This Is Making Your Kids Sick | Bryan Johnson Podcast

[00:02] and I would pack them like a lunch pill with stuff that they would eat. Now, of everybody else has pizza and a sugary drink and there's my child with their lunchbox eating their non-sugar-based stuff. It puts them in a challenging

[00:17] position and asks them to be okay to be that kid. way when it comes to choosing the right foods. I think that this is a challenge every parent has to go through and has to fight with and find where they're

[00:30] decision they can for their family, but I'm not sure that we have the right I'm not sure that we have the right answer. Johnson podcast. I'm here with my blueprint co-founder Kate Tolo and Dr.

[00:43] Mike Malin who is an emergency medicine doctor and also my physician. Today we're talking about something near and dear to my heart which is children health and wellness. And so this has been something on my mind for the past

[00:55] been something on my mind for the past 22 years of my life uh since I had my store and looking at the ingredients label and saying what is this? And then I started reading about the ingredients and I thought this is a bad situation.

[01:08] But they were in our pantry stocked and when we went to their friends house they were there as well. It was this common thing that all the kids ate these foods with high sugar and ingredients which didn't sound great. So, I have been

[01:21] fighting that battle for 22 years. It has been very challenging because my kids naturally want to eat those things and their friends have those things. But There's other things as well that are very problematic for our kids, including

[01:35] toxins in food and the environment. And so, this one is a sensitive and scary topic because children are helpless. And you know, it just breaks my heart and they're growing up and they have everything before them, they can become

[01:50] air they breathe, the water they drink. this topic that typically we've approached this podcast where we speak about the perils and the science of danger and then we go through the

[02:03] protocols. Today we're going to flip it and we're going to do the protocols that to make it manageable like things you can actually do and talk through through the nuance of being a parent bringing these practices inside your home. So

[02:17] with that, Dr. Melon, uh K to uh let's get started. What can we tell adults of the narrow and focused things they can do to keep their children safe and healthy? I think the first thing to note here is that um the good news is that

[02:33] this is all entirely preventable. These are actually things that are in our environment that oftent times we're unknowingly opting for. So the biggest couple things we can start with. One is synthetic dyes. Mike, what are synthetic

[02:49] >> Synthetic dyes are colorings that are additive um added to many food products but like disproportionately added to children's products. The ones that we're thinking of typically are the red and yellow dyes and those have been linked

[03:03] yellow dyes and those have been linked directly to uh inattention and to um hyperactivity disorders. It probably happens with all of the synthetic dyes. So there's actually been a movement to try to reduce all synthetic dye exposure

[03:15] especially in children's foods across the board. Um but the the research has been predominantly on uh red 40 and yellow number five. In typical I think this is the right stats across food generally it's around 19% contain

[03:28] synthetic dyes whereas in children's food again like this is companies marketing toward kids it's a high percentage it's around 28%. It's a note for us all to not assume when we look at a product that it's healthy for our kids

[03:41] Actually maybe it's best to have the opposite assumption and turn it over and Fortunately, often times it'll say loud and clear red 40 or some sort of other synthetic dye. And so you can know

[03:54] >> Generally, you can look for those foods that are sort of quote unquote organic. Those typically don't have the synthetic thing to do is just look at the actual ingredients themselves and look for

[04:06] those specific dyes. But think about like sports drinks, Kool-Aid are big Anytime when you see like really brilliant and colorful colors in your probably a synthetic diet. >> And these things have been linked to

[04:20] things like behavioral effects in children. So ADHD, gut issues, um higher risk of cancer, cellular damage. So not to freak you guys out, but it is a serious thing that is worth um paying attention to. You both have kids. Have

[04:35] you found that sitting them down and trying to educate them on these topics actually works? >> Yes. So, interestingly, my son um is does seem to have some behavioral changes with um with the synthetic dyes,

[04:49] and we taught him very young to avoid certain color foods. And like he of interesting like, you know, cuz he he learned so young. He's like, "Oh, I don't I don't eat blue foods." >> Like, really? as it relates to the

[05:03] potential harm of ingredients. I think we're still learning the effects of these synthetic dyes and then other ingredients in food. Looking back though, the removal of lead from gasoline in the 1980s was correlated

[05:18] gasoline in the 1980s was correlated with an average IQ uh increase of 2 to 5 points. And looking at this from an economic perspective, that would be economic perspective, that would be worth $8 trillion because there's a 1.8

[05:31] 8 to 2.4% increase of lifelong earning potential per uh additional IQ point. And so one of the fastest ways to become a thriving nation is to increase the IQ

[05:44] of your population. And these things uh you know bad you know harmful ingredients and toxins can potentially uh lessen IQ. We are currently having a pretty big and loud debate in the United States about our budget deficit. But

[05:59] never does anyone make the argument that a way to solve the budget is to actually lessen the toxin and bad ingredient load in the United States. It's mostly about cutting Medicare or Medicaid. The insanity is cutting the services that

[06:13] are trying to deal with the uh catastrophic harm of our toxin and bad food system. So, it's really kind of backwards. You can also use this as a vector. When I was explaining this to my kids, I would explain to them the harm

[06:25] their body. Like it would basically like when they were in soccer, I would explain after the game when uh a parent shows up with these Caprice suns. So these little packages that have 20 30

[06:40] grams, I'm guessing. I said, "If you drink that, you run slower on the field." And they're like, "Oh, okay. I see that." Or like you're not going to goals as well. So I tried to connect it to very tangible things that

[06:53] >> Yeah. Exactly. And so I remember Talmage was like really responsive that when I And like cuz he was the fastest kid on his team and he did not want to lose that edge. So like Mike, I I sat my kids

[07:06] down and I tried to use various tactics to explain how bad ingredients cared about. This is also very similar to the idea of of uh sleep culture in a today and we talked about the synthetic dyes and how Mike spoke to his son about

[07:22] this um you know the same you could do with sleep and say we are a family of sleep. This is our rule for screen time. You know we turn screens off 60 minutes before bed. We don't eat you know this amount of time before bed. Nobody gets

[07:36] out of their bed during the night unless there's an emergency. Nobody wakes chart where you're giving these assessments. We've talked about this on a previous podcast. So you could actually follow the same protocol that

[07:48] we're going to talk about today in terms of sugars, dyes, and other ingredients culture. Now, of course, there's secondary challenges that when they go to a friend's birthday party, and that party has pizza, cupcakes, and sugary

[08:04] drinks, what do they do? And so I remember that with with my son, we would go to these parties, and I would pack them like a lunch pill with stuff that really awkward because they are in that moment now like doing this really weird

[08:18] thing. Everybody else has pizza and a sugary drink and there's my child with their lunchbox eating their non-sugar-based stuff. It puts them in a challenging position and asks them to be okay to be that kid. But like these are

[08:32] talk about of practical things that parents can do to try to counteract these otherwise these damaging things in the kids' bodies. just talking about there, Brian, the the um attempt to reduce sugar intake. Um

[08:47] really we should be trying to limit sugar to 25 g a day for kids. And I don't think that registers for most people how low that is. When you think about what kids typically eat, the majority of things marketed to children

[09:02] have 25 g of sugar in them. That one just like one serving of one of those items. The idea of trying to limit to 25 means a complete overhaul of what is typically fed to the children in our in our society. I mean, we're talking about

[09:15] like a Capri Sun more than 25 g, right? A cupcake more than 25 g, you know, like standard typical daily foods that children eat get you past that threshold of 25 g of sugar. It's like it's a it's a complete switch. And to jump back you

[09:31] guys on the synthetic dyes. Sorry I'm going back on this is I just looked up going back on this is I just looked up um on GPT the top 10 foods that have the highest level of synthetic dyes. I'll run through a few. Target mini green

[09:47] run through a few. Target mini green cupcakes 55.3 mg. That's yellow five, yellow 6, blue one, and red 40. Uh Kool-Aid burst cherry 52 mg. Sunny D Kool-Aid burst cherry 52 mg. Sunny D orange uh strawberry uh 45 milligrams.

[10:01] Captain Crunch oops all berries 41 milligrams. Can we please make a meme of Captain Crunch Oops. And cross out all berries and put in all synthetic dyes.

[10:13] Pillsbury funfetti confetti frosting 41 millig tricks 36 millig. Crush orange millig tricks 36 millig. Crush orange soda 33. Skittles 33. Fruity Cheerios soda 33. Skittles 33. Fruity Cheerios 31. M&M's chocolate uh milk 29. Reading

[10:28] 31. M&M's chocolate uh milk 29. Reading this list, I am chalk full of synthetic dyes. I mean, this was my This is what I ate as a kid. Like my entire childhood was this was this menu of foods. >> Same same.

[10:41] >> Is this why I'm so messed up? >> I'm 12% synthetic dyes. Yeah, >> I have the opposite response where I my mom worked so hard. I got in a plane to the US as a uncontaminated

[10:55] being and then I landed and you know what the first thing I ate it was in the US. I got into New York in my hotel in my hotel room. >> I'm too scared to go outside and get food cuz I like you know 19 alone in the

[11:09] country and I got a packet of Skittles and that's what I have for dinner. >> Yeah. So that's interesting to me Kate. despite your childhood of like being raised on all these healthy things and and like focusing on, you know, food

[11:23] quality, the first thing you ate was Skittles. Like that that is like that's something that I think is a a delicate nuance about what we're talking about. like do you um do more like Kate's mother did where you like just make sure

[11:38] you prevent the access to any of these foods or like Brian Brian's done with his children or do you like try to teach them the way expecting that it's someday home they're going to make decisions for themselves and if you've completely

[11:53] excluded those foods they're just going to choose all of those foods do you know all the time >> yeah I don't know I don't know what the think um I think if you're going to have to choose a path, definitely go on them

[12:06] more extreme because it at least educates them that you're making a decision every time. So like I was 19. I was like I'm like consciously making decisions with that information at least in my arsenal. And so I knew I was

[12:19] it was a decision I got to make cuz I was an adult and I could eat whatever I starting point than not knowing it all. And Mike, to your your point on the 25 g

[12:31] of sugar per day for the child in the US, the average uh added sugar is 68 g >> Sounds about right. >> Just added sugars as well.

[12:43] >> I mean, that's just like a a Capri Sun and some cereal, you know, like it's not >> You guys, I also want to mention like Brian, you went through all the obvious the color, but here are some things that might have unexpected dyes. So, plain

[12:58] hot dog buns. Often times that light brown crust has a yellow five and six. Blueberry bagels, the berries get extra uh coloring from red 40 and blue one. This isn't all, but these are in some wasabi covered peas. So, the bright

[13:14] green, blue one, yellow five. Um, dill pickles, same situation. Berry flavored yogurts. So, it's definitely worth noting that these these marketing tactics are often hiding in plain sight.

[13:27] tactics are often hiding in plain sight. >> If we go down the from easy to hard, >> If we go down the from easy to hard, then we could start with like we sit the family down and we say, um, okay, there are some things that are clearly not a

[13:40] good idea, like M&M's and sugar cereals, like the list we just went down for category. And then we get into more nuance things where you get like a Capri Sun where they frame it as like fruit juice. You're like, "It's fruit, it must

[13:55] be good." But then it's got 25 extra uh grams of sugar. And so those are anytime you have high concentrations of sugar, that's also bad. Kate just went through that's also bad. Kate just went through a few of the nuance ones where a a hot

[14:09] dog bun or a certain kind of bagel where those are more nuance where you're fine. and it's not, you know, quote unquote alter process. Therefore, and so Mike, how do we think about as a parent, how do you tackle this complicated

[14:25] problem knowing you can't do it all, but you want to try to knock out the biggest ones because you're battling this in your own knowledge. You're battling this in your own time and also with your kids. Like, what would your kids

[14:38] actually do? Because there's like this discussion of what's good for the kids. Then there's the reality of kids are like uh-uh I'm not eating that like not doing it. So how do you how would you take this because we have quite a few

[14:52] uh research on but how would you do it as a parent? >> So there's two different two different categories. There's like so there's the the easy and the hard way when it comes to choosing the right foods, right? So

[15:04] the the easy way is probably just eliminating sugar and looking for you know red 40 and yellow five on the on the ingredient labels. the hard way eliminating like quoteunquote ultrarocessed foods, eliminating um you

[15:18] know, like uh like buying only organic. And then there's also the behavioral side of things where it's like I'm just going to buy these foods for my house and stop there and just expose my child to these food to the best foods possible

[15:32] at home and I'm not going to say you can or cannot eat things when you're out at And then the hard way on the behavioral control everything that goes into my child's mouth or everything that they

[15:45] get exposed to. Right? So it just depends on like how far you're willing to go on both fronts. Right? I think the easy easy path is buy the best foods that you can without getting crazy about it for your home. Right? That's the easy

[15:58] easy path. And then the hard hard path is like be meticulous about every single ingredient in your child's food. make sure it's all real food and then make of the time. I don't know what the right answer is. I mean, to be honest with

[16:10] challenge every parent has to go through and has to fight with and find what what where they're most comfortable in terms of the easy easy or hard hard path and have the right answer. >> So Kate, your your mother was very

[16:27] thoughtful about how you guys what you consumed and there's now a lot of research out there. For example, we know that uh certain foods have certain addictive powers. For example, consumption of biscuits and cookies have

[16:41] consumption of biscuits and cookies have a 4.1 times risk of being addicted. a 4.1 times risk of being addicted. Sausages have an 11 times risk of creating addiction. And so, some of these foods really are engineered for

[16:54] addiction. That's their entire game is is doing that. If your parents would have framed this to you in terms of, hey Kate, eating this is going to create some kind of addiction pathway, would you have been responsive to that or did

[17:06] did the approach that she took uh do you think prepped you to generally now have into your body? >> Yeah, I think um I don't know what would I had that packet of Skittles, I think that the path that my mother took was

[17:20] the right path for educating us. wasn't super restrictive, Mike, outside of the household in terms of like she wasn't going to punish us if we, you know, like had some of our friends XYZ. She just tried to create an environment where we

[17:32] stepped into the environment and the environment was safe, period. I would say that actually genuinely worked. There were also all of these just basic There were also all of these just basic axioms that probably were not perfect,

[17:44] but did the job. So, if you say, you know, avoid dyes cuz they're toxic, and you look in the back, and even if a dye isn't toxic, it's probably going to be alongside other things that aren't so good for you, like added sugars, like

[17:58] tactics are not going to be worrying about other things as well. And so, it these things. So, my I feel like my mom used the word chemicals a lot, and even though that wasn't necessarily perfectly scientific, it did knock out

[18:13] the majority of the bad things. Yeah, we try to use eat real food, I think, is one of sort of the axioms that we use in around our house. And I mean, I don't know, is real a good enough descriptor? You can, it's sort of subjective, but

[18:26] like it's just trying to get at like this concept of the fact that people are trying to sell you fake things and you should be on the lookout for the realness of what you're putting in your body. The other thing you can do is I I

[18:39] remember when we were in India and I gave Talmage the air measurement device so he could go from room to room and cafe to cafe, indoors, outdoors, in our various cars and he measured the air quality in every single environment we

[18:55] were in. We got into a car and there he was like, "Okay, can you please turn on, you know, the internal air filteration system in this BMW and can you see what kind of filter this car has for PM 2.5 and uh MVLC's?" And so if you give

[19:10] children the tools, whether it be an air quality monitor or a wearable, and you just say, you know, or even like a CPG, can can kids use a blood glucose do. >> Cool. So even helping them build

[19:25] intuition that if you drink this fruit juice or if you uh eat this sugar cereal, look what happens to your blood glucose. In fact, um last Halloween I

[19:37] glucose. In fact, um last Halloween I wanted to set up a set up a a little station in front of my house and have sugar treats there and then they do a finger prick um blood draw to look at blood glucose rise. like have the kids

[19:52] come down the street, eat the candy, and then show them blood glucose rise or long would you have to wait? You want you The blood glucose rise would be like >> Actually, you know, I could probably just measure their blood glucose um as

[20:06] they arrive because presumably they've been snacking on the food they've >> Oh, true. >> It's like a whole new level of vampire. >> you know, honestly, I think we're going to do it right for Halloween. We should

[20:19] definitely do that. Um okay so one way to approach this is we've tried to isolate this into some easy categories where you and children can be educated to know there are certain things that are bad. So artificial dyes we've

[20:32] foods that have them. We've talked about 25 gram of sugar per day is what you want to target which is extremely low. So that means you really want to avoid anything with uh added added sugar outside of that budget. We should also

[20:45] talk about that the environment matters a lot. We've discussed this in other uh podcasts where the air and the environment matter a lot for a child's exposure to toxins. And so this is a reminder of to have a MV 13 filter or as

[21:01] high as you can in your HVAC system. That'll help generate clean air. That's also the truth. You can have a HEPA uh filter on your vacuum and vacuum two times per week to lessen the number of toxins because kids spend a lot of time

[21:13] on the floor crawling, walking, and putting things in their mouth. Just along the same lines, um when you were talking about the lead exposure and some interesting studies with air quality and performance in school. So,

[21:27] there was a study in 18 LA schools that got um HEPA activated carbon units um put into the classrooms. there was a 60 to 100% reduction in particulate matter which was associated to a 0.2 standard deviation improvement in mathematics and

[21:41] English scores. So just like we see toxins altering our ability to perform intellectually, the same is true for air quality. So improving your child's air brain. >> Yeah. And even things like um what

[21:56] allergy they may end up developing. So there's a study that shows that early exposure to air pollution may double the risk of a peanut allergy becoming persistent by age 10. That's absolutely wild. Um especially cuz I think I saw a

[22:10] sat peanut allergy treatments cost expected to hit 300 million by 2020 2030. So wild that fifth half of that could be preventable. >> Now we've covered these um these protocols. Should we jump quickly into

[22:24] the evidence around the problems? I guess the severity of the challenges uh for children in this country in case some people are interested in the data of how severe of a situation it is with obesity and toxin exposure um and uh

[22:40] child death or do you guys think we did we cover the protocols up until this >> I think we cover the protocol. So to recap it would be avoid artificial dyes, limit your total sugar intake to you said 25 g per day

[22:55] >> or less. Yeah. or less and that's inclus like so that's inclusive total sugars so fruit that has a lot of natural sugars so it's total then you also want to

[23:07] so it's total then you also want to improve air quality toxins so measure >> I mean I'd probably say like unstructured play and um outdoor activity or movement some sort of physical activity of at least an hour a

[23:21] day is a good rule of thumb I think that can be missed and forgotten a lot in our society. I mean, like it seems like kids now have like 15-minute recess at school. So, like it's falling back on the parent to make sure that they're

[23:35] getting their physical activity in. Um, where traditionally this is just have to pull them away from the video games, pull them away from the screens, something that's often forgotten. >> Yep. And then the other thing we should

[23:48] importance of it. We all know how incredibly important it is, but kids need more sleep for their cognitive development. So, if they're between the ages of 3 and 5, it's somewhere between 10 to 13 hours. Around age 6 to 12,

[24:03] you're looking at 9 to 12 hours per night. And then 13 to 18 in that teenage range, you're looking at 8 to 10 hours per night. So, I think that's definitely something that um all of us could have benefited from like these early life

[24:18] habits around sleep and being taught to have a consistent bedtime and make it sacred in your home. >> Do we dare talk about like screens and social media and mental health or is that like a a whole different podcast?

[24:31] we're talking about things that negatively affect health and we've focused on um food inputs and then toxins. Yeah, let's do it because it is equally consequential. >> There's a lot of different uh ways to

[24:45] think the most the most obvious things that we've seen recently are the to at least our older older children, well screens to younger children. Um but really limiting screen exposure with the younger kids is extremely important.

[25:00] down in front of an iPad and then trying to limit social media exposure at least until later in childhood. Um there's you know some studies that suggest it should know some studies that suggest it should be not until 8th grade some even 13 16

[25:13] never you know I think like >> ideally feels it feels like every year there's a new study that comes out that suggests it should be later and later in life and this was a big challenge I think for

[25:25] of a sudden all these kids are home and you know parents don't know what to do ultimately kids just got pumped in front of TVs a lot and um we'll see what the side effects XR from that long term. But I think now that we're looking back on

[25:40] this, realizing that, you know, more unstructured play, less screen time in emotions is something that I think is also um new and important when it comes educating children about what emotions feel like and what emotions are, letting

[25:56] their emotions actually be present and play out as opposed to trying to squash angry. Like no, they got to feel those feelings. So, I feel like this is this is a much much bigger and more in-depth

[26:08] topic, but just starting to like paint the picture a little bit of focusing on childhood mental health is extremely important and I think will become more important and I think will become more and more a prevalent aspect of parenting

[26:20] doctor, when you look through the data, I mean, in reading over this, this was pretty terrifying, of the mortality rates in the US, of the of the dangers of being a child, of being born into the US, of the increase of obesity and of

[26:34] blood glucose challenges, and the increases are alarming between 20 and 80%. What is your assessment like what what's happening? Our culture throughout the rest of the world as like US culture seems to sort of like

[26:49] percolate into into other developed countries is making terrible decisions for our children. You know, there are many benefits to a capitalistic society and there are many downsides when it comes to advertising to children. And I

[27:03] think a lot of this has to do with um poor choices on the um side of corporations and parents about what is okay to expose our children to. From everything from toxins to foods um to air quality uh to um social media and

[27:20] screens, we're just making lots of bad decisions. And um it's scary but also not super surprising to me when you look at the the rates of obesity. So the fact that US infants have had a 78% higher risk of death compared to babies in

[27:35] other wealthy countries like that is a freaky uh statistic. I mean that's look at like the levels of obesity in our children, when you look at the amount of screen time exposure, the the decrease in in physical activity, that

[27:49] decrease in in physical activity, that number becomes less and less um believable, which is a pretty scary thing to say. So the one thing that we can see also behind the scenes is that the in um 1977 Congress passed a a toxin

[28:05] substances control act which basically assume that chemicals are safe until assume that chemicals are safe until proven harmful. And we've had a 50x increase in the chemicals and plastics now in circulation since the 1950s. And

[28:19] so a US study showed that uh 201 children aged 2 to four years had 2 to four years old had at least 96 different chemicals in 5% of the urine samples and 34 were present in n in over 90%. When

[28:34] 34 were present in n in over 90%. When we had the LA fires and we saw you know we had the LA fires and we saw you know 20,000 homes get lit up. We saw those toxins transfer from the fires like the burning of the homes and cars to my

[28:47] body. And we could go down and list out every chemical and say, "Yep, that's PVC pipe. Yep, that's a floor. Yep, that's a car." So, you can see these chemicals transferred in real time. And of course, a fire is an acute event, whereas

[29:00] otherwise we have these slowburn events that aren't as dramatic. But you can basically see the parallel of toxins that are manufactured in all of society end up in our bodies, which is no surprise. And then you can take those

[29:14] chemicals, you can say, "Yep, that one causes disruption of hormones, that one causes disruption of uh, you know, cognition, etc., etc." So the chemicals we've produced in the world. Now, these are not produced as toxins. They're

[29:27] produced as clever chemicals to do various things, manufacturing, they're usually well-intentioned. Um, you know, non-stick pans, for example, like we talked about with PAS, also those end up in our bodies and become very

[29:40] complicated. And so again, back on the podcast is hopefully those of you who hang out with us week to week, you see the throughine on everything we're doing and what the team has been has successfully done with me in that uh we

[29:55] successfully done with me in that uh we have tried to systematically reduce the exposure of these toxins in the world and then also try to eliminate them from my body. And so I hope that all of you take hope that you can like week to

[30:09] week, you know, day to day, week to week, make very small changes. So hey family, we're doing this and now you're saying family also we're not doing this and then slowly step into these additional um patterns where first

[30:23] it's what do we eat inside our home and what kind of you know how do we maintain a clean environment? Then it's what do you do when you go to a birthday party when you become an adult and leave the leave the family where you no longer

[30:35] have these kinds of rules in place. So you do this together you will slowly start changing your habits as well and that will have this cumulative effect but really it's you do need to take a very proactive role in all of these

[30:49] very proactive role in all of these because society is not doing it for you. there's no one in society really looking after you and so hopefully that will turn but until then like it really needs to be a groundup swell by all of us that

[31:02] we're going to reject the the things that people have done. Now I will say that we had this congressional law passed. The FDA will not let drugs on the market until proven safe. So, it's the exact opposite that people trying to

[31:18] do good things with medicines are blocked until they have incredibly high rigor of evidence to show they actually do things. Whereas in the chemical want and then it has to be proven bad over time. So, it's really a twisted uh

[31:32] should be swapped. >> Brian, do you think that you're looking after you in society. >> Is that your role? that's yeah by default it's the one I

[31:44] that's yeah by default it's the one I try to step in maybe because as a child I think my parents were basically they said yes to the system. They just like you know what people did they did and they didn't scrutinize it very much and

[31:57] this is not a criticism of them. It's just like and therefore I was I'm a a product of that and so I definitely did not want my children to be in a similar situation. I wanted to to find the weaknesses of the system and correct for

[32:11] it and then battle against it. But uh it's it's pretty tough and I guess yeah. So yeah, Mike, I think I I do probably try to put that role in people's lives. >> This is a tough one. This is like um I think it's as a parent thinking about

[32:24] all of these all these things. It's hard not to feel a little powerless, you know, like you're in this situation where it feels you're in this situation where it feels like the culture and society is working

[32:37] against everything. You're battling against like social media. You're battling against friends. You're battling against the fact that no one else is paying attention to what color dyes and the green cupcakes that they're

[32:51] giving to their children at the birthday party. And I guess like I just try to take some solace in the fact that um I'm paying attention when I can and doing the best that I can at least in my home and establishing

[33:06] some sort of understanding and insight into the importance of what my children necessarily something that my parents did. I think in a similar way, Brian, my and trusted that corporations wouldn't sell bad uh chemicals to children. And

[33:23] uh I guess like that's pretty awesome that we're that we've even come that place now where we can recognize that like, hey, we got to pay attention to just think about it as like I'm just doing the best I can with what I got and

[33:37] have a little like grace towards ourselves, it doesn't feel quite as big and as ominous, you know? Um, >> so I guess I just try to think about it that way. You know, act where I can, where it makes sense, um, in a rational

[33:51] >> And like good news, like companies are through all of our voices forced to and Hinds have pledged to remove all synthetic dyes by 2027. Ideally, that

[34:03] how hard it is to make product changes on a quick time scale. The fact that they're saying all all synthetic dyes in 2 years is exciting cuz I do think that

[34:15] to actually change. >> So you guys let us know how this went. I mean hopefully you're walking away with some feeling camaraderie that you can build systems inside your family and your homes and that you can make

[34:29] children and teach them the dangers of dyes of synthetic dyes of added sugars. Even things like air fresheners, which we consider to be nice, or scented cans >> I was just going to say that I'm just realizing now that like Talmage is the

[34:44] realizing now that like Talmage is the example of what having a parent who cares about this overnight has impact on him. Like who was Talmage has impact on him. Like who was Talmage before he was living in your household,

[34:57] >> Yes, he has. >> And he seems to be doing that willingly. I think he now fully sees the I think this was crystallized in his mind when this was crystallized in his mind when we went to college and there were all of

[35:11] his friends uh not friends but like new new classmates who were eating all sorts of you know bad food and he's like that is crazy why are they doing that and I father he had that >> to like have it come from him yes that

[35:27] >> yeah just that this is crazy you guys okay Mike how do you feel after this conversation. >> Um, I'm feel more empowered than freaked out as a parent, I guess. >> Yeah. Yeah. Kate, how are you feeling?

[35:41] >> It motivates me to, um, treat every molecule that enters my body with the reality that it has an impact on my ability to do what I want in the world,

[35:53] to be healthy in the long term, to be smart, to be capable, to be strong. So, it's definitely motivating. I wish there was a way that we could make uh children powerful in society because

[36:09] they really are powerless and then they have to grow up and acquire power and have to grow up and acquire power and then compete against other you know other generations. I wish there was a societal mechanism which inherently made

[36:23] them powerful like a a um a voting block in society that gave them voice and power that they didn't need to wait until they were mature and adults and capabilities. >> What if they were like we want free

[36:37] Skittles for all kids? No, I'm I'm saying that uh not not not to ask them what they want because you know they're not of course developed in a way where they can make these wise choices but just like what what science says is good

[36:52] for them. This is the idea that when I was playing around if if I were president, you know, I I was playing around the idea that a third of Congress two/3s would be human, but Earth would it be a voting block in Congress. And

[37:08] you could say the same with as AI models improve. It's just a thought experiment of like if you just reimagine who has power and in what ways to do what and if there was like some kind of of some way to represent their well-being in

[37:21] right now. >> Or even I mean I I extend that to adults too. Like if our biological data could vote on our behalf >> in Congress, if we're seeing that sugar makes us obese and it kills us, probably

[37:36] have some regulation around it. >> That's true. I guess that that's what blueprint is is blueprint gave my my body all the power of decision-m and removed my mind from the equation of like I feel like this. Okay guys, I

[37:50] actually kind of somber. I think Mike, I think you I felt you in this that like you take your role as a father very seriously. You care deeply about your children and Kate, I think you feel the same. I think you feel very empathetic

[38:03] towards the the situation that others are in. And I think you appreciate your mother's efforts in your life to give you a very strong start. And so I hope that others that this emotionally resonates that you know it really is a

[38:15] powerful thing to stand up for our children's u potential in life that when they become disadvantaged because of the decisions that we adults make in society, it just stinks. And of course all three of us are on the receiving end

[38:28] of that where we have had things in our life where it's not always been the best for our potential. And that's not because the people around us didn't love just were not smart enough. Hopefully everyone, you've you've walked away with

[38:41] a few good tips to be um better members of society and to protect the most vulnerable and the people who will define the future of our existence. All right, let's wrap. Good to see you all and go to bed on time. This is the Brian

[38:53] Johnson podcast. Special thanks to my co-hosts Kate Tolo and Dr. Mike Malin. protocols, subscribe to my YouTube channel. Follow the podcast on your favorite platform or follow me on Instagram or X at Brian