Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Seed oils made my cellulite? And other internet fairy tales we should bin
A young woman followed a fruit-only diet until her body could no longer keep up. That tragedy isn’t an outlier—it’s the end point of smaller ideas that sound reasonable, feel empowering, and get reinforced by online echo chambers. We pull on that thread to reveal how “eat clean” becomes a slippery slope, why influencer certainty beats cautious science in the algorithm, and how health halos and status battles can turn food rules into identity.
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You are listening to the Why Smart Women Podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to photo jackets and chaos movies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make some good ones. I'm your host, Annie McCubbin, and as a woman of the turbanage, I've made my own pair of really bad decisions. Not my butt I did go through topics to find it. And I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I'm recording, and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land. Well, hello, smart women, and welcome back to the Why Smart Women Podcast. Today I am broadcasting from DY, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is the beginning of October, so we are in the middle of spring here, and it is a beautiful day. And later on I'll be going down to DY Beach and having a swim. Today I am joined by David.
SPEAKER_03:Morning.
SPEAKER_02:Morning, how are you?
SPEAKER_03:I'm very well. I'm not quite sure why I'm here today. Because I've asked you to be. Well, that's right. I don't know what we're going to talk about today. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So interestingly enough, uh over the last couple of days, people have said to me, Why do you why are you podcasting and why are you doing the TikToks? And um you know, because it is quite a time-consuming thing. And I had to really think about it. Why am I doing this? And then a couple of things have come across my feed in the last week um which have reconfirmed the importance of why we of the skeptical debunking community do what we do. So I thought we'd talk about those two things today. So the first is a story of a 27-year-old woman who died of starvation, which is astonishing, isn't it? In a a Bali hotel room.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, just the lady that ate the fruit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So um at the time of her death, she weighed 22 kilos. I know. And she had been What? Yeah. She had been following what they call a fruitarian diet. And a fruitarian diet is a very um a very restrictive way of eating, and as you can tell by the name, you only eat fruit. Did you say that she was twenty She was she weighed twenty-two kilos.
SPEAKER_03:Um that's that's that's impossible.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I know, right. And when she checked in to the to the place in Bali, um to the hotel, the staff noted that she was emaciated. Um so she had sunken eyes and protruding collarbones, um, and she'd grown so weak that one evening she had to be escorted back to her room by the night clerk. Now, the thing is that at the time of her death, she was suffering from osteoporosis and an albumin deficiency, which are both linked to prolonged nutrition. And she had a history of this. So um in her teenage years she'd already struggled with anorexia, and then when she was in the United Kingdom, she developed an interest in yoga and veganism, right? So we're just getting further and further in the restrictive eating, and then it eventually led her towards um fruitarianism, a restrictive diet that relies almost entirely on raw fruit. So, how do we get here? How do we get to the point where someone is so clearly unwell and yet the online group, because there's plenty of them, that this sort of restrictive eating, fruitarianism, veganism, right?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, the Breatharians.
SPEAKER_02:The Breatharians, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:I've got a story about the Breatharians later. Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Um, how you know that what they do, these groups, is that as the person deteriorates, instead of saying to them, you look unwell, you look emaciated, what they do is say, Man, your collarbones look amazing, you look extraordinary. She looked shocking. If you see pictures of her, she just she looks like she was in a concentration camp. And yet the online forum that she has been getting her information from have been supporting her in her quests.
SPEAKER_00:You go, girl.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you go, you're doing the right thing. And of course, the people, the other voices around her, like her parents, who were clearly concerned, um, those voices don't get heard. So people get more and more and more and more and more down this rabbit hole of thinking, and then clearly they can't climb out.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, you were saying that um that this lady had a history of anorexia. Yeah. And look, I'm no expert on it, but I believe that anorexia is actually it's not just a physical condition, it's actually a mental illness.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, a hundred percent. And in fact, um anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. It's really serious. So, and it's it's quite prevalent. Well, here on the northern beaches of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, anorexia is quite prev um prevalent. So the thing is how where does it start and how much of this can you lay at the feet of these online forums? And I reckon quite a lot.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Because um, to our point around conspiracy theory, because all sort of in the same area, right? How do you get into this really unhelpful thinking? So, like with conspiracy theories, if it was 30 years ago, you'd go down the pub and say, Did you know the moon's what is it? The moon's flat. Now, what is it? The earth's flat. Yes. And the moon landing's faked. So the moon's flat, and I got that confused. And then someone would go, You're a dick, John. Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_03:And don't well, they just say don't be ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02:Don't be ridiculous, John. But now you get on an online forum and s there's going to be someone or a group of people that are going to support your thinking. So, but how do we get to this point where someone is so emaciated and so unwell that they can't see the reality and the danger of their situation? And where does it start? And as a society, because I think it's really serious. I was at the gym a couple of years ago, and um the girls were all involved in a very serious chat around only eating meat. That's all I well, that's the Jordan Peterson thing, right? So you get celebrities.
SPEAKER_03:Is that paleo?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, way way worse than paleo. This is just meat.
SPEAKER_03:This is just meat. The carnivore diet.
SPEAKER_02:The carnivore diet. You just eat meat.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:And then there's I keep seeing all these things online, you know, because for my sins, I'm I'm plugged into these communities that tout some of these views. But the thing is it starts, I think, it starts quite in a small way, like, with the idea that you should eat clean. What if I say to you you should eat clean, what does that mean to you?
SPEAKER_03:What does it mean? Uh it means that I don't first thought is I I don't eat food with dirt in it. Um but but what is only it was that simple. You know, what it what's the dirt that we're talking about? We're talking about additives, pesticides, um processed. Processed food, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so so processed.
SPEAKER_02:Dairy is is not clean.
SPEAKER_03:Dairy's not clean? No. Because it's well, I mean that's a there's a no.
SPEAKER_02:It's not clean though. You I don't know. You're just not meant to eat dairy.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And and for a very long time, I know when I I had that um parathyroid tumour and no one knew what was wrong with me, and I went to 77 alternative health practitioners, which is what started me on the anti-alt med um journey, was they um there was immediately they would tell me to stop eating gluten, dairy. Um gluten, dairy, coffee.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, you couldn't drink coffee? No. Oh, that's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02:Gluten, dairy, coffee, um, carbs, grains. There was a thing for a while that grains, they called it grain brain, you shouldn't eat grains. So there's always been this obsession with diet. And I think the clean eating movement, which is fundamentally don't eat anything processed, which is a heap of rubbish. It's also very entitled. It's a very entitled place to live. If you're only going to eat, you know, you're only going to eat organic and you're not going to eat processed, you'd have to spend all day growing your own vegetables, raising your own poultry, presumably killing your own cow, but then not milking it.
SPEAKER_03:Or buying it from the organic store at about four times the price. What you get at bullies. So if we're talking about anorexia, then it's kind of opening the book on mental illness.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_03:And and and I and I and I I guess I want to kind of call that out or acknowledge it or or or or work out whether we're referring to that.
SPEAKER_02:In our environment, I know when our children were at high school, there was anorexia replenty. Yeah, right? In the high school. There was loads of anorexia, right? So and we we we we acknowledge that anorexia is a very, very difficult um condition to treat.
SPEAKER_03:And what makes it even more difficult, I uh as I understand it, is that when the person in question uh deprives themselves of food and calories, yeah, um, then there is damage that is done in the brain where they can no longer actually think rationally.
SPEAKER_02:Clearly, well you're deprived of calories and it makes your thinking really irrational. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And and you also said that anorexia is the um the biggest killer of you know the available options that there are around having mental illness.
SPEAKER_02:So you know it has a it has a high mortality rate.
SPEAKER_03:It has a high mortality rate, and what is completely confounding for the people surrounding the patient um is this question of why can't they just eat something? Yeah, that's right. Clear rationality. That's right. You're going in a direction and it is a direction that has only one ending, yeah. And and and and and that is death, and you could turn that around by eating something, and why don't you do it? And and the big challenge, I believe, is that when people have that condition, they actually can't think clearly. They can't think critically.
SPEAKER_02:Look, there's the there's the th this is the word ends up though. And I guess what I'm more interested in is where does it start? Okay, how we get to it. Because we are not specialists, we do not treat people that have anorexia. We do know, you know, as you know, as I said, my children when they're at school, our children, there was a lot of it in the in the environment. And there is a it's more around this disordered eating and how we end up with these extreme conditions like anorexia, you know, like fruitarianism, like extreme veganism. Um, how do we end up in these places where people are indulging in very, very disordered eating? And my opinion is it starts, it starts small, yeah, and it starts with opinions that are posited by people that know fucking nothing and are on the internet. There was one yesterday on the internet, for some s reason seed oils are now the work of the devil.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yo-yo. Yo-yo, shush. Yo-yo's unhappy about the mention of seed oil.
SPEAKER_02:Yo-yo, did you not like us talking about seed oils? Yeah, yeah. Well, apparently. Yeah, it's okay. She's she's on the podcast, aren't you, darling? Um, yeah, seed oils are now the work of the devil. And there was a thing yesterday, absolutely this, and she's an American, so they sound really certain. You know, Americans, she's super certain. And she was like, okay, you've got cellulite. There was no cellulite before 1970, right? Cellulite has now appeared in our bodies because of seed oils. And then she had some wacky seed oils are fats extracted from the seeds of various plants.
SPEAKER_03:Like flaxseed oil.
SPEAKER_02:And primarily comprise what is commonly labelled as vegetable oil, right?
SPEAKER_03:So like sunflower oil.
SPEAKER_02:So like sunflower seeds, crust the seeds.
SPEAKER_03:Sounds like a recipe for cellulite.
SPEAKER_02:That's true. That's right. So at the moment, let's just say, and maybe we think it's quite an innocent thing, but all over the internet there are people going, don't eat seed oils. There's actually people in America that will go into a restaurant and start complaining and demanding that their food is not cooked in seed oils. Now there's no scientific evidence that seed oils are bad at all.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:But this idea of seed oils then spreads and disseminates through the online community, gets into our community, gets translated into people, then go to the supermarket, not buy seed oil, talk to their friends, and we're in this situation where seed oils are dangerous when they're actually not. But the voices that spread this stuff are certain and they're vociferous. So yeah, go.
SPEAKER_03:And they're convincing.
SPEAKER_02:Very convincing.
SPEAKER_03:And I think I've got a bit of a hypothesis about where it begins. Go. Because um a lot of people are exposed to these stories about, you know, seed oils and that that the body fat hates pink salt, so have more pink salt and you know.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, pink pink Himalayan Himalayan pink salt.
SPEAKER_03:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03:So all of that stuff is out there, and not everybody is taken in the same way. If everybody is taken in the same way, then we'd have a lot more anorexia, we'd have a lot more bulimia, right? So it's not everybody, it is some people who are actually, you might even say vulnerable. You know, vulnerable. It's almost like their immunity, their immune system is is weak when it comes around to the critical thinking. And this information comes in. So this information comes in. Yeah. Now, um one thing that I have come to recognise in so many of the stories that I have um, you know, come across, been part of when somebody has been affected with disordered eating, um, is that there is a sense of personal power that they latch onto, which says, no one can tell me what I put in my mouth, right? No one can tell me to eat seed oil, or no one can tell me, you know, to eat processed food. Processed food or you know, so I'm in control.
SPEAKER_02:I'm in control.
SPEAKER_03:I'm in control. And and my thesis, and and you know, again, forgive me, you know, I'm I'm ignorant about all of this, you know, my my area of expertise is is seeing how people create drama for themselves, right? And so um, what is it that people latch on to? What do they hold? What do they believe? What are they, you know, what do they fight for in relationships that are sometimes not in their best interests? You know, why do some people create drama when winning that particular drama is actually really bad for them? And I think that in some relationships, you know, um uh daughters with their mothers, you know, sons with their fathers, that they'll get an idea that husbands and wives. Husbands and wives, yeah, okay, veganism. You know, I'm going to be a vegan. And then the whole family is then affected by that decision.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah, yeah. So mum says, look, there's some power. There's some power in it. Yeah, yeah, true, true, true, true.
SPEAKER_03:I'm making a bologné sauce tonight. Can't you just eat the bolognai sauce tonight? I can't. Yeah. You know, you're not taking me seriously. You're not taking my beliefs and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah seriously. Now, it could be that that is absolutely certain. You know, that that that that's absolutely true. Um What's true? That um that it is a a deeply held, you know, ethical position that somebody holds that they're not, you know, that that they're not going to ever eat animals ever again. It could be that.
SPEAKER_02:What I it could be that.
SPEAKER_03:What it what it feels like to me is that it's just one of many instances where you have an individual who gets to assert their power in the world by saying, No, I'm not going to eat that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and maybe if you're if you feel powerless in other areas, then it's quite nice to at least I can control that. And of course, the the the issue is is that the validity of the choice in the first place is often wrong. So for instance, if you if you at all follow dietary advice uh as I do, not I mean I follow it for purient interest, I don't take it, of course. They will tell you to stay away from seed oils, but you can have coconut oil. Coconut oil is just apparently amazing for you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and everyone's drinking coconut water. I don't know why, but they are anyway.
SPEAKER_03:I like coconut water.
SPEAKER_02:Why?
SPEAKER_03:If it's cold. Yeah, well, I don't I don't much like it unless it's absolutely freezing, but when it's freezing, I find it quite quite refreshing.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay. Fair enough. Um so the thing is that there's this this is now a juxtaposition. Seed oil's bad, coconut oil good. Good, right? Coconut oil. And then in Coconut oil? What? What do you what where have you been? Under a rock? Everyone talks about it. They're constantly rubbing it on the inside of their mouths, putting it in everything.
SPEAKER_03:Ah, right. Coconut oil. Oh, yeah, and there's that special coconut oil that's got a certain kind of something omega-3 in it.
SPEAKER_02:So it's it's marriedly amazing for you. Yeah, that's right. So into this, into the fray, yeah, into this um online fray in this sort of cultural um stouch between, say, seed oils and coconut oil, say, um, comes the Heart Foundation here in Australia.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Now the Heart Foundation will tell you that to absolutely avoid coconut oil, palm oil, and butter, guess why?
SPEAKER_03:Because it's got a lot of fat in it.
SPEAKER_02:Saturated fat. Saturated fat. Told you repeatedly, and you ignore me. And to eat extra virgin olive oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, which is a seed oil, peanut oil and avocado oil. These oils contain healthy fats and are suitable for most types of cooking, right? Now then what happens? So you get some, you get sort of some science enters the fray.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And then what happens is people go, because now we've got all this sort of um don't trust the government, don't trust big government, don't trust big pharma. So they enter the fray, and everyone goes, Well, why would you listen to the Heart Foundation?
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so that sounds like pseudoscience has entered the fray, not science.
SPEAKER_02:Well, sci science, Heart Foundation is science.
SPEAKER_03:Heart Foundation, well, Heart Foundation at at the core of the positions that the Hart Foundation takes is science.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And the rest of it's pseudoscience.
SPEAKER_03:It is it is understood because the people who are describing the, you know, the the behavior of these particular fats in the body, etc. They are scientists. Yeah. I think whenever scientific narratives fall into the mouths of people who are actually not scientists, then it's going to be distorted. Scientific method is create a hypothesis and then try to prove yourself wrong.
SPEAKER_02:So what are you saying?
SPEAKER_03:Who's So what I'm saying? I I don't know, maybe I'm just being too precise around the language. You said science enters the fray.
SPEAKER_02:It does in the form of heart foundation, but we don't trust the science. We want to go towards people who just sound certain and tell us something that sounds more interesting and definitive. It sounds like maybe I won't get any more cellulite because I'm rubbing coconut oil on it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. But but what I'm what I'm suggesting to you is that that that particular that when that dynamic emerges, right, it doesn't just emerge for the person who is then going to stop eating seed oils or, you know, you know, become a vegan. It becomes part of their relationship with the people who are around them with whom they want to assert their own independence. So it actually becomes a status battle. And in this instance, it's a status battle around food. You know, other people find ways of having status battles, you know, the need to be right around other things.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so okay, so what I'm saying is that there's this I don't know what you're saying. So you're saying science comes in, gives the actual facts around it, which is don't eat coconut oil, don't eat butter instead. And then the person goes, No, I'd rather listen to this person on the internet over here than an influencer that's saying, No, don't eat seed oils because they give you cellulite and they screw your brain or wreck your hormones.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I have the right to choose my influencers.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's right. So, but and then you get into the area of false equivalence. So you've got the Heart Foundation, right? Scientists. Who are generally you know, who actually will test their own hypothesis.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:And then you've got people that are just, you know, getting a kernel of information and then sounding super certain, like I only eat meat. I will only eat meat because vegetables, I I've heard this as well, are really toxic.
SPEAKER_03:And so this are out. So so so this is the thing. It seems to us very obvious that there's a hidden agenda, right? Some people will say only eat these kind of you know, modified coconut oils, probably because they have a business that makes money out of it.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly, exactly. Exactly. But then the result of this, so you've got these people that are touting this nonsense, and the end result of it is tragically a beautiful 27-year-old girl who has lost her life in a hotel room in Bali because of the lies that are being told by people who are probably selling something. At the original point, they're probably selling something. We know that most old med practitioners are selling supplements.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and if they're not, if if they're not sell selling something directly, then they are selling something by degree, you know, the you know, the monetization of their their influencer channels.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly, exactly. And the more sort of, you know, the more definitive you are, the more you're floating around in in some sort of, you know, unwashed linen, you know, with sandal feet and a bracelet on your left ankle, you know, with your tan skin, standing on the end of a jetty, chewing on a chop, raw chop, with some liver. They really like eating raw liver and bits of butter.
SPEAKER_03:You're talking about liver king.
SPEAKER_02:No, this is this is the thin, weirdly, but those sort of smooth skinned women that do it as well. It's just everywhere. But the problem is it's a problem, it's a big problem. And how do we counter it? Because people die, and it's unfair that she was obviously vulnerable, she obviously had terrible disordered eating, and then she gets into this, you know, and I do have issues with the yoga communities, some of them are great, some of the yoga communities are great, some of them start to tout some really dangerous views, and and often in these communities arises this clean eating, spiritually enlightened, um keep your you know, there's there's philosophies around it that are really, really dangerous. And I have issues with that as well. So what do we do? What do we do so that we can start to sorry, do you want to go back to the yoga thing that I don't know?
SPEAKER_03:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I'm I'm I'm I am interested in the question of what do we do. What do we do? What do we do? Um I mean I do this, I do this podcast. Yeah, okay, but okay, who are you talking about? Are you talking about um the person at the centre of the story? Which is, you know, what happens when we notice that we start to get, you know, seduced by No, because the girl in the hotel room, she's the end of the story.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. She's the end of the narrative. She's just before she's just before the full stop.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So somewhere way, way back, that's where it started. Now we don't know about her childhood. We don't know why we don't really know why people develop anorexia, except that it is very, very exacerci shush yo-yo. It is very, very exacerbated by um online forums. We absolutely know that. Yeah. And the objectification of women and the fact that women need to look really thin. And we know that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, okay. But but but but you say, what do we do?
SPEAKER_02:What do we do?
SPEAKER_03:Um Who's we in your in your question? Are you talking about about about the person? Are you talking about the the family of the people? Are we talking about the wider society around the people?
SPEAKER_02:I'm talking no, because I don't know that person. I don't know about her, the dynamic of her family.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so you're not talking about the the patient.
SPEAKER_02:She's the end result.
SPEAKER_03:Right. So when you say what do we do as a society. What do we do as a society? Yeah, what do we do? Okay.
SPEAKER_02:How do we just start to counter these dangerous views? And and in in my mind, it's around the fact that we don't even get as a society, as a culture, how truly dangerous these um opinions are and how they can start off very, very small, as to my point by the word clean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eat clean.
SPEAKER_03:And I I can't I can't get away from the thought process that says that a lot of people are exposed to these lies, these distortions, you know, they're explo they're exposed to the the potential to be exploited. Yeah. But not everybody is. Correct. And that is correct. So perhaps I am not. Yeah, yeah. To answer your question, what can we as a society do is that we can help people to understand how they will sometimes grab hold of something and take ownership of it, like a self-destructing disordered eating plan approach. They will take that and they will actually internalize it, and they will they will they will plant the seed within themselves and they will water that seed and they will grow a perspective, a distorted perspective in order that they have power in the relationship to the earth. No, that's the thing that I think people don't know. People think that disordered eating is about disordered eating when actually I think it's about it's about what happens to the person who is susceptible to it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but we can't there's always been vulnerable people, haven't there?
SPEAKER_03:And they have all and they had there for all the vulnerable people they've been in the world, there have been people lining up to take advantage of it.
SPEAKER_02:True. There's always been snake oil salesmen, right? Yeah. That you know, from the from day dot, someone has been trying to sell someone.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Some someone has been trying to sell someone else something. Yes. It has no efficacy. That's right. It's old as time.
SPEAKER_03:Or not only that it has no efficacy, but it could actually do damage.
SPEAKER_02:It could do damage.
SPEAKER_03:You know, with one of the oldest stories in the book, um, is um is Adam and Eve in the in the garden.
SPEAKER_02:You're back at the Bible! How did we get into the Bible?
SPEAKER_03:No, no, no. I I was I was I was talking about this from um a Quranic uh perspective, because there is an Adam and Eve in the uh in in Islamic religion as well. Well I'm just saying it's the old story, right? Oh but what about it's the old story of here's the apple, eat this apple, and you will become enlightened. And actually, um there was a bit of a m a mistake made.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. And and and we know um you know, there's just you know, endless pictures from the the last century and the century before of people selling stuff, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you know, like what well people literally snake oil. Literally snake oil is an oil, yeah. Presumably made out of a snake or parts of a snake that was supposed to do something good for you.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Um the uh the mystic, you know, we saw on a television show the other other night, you know, the the mystics that were travelling around the world in the late 19th century saying that they could communicate with the dead.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're still out there.
SPEAKER_03:And they are still out there.
SPEAKER_02:And so it I guess we arrive we always arrive back, sort of, at the same point, is that people are not armed with critical thinking.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because if they were armed with critical thinking, then they would see something online that said, you know, eat clean, don't eat seed oil, do eat coconut oil or whatever, only eat raw meat, or don't eat gluten. I mean, the gluten thing is nuts. The amount of people that don't eat bread because it's got gluten is nuts when they're not celiac. It's mental.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But it gets a life of its own. It's like matcha.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. People get to commercialise it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You've got the whole, you know, the gluten-free aisle, the gluten free shelf.
SPEAKER_02:And apparently, matcha. You drink too much matcha tea, and it's actually quite bad for you because but it's got the health halo over it.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, because it's just tea and it's um green. It's it's green tea and it's it's it's in everything. You slow acting caffeine.
SPEAKER_02:You can get matcha everything now, but apparently it's not that good for you, and you've got to be very careful about your consumption. But it's got the health halo. So much has the health halo. Fruitarianism would have had the health halo. It sounds right, right? You want to be thin, you want to be healthy, so you're only going to eat fruit. I mean, there's a s a ring to it, isn't there?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, and and there was the extreme case of the Bretharians.
SPEAKER_02:What tell me about the Breatharians?
SPEAKER_03:And the Bretharians were was an order that basically said that um that human beings could could live on just breath.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it makes sense.
SPEAKER_03:Um, you know, a little bit of water with a little bit of uh lemon juice or something like that. But that was it, no food.
SPEAKER_02:Uh and that's right, there were those girls that died in a tent in Scotland. Yo-yo, excuse me, you've never been to Scotland.
SPEAKER_03:Anyway, so that was the that was the the Breatharian um um approach, the cult um was led by a gentleman who was profiting from his position as the head of the Bretharians, but they followed him um one day and and he was he went into McDonald's and was buying cheeseburgers or something like that. So so yes, um there are many stories of people who will exploit exploit the vulnerable. And so your question, how do we as a society stop that from happening?
SPEAKER_02:Well Well, it really upset me the story of that girl. It's so unnecessary. Her parents must have just been beside themselves, the poor things.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So we can't we can't stop the the the horse is bolted, the horse is outright with in terms of misinformation and disinformation on the internet. We can't get it back now, can we? It's gone, it's happened, and and it's just a big pile on now.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so so so what you're doing with the podcast is you're helping people to to be able to examine their thinking. So that if they do want to take something on, if they do want to take a new exercise regime on, or a new dietary plan, or a new relationship on, what you want them to do is to look at it critically and to ask, is this in my best interest or something? Yeah, and look for some scientific studies and look for look for some scientific studies. And I guess the thing that I'm adding to that, and perhaps you do this implicitly anyway, is to notice what power does embracing disordered eating or you know, the list, what power does that give me in my primary relationships? If eating clean makes me a special one at the dinner table, yeah, yeah. And I get power because of that, yeah, if I get power from that and I recognise it, then ideally you'd go, okay, well, maybe maybe I'm excited about this this clean eating thing because it it helps me to have you know get one up over mum or my brother's.
SPEAKER_02:And also the thing is it's it's it's it's all of it is in service of being thin. All of it is in service of women, because it's mainly women that do the clean eating.
SPEAKER_03:Because what is w when a woman is thin, what does she have more of?
SPEAKER_02:Attention. What?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, more attention.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Which gives someone a sense of power.
SPEAKER_02:And you're fitting into a norm, right? So yeah, look, there's I I would advise anybody who listens to this podcast to really apply a critical eye to any claim, any nutritional claim that is made, any claim about a supplement that is made, um, any claim at all which has a large promise to it, because we know that one thing that you eat or one thing that you drink or one thing that you take cannot possibly give you all the benefits and the results that generally they promise. So if something has a very broad promise to it, that's when you start the process of going, hang on, it's gonna make me thin, it's gonna balance my hormones, it's gonna balance my my energy, it's gonna boost my immune system, it's gonna help my cardiovascular health, you know, it's gonna I'm gonna have no cellulite and I'm just gonna be amazing and my skin's gonna be super clear and it's gonna restore the elasticity and my joints won't hurt. If it says that, it's probably a heap of crap. Right. So, interestingly enough, I just did this TikTok on on alkaline water, which is very, very popular because there's this perception that Sydney drinking water is somehow dangerous and full of heavy metals, which is just it is the safest drinking water.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Sydney water's great.
SPEAKER_02:Like go to Bali, go to India, go to somewhere where you've genuinely got a problem. But this middle class entitled notion that we have to drink special water, anyway. That TikTok I did ho had over 10,000 views, and I think it's because people actually are interested in countering some of these myths. So um that's all I really wanted to say this week. I feel terrible about her, and so I think we should say her name because I feel bad for her and bad for her family. Her name was Carolina Kryzjak. Yep. Yep. So she's not going home to her family, and they're going to mourn her forever because somehow, someone, somewhere, started to tell her a lie, and the lie never got stopped. And we, as a community of people that believe in critical thinking, we have to really start countering these myths because it's dangerous.
SPEAKER_01:And that's what I want to say. David, anything else?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and uh and the other it it it it's that other dimension that's got me thinking this morning. Yes, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn't true. That's the misinformation that we need to deal with. But perhaps we can also help people understand their attraction to misinformation. Yeah, sure. And if that if that if that if that's yeah, it's a good point.
SPEAKER_02:It's a really good point.
SPEAKER_03:If that attraction gives them something, then they will go further and faster in that direction.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_03:And it's not just about it's not just about disordered eating, it's also about you know what people do with their finances. It's also about conspiracy thinking. It's also about conspiracy thinking, it's what you're doing. Yeah, 100%. It's a i it it i it's all of those things. So if um if the promise of something new is starting to to to trigger a thought process, which is you know, I'll be able to achieve so much more, or I will have you know more power in this relationship.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think people think that. I think that's unconscious. People are not gonna think I'll have more power, they're just gonna think I'm gonna look great and everyone will want to be like me.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, well I'm that's And no one's gonna tell me what to do. Okay, and and all of those things they they they they seem to be the downstream um benefits. Um the downstream benefit of those things is that you have more power.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but they don't know. That's unconscious. They're unaware of that, right? Let's try and bring it into the consciousness, correct?
SPEAKER_03:So I guess I'm suggesting that people uh bring into the conscious the power dynamics that get altered when they take on board you know true, good point untrue information.
SPEAKER_02:I thought my finish was better than yours, but I'm I'm gonna leave it in, I'm gonna leave it in because I'm very egalitarian. Um thanks for your time today, David.
SPEAKER_03:You're welcome. I hope I contributed something.
SPEAKER_02:Um thank you, Harrison. Um, thank you, Yo-Yo, for barking pointlessly through that. Um Yoyo, I mean, Ryder has been a good boy because he's been for a run this morning, so he's now having a rest. Um so thank you so much for tuning in, um, listeners. Wherever you are in the world, stay safe, stay well, keep your critical thinking hats on. See you later. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to Why Smart Women with me, Annie McCubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the facts from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut. If you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, car park, in a bar, or in your own home, please, please respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy, and keep your critical thinking at Shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from White Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, Annie McCubbin.
