr Joe: You can follow me there at Doctor Joe’s DY Health. For more in-depth discussions and updates, you can follow Dr. Joe on his Substack at Dr. Joe Unplugged.
Dr Joe Kosterich – Doctor, Health Industry Consultant and Author
Doctor, speaker, author, and health industry consultant, Joe is WA State Medical Director for IPN, Clinical editor of Medical Forum Magazine, Medical Advisor to Medicinal Cannabis company Little Green Pharma and Course Chair, and writer for Health Cert. He is often called to give opinions in medico-legal cases, has taught students at UWA and Curtin Medical schools and been involved in post graduate education for over 20 years.
A regular on radio and TV, Joe has a podcast – Dr Joe Unplugged, has self- published two books and maintains a website with health information. He has extensive experience in helping businesses maintain a healthy workforce.
Past Chairman of Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association, current Vice President of Arthritis and Osteoporosis WA, Joe previously held senior positions in the Australian Medical Association and has sat on numerous boards.
