What Now? with Trevor Noah
Dr. Jessica Knurick: Why Everything You Eat Feels Like a Trap, A Scientist’s Guide to Food Anxiety
08 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What basic ingredients are considered good or bad for health?
There's a list of ingredients, basic ingredients that people always interact with, always have in their homes that they might not be sure if they're good or bad, including myself. So I'm going to do a quick fire off, maybe a few. Then you tell me yay or nay and why the yay, right? Okay. So salt, is it a yay or nay? You need salt. Your body needs salt to survive.
It's too much salt that's the problem, which is probably going to be my answer to all of these. So now there's a battle between Himalayan salt or just normal salt. Which one is good? Which one is bad? They're both fine. Marketing. Yeah. Sugar, good or bad? Again, sugar. I mean, there's sugar in fruit and fruit is a wonderful food, right? So because you're also getting all of those nutrients.
And so sugar is not necessarily bad. It's the overconsumption of sugar that's bad.
Chapter 2: Is salt essential for our bodies?
And particularly like added sugar, like a soda, right? Because you're just drinking sugar with no nutrients at all. So that's kind of what you want to stay away from or limit versus just thinking sugar itself is bad. White sugar or brown sugar? Which one is the best? They're the same. Oh, I always thought brown sugar was way healthy. I thought it was like brown rice.
I would eat it all the time and I'd be like, mom, look, I'm being healthy. No. And then she'd throw carrots at my head. This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. And now all the change stress is gone, because I have here ready changing boxes, bubble wrap, nozzles, books. But we're not changing anywhere, what's the matter? I heard that your youngest is changing.
Chapter 3: Is sugar in fruit harmful or beneficial?
So Vesa gets her own room upstairs. Aha, okay, well then I'd be a little worried about you packing the dishes. So you're doing what? I can't thank you, because in fact. In fact, Bealteema has profitable tools for everything. The question was then about your or your friend's project. Bealteema. Yksi elon viisaus tähän väliin. Elämän tärkeimmät eväät löytyvät ihan tavallisesta arjesta.
Ei sitku, mutku tai voiku, vaan nytku. Ihan joka päivä. Eloveena. Sata vuotta täyttä eloa. Dr. Jessica. Wait, you know what's funny? We were all debating how to say the name. I thought it was Knurik. And then someone else was like Nurik. Nurik. Which one is it? It's closer to the second one. It's Nurik. It is Nurik. The K is silent like knife. I don't like silent letters.
I'm not going to lie. I'm just going to put it out there. Your name can be your name. I just don't think this is cool for people. Because it's like your name is like a trap. It's a made up name. Imagine if I was like, I'm Trevor Noah. And then they're like, N-O, no, K-N-O-A-H. I mean, the H is kind of silent, isn't it? The Noah? Noah. You caught me. You have a silent letter too. I do, I do.
Eugene Koza. No, there's nothing silent about K-N-I-F. Because you have to say the H properly. K-N-I-F. K-N-I-F? Like knife? No, no. I'm just thinking about, I've never really thought that the K in knife was silent. It is silent. Knife. I like knife. Knot. There's a lot of silent Ks. I like the knife. Ks are lazy letters in words. Yeah, they're lazy. That's true. They really are.
They don't pull their weight at all. Well, at the start of a word, at least. Yes. Whenever other letters are having a convention, then they're like, ah, here comes K. Oh, goodness. Hey, K. Are you going to do your job today? It's hey to you. This is not why we brought you on. We're not going to just talk about letters. I'm not a linguist, I have to tell you.
But you are an expert, which I do appreciate. Actually, I know when you read it out, it's like you've got a PhD, nutrition as well. How would you describe what you're an expert in? What do you do? What are your qualifications? I have a PhD in nutrition science, but my research focus was really in chronic disease prevention.
So looking at like all of the different areas that could potentially prevent chronic disease and mainly lifestyle related chronic disease, like type two diabetes or cardiovascular disease, like cardiometabolic disease. Okay. So help us break down the difference between lifestyle chronic diseases versus what is like a non-lifestyle chronic disease.
Yeah, I mean, lifestyle-related are just things that we know we have pretty good evidence that lifestyle-related habits or behaviors are actually impacting your disease risk. Okay. So there are some chronic diseases that we don't necessarily know that. We don't know how much behavior or lifestyle is actually impacting it. Give me an example just so I can wrap my head around it.
Because you said type 2 diabetes would be more lifestyle. Yeah. Okay. And then type 1, I guess, no. Type 1, no. Okay. So that's just, it might just be hereditary. Yeah, like an autoimmune type of response. Okay. Yeah. A lot of hereditary factors. Right. Yeah, a lot of genetics. Yeah. Potentially other like environmental factors. We just don't know as well.
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Chapter 4: How do lifestyle choices affect chronic diseases?
People ask me that sometimes. Yeah. And it's like, wait, no, I want America to be healthy. That's why I'm talking about this. But I think it's like a brilliant kind of like propaganda tool. It's the snake oil salesman handbook. That's what it is. You come in, you identify the problem, and then you go, I immediately can cure this thing with my snake oil. Yeah.
But I also feel like with nutrition, it gets very tricky sometimes. You know, growing up, there were those ads that would be like, open your cupboard right now, your food pantry, open your fridge right now. Everything in there that you see is wrong. Then there'll be like fresh fruits and vegetables. You must eat this and eat that.
But now later on in life, you get to hear so much sugar in fruit, so much sugar in this, so much sugar in that. Don't eat, don't drink fruit juice. It's not good for you. It feels like the messages have been confused. Actually, what is the truth around that? Fruit good, fruit bad? Fruit good. Oh, fruit juice? Yeah.
Well, fruit juice is different than fruit because fruit itself has a lot of fiber in it. Fruit juice kind of strips out the fiber. So fruit juice essentially has a lot of sugar and not a lot of the fiber that real fruit has. And so those are differences in terms of like their metabolic impact on you. So we don't have a problem eating too much fruit in this country.
Like there's, we actually, most of us, almost 90% of us don't meet fruit intake guidelines. So the benefits of eating fruit, which is like all of the micronutrients and polyphenols and antioxidants and all of that, and the fiber far outweigh any problems that we would see with like the sugar, because the sugar is packaged within the fruit.
So it's different than just like drinking a soda, for example, which doesn't have any of that. It's just the sugar. I can eat half a watermelon in one sitting. That's a lot. Does that give you GI issues? Yeah. Do you feel itchy somewhere? Because that's GI. I don't think that's GI. Oh. I'm glad we've got an expert here. I don't think GI has... GI is like gastrointestinal. No, it doesn't.
I've never had any problems actually. Like how much... How do you know if you're having too much fruits? Hmm. I mean, I don't know that there's like a specific symptom or sign, you know, if you're having too much fruit. And again, like too much is going to be very individual, right?
So when we make recommendations, like two to three servings of fruit a day, like those recommendations are just for the general population. But someone else might be able to tolerate much more than that versus somebody else. Okay, so I'm exceptional. You might have an exceptional fruit tolerance. I have an exceptional fruit tolerance. Specifically watermelon. Yes, watermelon. I love watermelon.
I mean, how can you not love watermelon? You know the greatest scam ever committed? Is eating it shirtless? No. Oh. But I'm into it. You must try it. I've never thought of that. Spot's gone. Wow. Just you, a sticky chest. Damn. Then shower straight after. No, what I was going to say is like... Finish off the rest of the watermelon that's left.
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Chapter 5: What are the misconceptions about seed oils?
Wait, wait, wait. Let me explain the seed oil thing. Yes, seed oil. Sorry. I mean, there is it. And this is something that happens actually a lot in social media narratives with nutrition. They'll take a mechanism that's true. And then they will expand upon that to where we don't have any evidence to suggest that's true.
So for example, seed oils have some... They're high in alpha-linolenic acid and linoleic acid. And so those are polyunsaturated fatty acids. And so... that converts to something called arachidonic acid. And when we look in a lab setting, that increases inflammation, right? It can increase the inflammatory cascade. And that is true when that conversion happens.
But when we look, first of all, that conversion doesn't happen very much at all. And second of all, when we look at it in a human model,
Chapter 6: How do we navigate the complexities of nutrition?
Because humans are complex. Our bodies are complex and not everything always like we might hypothesize because this happened in the lab. It's going to happen when we look at like humans living their lives. And oftentimes that's not the case because again, we're complex.
And so when we look at human models and we look at people who have been living and consuming seed oils, we just don't see that same effect. So we don't see higher inflammation. We don't see negative impacts. We actually see that people who are eating more of these polyunsaturated fatty acids are have better health outcomes.
But another truth is that seed oils, because they're highly processed, because they're cheap, and because they are relatively flavorless compared to something like canola oil, they're used in a lot of these prepackaged ultra-processed foods. And so we are consuming a lot of these prepackaged ultra-processed foods.
And so we're over-consuming seed oils, which can be, if you over-consume anything, including watermelon, it can be problematic for your health, right? And so those truths exist, but what does not exist is this idea that seed oils are toxic and why that's so harmful. You know, my mother-in-law, she's from Romania, and she pretty much exclusively cooks in quote-unquote seed oils, right?
Like vegetable oil. But she's like sauteing vegetables in their foods and things. And so if you're telling someone who's using that because it's an affordable, accessible oil, that it's toxic, but they're eating a pretty nutrient-dense diet and just using that oil, that's very harmful and problematic. Because what are you saying?
That they have to go and buy like the regenerative olive oil from like the farm with the grazing cows. That's just not sustainable for people. So we have to live in reality and understand that science does not say that these oils are harmful or toxic, and they're accessible and affordable for people, which is, I think, an important distinction.
But I think to Eugene's point, and I mean, we've seen this, it's not even a conspiracy.
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Chapter 7: What should parents know about feeding their children?
We've seen how we're also, like you're fighting with, you know, misinformation. But we also forget that there's a company in the background somewhere. There's a food lobby somewhere that's trying to push something, to push something else out, to push something in. Like, look at how many years fat was bad.
And then we found out, remember in that investigation, whether like the sugar lobby worked really well to vilify fat and carbohydrates. And then only now are we going, oh, damn, sugar. We didn't realize that sugar was copious amounts of sugar. Because again, nothing is just bad. But sugar was the thing we should have been looking for in excessive amounts. But it's fat-free. You're right.
If it was fat-free, it was good for you. And you're like, I can eat as much of it as I want because it's fat-free. So I will not get fat. Yeah, I mean, it's important. And I think you're drawing an important distinction based on what are corporations going to do? First of all, the media is going to sensationalize science findings, right? A study, they're going to sensationalize the findings.
But then corporations, they're going to take any little thing and try to spin it as the best thing for them. And they'll use it in marketing. So if there's a study that comes out that shows something good about blueberries, a product that has blueberries is going to put that on their label and be like, this is the best thing that's ever happened.
Chapter 8: How do supplements fit into a healthy diet?
And so the problem is we need to be better experts at regulating those marketing claims. And so there are quite a few claims that are regulated. I think they just added like healthy last year, but there's quite a few that aren't. So they can put it on the label and just kind of like as a marketing tool for the company. Protein, protein is that.
If you just hit just enough protein, they can be like high in protein. And that's like a marketing thing for these companies. I think organic for a long time was one of those. Oh, they nailed that one. Yeah, organic is very regulated though. So like you have to meet organic standards. What are organic standards? Let's say in meat or let's say in fruit and vegetables?
Yeah, I do not know exactly what the organic standards are, but I just know that you have to use specific pesticides in fruits and vegetables, for example. You can't use non-organic pesticides. You use organic pesticides. And I don't think it can be GMO. I think there's a couple of other categorizations, but I'm not sure exactly what it is.
Can I just say something that I've noticed, which I really enjoy about talking to experts, is you say, I don't know a lot. I don't know if you've noticed this, and it's so refreshing because we live in a world where most people we interact with on this level are online, right? And so we've been sold this idea that certainty about everything means that the person is an expert.
You know, there's an expert, expert, expert, expert. And what's started to give me a little more solace and even, you know, to your point, like understanding what a red flag is, is experts will tell you where their expertise ends, right?
So you've said it, you know, we've had a neuroscientist on the podcast and they'll go, actually, I don't know because that part I don't, I think this because I know that part of it, but I don't know about this completely. And I wonder if that's also something we should look at as a red flag is if the person is all knowing about everything all the time, something's fishy.
Yeah, I think that is a good use of red flags on social media. Yeah, if somebody is like appearing to be, particularly like if they say they're a doctor and then they don't put their credentials in the actual like profile, so they'll call themselves doctor so-and-so, but there'll be no credentials. Usually I have found that they are practicing outside of their scope of practice.
They're just, you know, you'll look at their page and they're an expert in nutrition and an expert in brain science and an expert in this and that. And so that is a good thing I think to look at. Yeah, like I've always wondered how does somebody who is just... Let's say they're a doctor or whatever. Medical doctor or they've got a doctorate so they can say doctor.
How do they know about like 5G and Wi-Fi? I'm always... Because I go... Aren't these two things separate? And again, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know that in medical school you're learning about the frequencies and radio waves. Do you know what I mean? But how do you deal with those types of claims? Do you then pass it off to somebody? What do you do with that?
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