September 2, 2025 • 44 mins
We all know about eating fruits and vegetables, right? But what about fiber and protein and other vitamins we need? Registered Dietician Nutritionist Melissa Joy Dobbins joins hosts Lea Palmieri and Matt Stillo for a conversation about how we can eat healthier and feel better, just with a little bit of mindfulness. You can check out her free “Do More with Dinner” resource at www.SoundBitesRD.com as well as information about Melissa’s favorite cookbooks, kitchen gadgets, supplements and episodes of her podcast, “Sound Bites.”
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Ruby.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi, I'm Leah Palmery.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Matt Stillo.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to grown up Stuff. You know, Matt, I'm always
listening to a podcast when I do my grocery shopping,
and if you do the same, today's might have you
taking a different route around your grocery store.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
That's because today we are joined by doctor Melissa Joy Dobbins,
who is a registered dietitian, nutritionist and host of the
sound Bites podcast. She's also a popular speaker and spokesperson
for the food, grocery and healthcare industries, and today she's
going to help us understand a bit more about nutrition
and how it affects so much more than just our
tummies the tum tumbs as I like to call.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It, Well, the medical term is tum tum's for it.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
So yes, and that's the first fact that we're going
to be putting out there today.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, I mean, we all know that you're supposed to
eat your fruits and veggies, but I am feeling too
much pressure lately about eating enough protein and I need
doctor Melissa's help big time. So, Matt, what are you
most curious about when it comes to your snacks and beyond.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I'm curious about fiber.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
You know, I've had some speaking of the tum tum
digestive issues in the past, and I hear adding fiber
supplements into a daily routine can help the digestive system
get back on track. And so I'm actually curious to
hear how she thinks about fiber in a healthy and
complete diet.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, I know that doctor Molks is going to be
able to help you and all of us, so let's
not fill up on any unnecessary empty calories and get
to the good stuff. Here's doctor Melissa Joy Dobbins on
grown up stuff, well stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
My name is Melissa Joy Dobbins and I'm a registered
dietitian and a certified diabetes educator with many years of experience.
I'm known as the Guilt Free RD because my goal
is to help people enjoy their food with health in mind.
I've been hosting the sound Bites podcast for over ten years,
where I interview a variety of experts on topics ranging
(02:01):
from fad diets to farming. I also help other dietitians
and other food and nutrition professionals improve their communication skills
so that we can help get those credible voices out
there and combat a lot of the misinformation and fear
mongering that's out in the media and social media. I
think one of the first things that I would like
(02:21):
people to know is what is the difference between a
registered dietitian nutritionist and somebody who calls themselves a nutritionist.
And there's quite a difference. A registered dietitian nutritionist has
to have the credentials, which is at least a bachelor's
degree in science, and pretty soon they're required to have
a master's degree plus one thousand hours of supervised practice experience,
(02:43):
and they have to pass a registration exam, and they
have to maintain those credentials through continuing education and in
many states, unfortunately not all, there's licensure that you have
to maintain a nutritionist. There's really no legal definition or
credential definition for that word. So they could have varying
(03:04):
levels of expertise. They could be just a health food
store owner, they could have a PhD In nutrition, So
it's just really kind of the wild wild West when
it comes to that. So if somebody is really looking
for credible nutrition information, the dietitian is the gold standard.
One of the things that I talk about a lot
in my profession these days is the state of affairs
(03:27):
with nutrition and health, and a big part of that
is where are people getting their information? Who do they
trust for information? And actually there's quite a gap between
those the people they trust medical professionals, dietitians, science professionals,
is not where they're getting their information. They're getting most
of their information from family, friends, and media and social media.
(03:48):
So there are a lot of challenges inherent in being
a dietitian and a food and nutrition communicator where there's
a lot of strong voices out in the media and
social media that aren't necessarily credible voices. So that's why
I do a lot with my podcast and like being
on podcasts like this and other ways of communicating nutrition
(04:10):
is to just try to help people get the facts
and not be afraid of food, and like, what do
you worry about? What do you not worry about? So
that's what I like to talk about.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
I'm glad you're here because I am guilty of that.
I am definitely somebody who sees a lot on Instagram
and I have several questions for you today that I
know you're going to clear up for us. So thank you.
For being here.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Yeah, and actually we can kind of dive in right there,
right Like, actually our first question is like, what are
some of the biggest misconceptions about nutrition?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Think there's so much out there. There's the trends, the fads,
the myths. It's constantly changing. But it's interesting. Like you
mentioned Instagram, but also TikTok. There was a survey, a
TikTok survey done by my fitness Pal, and they found
that TikTok was the number one search engine over Google
for half of the gen z's population. And they reviewed
(05:01):
over seventy thousand videos for nutrition content and found that
only two point one percent of them were accurate.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Now there's some caveats to that, like if part of it.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
Was inaccurate, but part of it was accurate, it was
still considered inaccurate. But I think the short answer to
that whole problem is short form content like we see
on Instagram and TikTok, you really can't get into the
nuances of nutrition and science, and so long form content
like your podcast is where you can really.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Get into the nuances.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
So good news for both of us in that respect,
and also just maybe thinking of social media as more
of entertainment versus education. But yeah, so the trending fads
or myths that I'm seeing right now, seed oils is
a big one, and ultra processed foods, food die bands,
all of those things. But what I really like to
(05:53):
say is those are sort of like I say, like
red dye number three is a red herring. Let's not
be distracted by things that aren't really going to make
a big difference in your health. But like, what we
know is that most people, nine out of ten people
are not getting enough fruits and vegetables. Only six percent
of people are getting enough fiber. Most of us are
not getting enough omega three fats. Like how do you
(06:15):
do that? And what do we worry about? What do
we not worry about?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I think the first thing even from that too,
is I'd love to get into the ultra processed foods
because we hear so much about that. What does that mean?
What are people talking about when they're referring to ultra
processed foods? And how did that become such a dominant
part of our diet, especially in the US.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Great question, what does ultra process food mean? There is
no agreed upon definition, so that's problem number one. And
the main problem with that is when research is done
on ultraprocessed foods, it's like apples and oranges. With research,
you want to be able to have the same definition
(06:56):
so that you can compare the research and sort of
have a body of evidence. That's not this study defined
it this way and this study defined it a different
way than you really can't compare the two. So that's
the first problem, and we need to have a definition.
And in the meantime, the most common system of categorizing
them is called NOVA and it says that there's certain
(07:19):
levels of processed food. But the problem is some of
the foods that fall into the ultra process category are
nutrient rich foods like soy milk, plant based beverages, most
peanut butters, whole wheat bread. If you make it at home,
it's not ultra process but if you buy it in
the store, it's ultra processed.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Oh wow.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
Yeah, So it's really looking at the processing level and
not the nutrition. So until there's like a mechanism, which
there were researchers at NIH studying this that unfortunately had
to step down from NIH, which is maybe a whole
other conversation that they were studying this, like, is there
a mechanism, is there an ingredient? Is there a certain
(07:57):
process in some of these foods that is a culprit
for health and chronic disease and weight.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
There's no evidence of that yet.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
So as a dietitian, I keep coming back to, regardless
of the level of processing of a food, let's look
and see how much nutrition it provides. We know the
difference between a potato and potato chips.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
We know that.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
So you can always look at a food label if
you're like, well, how does this cereal compare to this cereal?
Which one provides more fiber, which one provides more calcium
and vitamins. So there's a lot of so called processed
packaged foods in those center store aisles that are really nutritious.
Canned beans, canned fish, canned fruits and vegetables. There's different
(08:38):
things that we can look at that provide a lot
of good nutrition and are actually budget friendly as well.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I used to be a supermarket dietitian, so I always.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Try to get people to take a step back and say, Okay,
this is the food, what are the good nutrients it provides? Protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals,
and what are the nutrients we want to limit, like
total calories, saturated fats, odium, and sugar, and just kind
of find the best tasting product within those choices as well,
because taste is important. Research shows that taste is the
(09:08):
number one reason that people purchase foods, and we can't
ignore that, right.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yeah, I love what you're saying about ultraprocessed foods. That
part of it is the actual mechanical process of making
it can be the definition even if there's really good
nutrition there. And so maybe I want to tailor my
question to talk about the foods that have like bad
nutrition or malnutrition or they're sort of missing a nutritional
component to them. And so the one way that I
(09:34):
really get into this in my own life is there's
this app, and I'm actually curious where you think about.
It's called Yucca, where basically you can scan an item,
it will rate that item zero to one hundred, zero
being really bad, one hundred being really really healthy, and
it will break down the ingredients and the nutrition in it.
And so basically what I love about it is it
will kind of call to attention the ingredients that are
like hard to pronounce or they are chemicals, and you
(09:56):
can actually like click on these ingredients and see kind
of what they do in the They might be disrupting
your endocrine system or stuff like that, but it'll also
tell you, like if you scan it tomato, it's just
gonna be like this is a tomato. Like that's all
there is in this. And that's kind of how I
go about thinking about the foods that I want to buy.
But I'm curious when thinking about these man made, ultra
(10:16):
processed ingredients, be they shelf stabilizers or what have you,
what health impacts are we seeing from foods like that,
and how might changing our diet to maybe a more
whole food diet reverse those impacts.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Right, Yeah, I've heard of that app. I haven't actually
seen it myself, but thank you for sort of explaining
how you're using it and what kinds of feedback you're getting.
And part of that is some of the fear factor. Right,
We've heard if you can't pronounce it, or it's a chemical,
and really essentially everything is chemicals, and if you can't
pronounce something, as we've seen some health experts quote unquote
(10:56):
can't pronounce ribaflavin, and that's a B vitamin, So we
kind of have to take a step back and say, Okay,
we do have processed foods, and there's a lot of
reasons for some of the processing. A lot of it
is to make it shelf stable. So again like what
kind of nutrition is it providing? And ultra processed foods
or processed foods in general, Again, depending on the level
(11:19):
of processing may or may not impact how much nutrition
it's giving you. And we are eating more calories, We're
eating more of everything, though we're not necessarily eating more junk.
We're eating more calories than we were decades ago, and
that seems to be why our waistlines are increasing. So
I wouldn't worry about can I pronounce the food? Can
(11:39):
I not pronounce it? The ingredients list? You know, there
was like this whole clean label push a while ago,
you know, five ingredients or less. Interesting story. I went
on a tour of a frozen food plant. I won't
name the name, but it's a big company and they
make frozen dinners and they make healthy ones, and they
were saying, oh, you know the on sitting in clued pasta,
(12:01):
We've been taking out normally the pasta that week just
get on the shelf is enriched with B vitamins because
we need those. And so when they were using the
pasta in the frozen dinners, they were not enriching the product.
They weren't putting the be vitamins in because that would
make the ingredients list longer, And they were getting pushed
back from customers about wanting a clean label. And it
(12:23):
blew my mind that here people think, when you're getting pasta,
it's got those vitamins in it, or maybe they don't
even know, but they don't even know what they don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
They don't know that.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
Okay, well your ingredients list is shorter now, but you're
not getting some BE vitamins and foliated is an important
B vitamin that is really important, especially for women of
reproductive age.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
So what I worry.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
About with clean labels and short ingredients lists for packaged
foods is are we going to start seeing now micronutrient
deficiencies because of this? And are we throwing the baby
out with the bathwater? And you know, certainly to your point,
it's great to eat whole foods, but not everybody has
access to those or can afford those. But again, I
(13:07):
think that we need to kind of look at the
nutrition it provides. Now, this researcher at NIH who's no
longer at NIH, did come up with an interesting concept
about hyperpalatability, and that means how fast you can eat
or drink something that could be contributing to us getting
extra calories. But again, compare regular milk to soy milk.
(13:29):
Soy milk would be considered ultra processed. You can't drink
soy milk any faster than you can drink regular milk.
A plant based burger versus a regular burger, you can't
eat that faster than the other. But again, chips, ding dongs, doodles,
all those types of things, we can consume a lot
of them. They're not really filling us up making us
feel full, and we can over consume calories that way.
(13:50):
So I mean, that's what I want people to think about,
is how much nutrition am I getting? And there's room
for these foods in the diet. You know, not everything
that we put in our mouth has to be super
nutrient rich, but we want to minimize that sort of
empty calorie foods or the indulgent foods. We really want
to choose them wisely and make sure we really savor
them and enjoy them and not be afraid of having
(14:15):
something like that.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I mean, we have to be realistic, right.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, I mean chips exist in the world, so I'm
not going to not have them, But it's just like
about not having them breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day,
which I would love do. I think a good sick
of them too.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I'm glad you mentioned about the nutrients that we are
or maybe aren't getting. I see a lot about supplements
and vitamins and prebiotics and probiotics. What are these additional
elements that we're maybe not getting from food and we
need a little boost from. What should we actually be
adding and how should we be taking these things making
(14:50):
sure we're sort of making up for the nutritional stuff
we might be lacking or just need a little more of.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
I love this question because, of course we want to
get our nutrients food as much as possible, but we
have to be realistic as well. So there is a
place for supplements to supplement the diet. And there's like
four nutrients of concern that most people are lacking, and
it's fiber, calcium, vitamin D, and potassium, a very little
(15:18):
known nutrient that's really important, and a lot of those
are found in fruits and vegetables. Calcium is more in
dairy products, is found in vegetables as well, but in
smaller quantities, and it's not as bioavailable, which means we
don't absorb it and use it as well. So what
you want to think about is fiber, calcium, vitamin D,
and potassium. Where are those foods in my diet? Am
(15:40):
I getting enough of those in my diet? And I'll
just use a couple of examples. Fiber I think needs
a pr makeover. Proteins in the spotlight, but I'm hoping
fiber is next. Fiber is important for more than just
digestion and motility. It's important for weight management, for gut health,
for cholesterol and heart disease, prevent and management of diabetes
(16:02):
and pre diabetes. Fiber helps maintain or promote healthy LDL
cholesterol levels, and that's the type of cholesterol, the bad
one that you want to keep low if you have
pre diabetes or diabetes. The fiber helps slow the absorption
of carbohydrate and therefore managing blood glucose levels better. It's
also helpful for weight management because it helps you feel
(16:23):
full it provides that satiety, and so that's going to
help decrease your calorie intake. And it's really in a
lot of produce, fruits and vegetables. It's also in whole
grains and nuts and seeds. So you can always look
at a package as well and see how much fiber
is in it. And we need about fourteen grams of
(16:43):
fiber per one thousand calories, so kind of a range
of like twenty two to thirty four grams per day.
Younger men go towards the higher end of the range,
older women go towards the lower end of the range.
Our fiber needs decrease a little bit as we age,
but yeah, if you can try to get some sort
of source of fiber at every meal or snack, and
a variety of fiber, that would be great. And fiber
(17:06):
kind of comes in interesting packages. Sometimes a third of
an avocado is three grams of fiber, and we think
of avocado as like a healthy fat and guacamole, of course,
but it's a good source of fiber. That's a technical term.
That means it's providing at least ten percent of the
daily value. So there's a lot of different ways to
get fiber, and there's many different types of fiber. There's
(17:30):
soluble and insoluble, but within those there's prebiotic fibers and
those are so important to feed the gut microbiome and
for gut health, and so a variety of fibers is
really key there. So that's when when we talk about
some basic nutrition advice, like a variety of foods and moderation,
there's really a purpose for that because if we get
(17:53):
a variety of fruits and vegetables and types of fiber
in our diet, we're getting the variety of fibers that
we need.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
But again, most people are not getting those.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
A lot of people can benefit from a prebiotic supplement
or a probiotic supplement, and the two are different, but
in general those things are just really good for gut health,
which is really an emerging area of study. There's a
lot we don't know about gut health, but we do
know is that if you don't have a healthy gut,
your body can't be healthy. So that is really important
(18:23):
and there's just a lot going on in this field
of study. Vitamin D is really not widely occurring in foods.
We get it from the sun, but we're covering our
skin or using sunscreen to prevent skin cancer, so that
blocks our body making some vitamin D. And I don't
know about you, but I'm in Chicago. We don't have
sun all the time here, so there's limitations for that
(18:45):
as well. So some people, many people might need a
vitamin D supplement. If you get your levels checked at
your doctor's office and you're low, then you should take
a supplement. Like I have a B twelve deficiency. B
twelve is only in animal products. I eat animal products.
Why I have a B twelve deficiency, I don't know,
So I take a B twelve supplement. But yeah, some
(19:07):
people can just benefit from a multivitamin and then talking
to their doctor about checking my vitamin D levels and
where can I get more fiber in the diet.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
That's a great point, Melissa, And it's actually really easy
to check those levels with your doctor at your annual physical.
I discovered that I'm vitamin D deficient that way, and
so I take a supplement now. But I'd like to
talk a little bit more about what I'd consider the
basis of nutrition, and when I think of that, I
think of proteins, fats, carbs, what people refer to as
(19:38):
macro nutrients. We often hear a lot of confusion around
these nutrients and how much we should be getting of
each of them. So I'd love to hear from you
what is the deal with these nutrients and how should
they inform our diets.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
I'm glad we're switching to macros because that is really
something that more people are thinking about than those micro nutrients.
So we get calories from carbohydrates, proteins, and fat. It
depends on the person and it depends on their goals,
but about half of your calories might be coming from
carbohydrate and about twenty percent or so from protein, and
(20:15):
about thirty percent from fat. Now within the carbohydrate category,
you want to get more fiber sources of carbohydrate, those
quality carbohydrates is what we like to call them. We
used to call them like complex carbohydrates versus simple, which
is like sugar. And now we're talking about quality carbohydrate again.
What nutrients are these carbohydrates bringing along with them, and
(20:36):
fiber being a big one of those. And you know
a lot of fruits and vegetables and beans and stuff
will fall into that carbohydrate category. Vegetables have very little
carbohydrate but they do, and they have fiber and phytoonutrients
which are really good for you as well. And then
I'll talk about fat and then protein because protein's always
like the number one point of interest.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I have done so many.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
Podcast episodes on proteins, favorite topic with the it's about
thirty percent of your calories from fat. You want most
of that to be unsaturated fats, poly unsaturated, mono unsaturated,
and fewer of that to be saturated fat. And then protein.
There's also what we talk about with the quality carbohydrates.
There's what types of protein are higher quality, And the
(21:18):
truth is animal sources of protein are typically higher quality.
That's not to knock plant sources of protein. They have
different nutrients, so your plant sources of protein might have
different micronutrients and also fiber or as an animal source
of protein won't, but a plant source of protein won't
have B twelve. And then there's different amino acids in everything,
so a combination is good. If somebody is strictly vegan,
(21:42):
they really need to work with a registered dietitian so
that they're not missing out on any important nutrients and
supplementing where they need to. And as a diabetes educator.
I've worked with patients who know they do great on
about half of their calories from carbohydrate. If they're vegetarian
or vegan, they might have shift a little more of
their calories from carbohydrate, which, even though those are healthy foods,
(22:05):
it could impact their blood sugars negatively. Some people do
much better on lower amounts of carbohydrate and higher amounts
of protein. And where I start with that is what
types of foods do you like and could you shift
to more protein or more carbohydrates like which would be
your preference, and then seeing how that impacts the blood sugar.
(22:27):
But again that's for people with diabetes or pre diabetes
or risk of diabetes.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
We'll be right back after a quick.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Break and we're back with more grown up stuff. How
do I don't.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
The way I've been thinking about nutrition because I've had
a long history of being overweight and trying to lose
weight and stuff like that. So one of the things
that has helped me a ton, And I'm sure this
comes up a lot in your show, but it's been
tracking food, and you know, I want to say that,
like you know, tracking your food is not counting calories.
It's not the same thing but one of the biggest
ways that this has been helpful is by figuring out
(23:10):
an ideal balance of like macro nutrients proteins and fats
and carbs. I use this app called my Fitness Pal
to like just keep tragging my food because basically, I
think when some of these elements sort of get out
of balance, So foods that are really really high in
carbs and fats but low in nutritional value, like I'm
thinking ice cream, you know, things that we just love,
those are the things that are not really as good
for you and are going to contribute, you know, in
(23:31):
my case, to wa gain. And so when I actually
like kind of log foods in this my fitness power
can kind of see where they're falling on this macro
nutrient balance, and I try to keep my macro nutrients
kind of in check. And I find that when I'll
like put together a menu for the day, I'll be like, oh, wow,
this is like all the way carbs and like know
the way protein, and I'll kind of like be able
to rebalance this.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And so maybe I.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Would just love for you to talk about goals that
people have. I think that nutrition is a great way
to achieve goals. And maybe the goals being healthier. Maybe
the goal is losing weight, maybe the goal is gaining muscle.
And so a lot of people talk about like the
Atkins diet or the low carb diet and how that
might help them lose weight, or like the high protein
diet and how that might help them gain muscle, or
the high nutrient diet, or maybe that you know, improves.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Their overall health.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
But yeah, I really just love to get a sense
of how you think about those things.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Well, first of all, tracking food is a very useful tool,
and there's a lot of different ways to do it.
My fitness Pal is a great app. I don't know
if you have the free version or the paid version.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Oh I pay all the way I give them.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Get all the Belgian whistles, right, yeah, and yea. Like
now you can just use the barcode scan, you know
if it's a package product, and yeah, to your point,
you can kind of look and see, oh, I'm really
falling short on protein here, so I need to focus
more on that. So it's very very helpful. Some people
like to just track by pen and paper. Some people
like to do it periodically to just kind of check
in and see where they are. Which I always recommend
(24:53):
for people is just like before you make any changes,
take assessment of where you're at and where you might
be lacking or getting too much, and then adjust from there.
And you know, some people are like you, Matt. They
just can check and track day in and day out
and it helps them stay on track. So that's great.
But yeah, it depends on what your goals are. If
(25:13):
you're looking at weight loss, the short answer to that
is any diet that decreases calories from what you're currently eating.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Should help you lose weight.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
I will say a lot of people don't know that
when you're looking at that equation of diet and exercise,
diet is the driver for weight loss. Exercise is the
driver for weight loss and maintenance. So a lot of
people get frustrated. They're like going to the gym, or
they're running, or they're lifting weights, or they're doing you
know the strength training, you know whatever, and they're not
(25:46):
seeing any improvements on their weight. Exercise has a lot
of wonderful qualities. I want people to exercise because it
makes them feel better, it helps them manage stress, it's
something fun. I do karate and ballet personally do something fun,
but don't get discouraged if it's not helping you lose weight.
It is helping your body composition, it's helping with maintaining
(26:09):
muscle mass and decreasing fat mass. But if you're looking
for weight loss, it's really looking at where those extra
calories in your diet are coming from. If you're looking
to increase your strength and or size of your muscles,
you have to have adequate protein, but you also have
to exercise, and both of those are equally important. And
(26:30):
there's a lot of talk about like how much protein.
Are people eating too much protein? Are they not getting enough?
It really depends on the person, their age, and their
activity level. As we age, we will lose muscle mass,
and so we actually may need more protein as we age.
When we're younger and the hormones are all working doing
(26:51):
wonderful things, we can have sort of a crummy diet
and our bodies just take what it needs and makes
it work. As we get older, that changes a lot,
and so there are a lot of times increased protein
needs for people as they age. If you're exercising, that's
going to help offset some of those protein needs. Again,
you've got to do both of those if you are
(27:12):
looking to really bulk up. Depends again, like a young male,
you know have adequate protein, but they might need more
carbohydrate to enhance their workout to help them bulk up.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I did want to ask you a little bit about
the protein of it all too, because like I'm certainly
hearing it, you know, like being a woman, it's like,
we got to get more protein. I'm not a huge
meat eater from time to time, and I like chicken,
but like I'm not like, give me a steak. Sometimes
my body will tell me, like a lot of steak.
But what are things we can do to be getting protein?
(27:47):
And like how can we be creative about this too,
because you'll hear like eat more protein. How are the
ways that I really can be fueling my body to
make sure I'm maintaining and even building my muscles when
I'm not a huge just like dig into meat eater.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
I'm glad you asked that because it's really important to
talk about other sources of protein, and it is challenging.
Like I personally try to aim for about ninety grams
of protein, so about thirty grams per meal. It's really
hard for me to meet that if I'm not using
core Power or the fair Life Nutrition Shake or whatever,
(28:22):
because it's like twenty six to thirty grams of protein
and it's only like one hundred and seventy calories and
I don't need a lot of calories, and it's also light,
it doesn't fill me up, So that's a great breakfast
for me. And breakfast is a time of day where
most people are not getting a lot of protein.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Most of us have most of it at night, so
that's the other thing.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
You want to try to spread it throughout the day
and think about having some protein at every meal and
possibly every snack. So you know, eggs, Greek yogurt is
an excellent source of protein. Fair Life milk. Again, I'm
not getting paid by fair Life, but fair Life milk
has more protein and more calcium. It's real milk, but
it's lactose free. That's something that a lot of people like,
(29:01):
and it also has a longer shelf life. There's a
lot of plant based proteins as well, beans, quene, wa
legomes are wonderful, lentils, things like that, and if you
don't have those in your diet, you can just google,
like what are they?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
How do I prepare them.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
They're really easy, but trying to get those in in
those quantities can be a challenge.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
I'm not being paid by my fitness Pal either, just
to be clear, but I love what you're saying about,
especially what you said about tracking. Like one thing I
did when I started doing this is like I was like,
I'm not going to eat healthier, I'm just going to
like track, It's kind of an awareness sort of exercise.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
I'm just going to track the food that I eat.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
And I put in what I was eating in a day,
and it was like thirty two hundred calories a day,
mostly of carbs and fat, and I found that, like,
I actually kind of have what I think is like
a metabolic issue where I'm like, my basal metabolic rate
is actually lower than most people's.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
If you've yo yo dieted yep, yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
It hovers around like eighteen hundred calories. And so if
I was eating essentially double my calories in a day,
like it's unsurprising that I was gaining so much weight.
And I've heard if you're basically eating five hundred calories
over what your BMR is, like you're going to gain
like a pound a week or something like that. And
so like imagine you're eating eighteen hundred calories over how
much weight you're going to gain.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Is there any truth to what I just said?
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Yes, absolutely, And like I said, if you've yo yo dieted,
your metabolism probably is lower. And that's everybody listening if
you've done that. And that's why it's harder and harder
to lose weight because when you lose weight, you lose
muscle and fat, and when you gain weight, you only
gain fat. So that's again why it's important to maintain
that muscle, maybe build a little bit of muscle. And
just to be clear, cardiovascular exercise is great for the heart,
(30:44):
Aerobic exercise is great for the heart, but everybody needs
to do some sort of strength training or body weight
exercises to maintain muscle mass. So yes, technically, if you
have five hundred extra calories a day, you gain a
pound a week. Wise, if you have five hundred fewer
calories a day, you lose a pound a week.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Now, that's simple math.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Our bodies are more complex than that, but essentially that's
what you're looking at. So if you can try to
have a calorie deficit and you can look at your
exercise too. I personally don't count exercise calorie deficit. I
just count that as like that's good for me. I'm
just looking at where can I decrease excess calories in
(31:26):
my diet.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And everybody's different.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Some people really like to track and look at those numbers.
Other people that's kind of overwhelming, which is making me
think of another trend, and that's the people wearing the
cgms who don't have diabetes or pre diabetes.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
I just want to stay out there.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
If you like data and that's your jam and it's
not stressing you out, great, but for a lot of
people it can make them really hyper focused and it
can kind of promote disordered eating. And I have to
shout from the rooftops. If your blood sugar is quote
unquote spiking and crashing, but you don't have diabetes or
pre diabetes, it's within normal limits, please do not worry
(32:04):
about it. Like there was a dietician who wrote a
blog that she can't eat sweet potatoes because there was
no time in the day and she was young and fit,
and like, Okay, this is ridiculous. You can't eat a
sweet potato. It's such a nutrient rich food. Yeah, Like,
it's not a can of soda, it's a sweet potato.
So I think this biohacking can get really out of hand.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Yeah, and CGM a continuous glucose monitor, which is a
thing for diabetes to keep track of your bloo chickgar
But a lot of people are just using it just
to use it, yes, which I agree with you can
lead to a little bit of a overthinking.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
Yeah, so people just need to kind of assess for themselves.
Like I weigh myself every morning. It doesn't really mess
with my head, but other people it can really be like, Okay,
well I might as well just do whatever because nothing's changing.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, you're not gonna send me on the scale every morning,
that's for damn sure. But more power to you.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
No, you guy have to know yourself. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, you mentioned sweet potatoes, and I love sweet potatoes
for a lot of reasons, and not just in the
fry form. But potatoes I think are great because they
are the one place in the grocery store where I'm like, oh,
that's all these cost, and most other things in the
grocery store cost so much. I will sometimes get to
the register and then I'm like, what, because it just
(33:19):
feels like grocery prices are going up, up, up every day.
So what are some of the low cost ways that
you like to keep meals both healthy and natural but
also not giving me a stomach ache on the way
out of the grocery store because of the price.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
You're right, grocery prices continue to rise. And I will
say that sweet potato and regular potatoes are an excellent
source of potassium that we were talking about earlier. Potassium
comes in fruits and vegetables and also dairy, but potatoes
are a great source. So as a former supermarket dietician,
I love talking about eating healthy on a budget. And
you know I mentioned some things earlier. Some of those
(33:55):
center store items like canned beans and canned fish are
so nutrient rich and so budget friendly. But there are
some other things that you want to do. If you're
buying in season, and if you don't know what's in season,
you can always check the internet. But also whatever is
lower cost or on sale in the grocery store is
usually what's in season, and it's more at the peak
(34:15):
of nutrition, So those things are going to be more
budget friendly. Buying in bulk. If you can if it's
non perishable or like sometimes we'll go to Costco and
we'll share extra produce with our neighbors and you know,
kind of split it up that way. So if you're
a small household or you're like, well, I don't know
have a place to store it, or it's going to
go bad before I use it up, think about those options.
(34:38):
Some of the other things that you can do is
look for sales. I get so annoyed at my grocery store.
My mother in law uses the app. She had to
show me how to use it. She's eighty five. I
go in the store and I'm trying to clip the
coupons with the app, but the Wi Fi isn't working
and I have to go to the front of the store.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
If I'm in the back of the store, I don't know.
Is this just me?
Speaker 5 (34:57):
So I spend more time at the store because of that.
That's another way that you can really save money. But
the biggest thing you can do to kind of get
the most bang out of your grocery book is to
avoid food waste. And I know that's another trending topic.
It's not just good for the environment, but it's good
for your wallet. So it's really helpful if you can
try to plan, Okay, how much fresh produce do I
(35:21):
need and will eat before it goes bad? How do
I store it properly? And how do I supplement that
fresh produce with canned, frozen, dried, or juices, because all
of those forms count and people tend to not remember
that or not know that. I think a lot of
times we think, well, healthy eating is expensive because we
think our produce has to be fresh and organic. If
(35:43):
you want to buy an organic, fine, but it's not
nutritionally superior to conventionally grown produce. And contrary to popular belief,
organic produce can use pesticides, they're just organic pesticides. So
one of the fear mongering things I see out there,
and I won't repeat the name of this list or
the company that promotes it, but they're trying to get
(36:04):
people to buy more organic. And there's a website called
Safefruits and Veggies dot com where there's a pesticide calculator
where you can choose if you're an adult, a man,
a woman, a child, because smaller bodies can have fewer
pesticides and larger bodies can have bigger ones. But if
you put into the calculator that you're a child and
that you want to look at strawberries, a child could
(36:26):
eat one hundred and eighty one servings of strawberries in
one day without any impact, even if it had the
highest pesticide residue recorded for strawberries. So there's a lot
of fear mongering with regard to pesticides and produce. What's
most important for people to know is organic is fine,
Conventional is fine. That they say to wash your produce,
(36:46):
and what they mean is rinse your produce with water.
Do not wash it with soap or anything like detergent. Wise,
you need to rinse your produce preferably right before you
eat it, because if you rinse it and kind of
bit ahead of time, it's going to go bad more
quickly in the refrigerator. But all produce should be rinsed.
So that's one thing a lot of people don't know.
(37:07):
And so if you're just focusing on fresh produce, you're
probably going to see more food waste. And if you
can kind of again plan accordingly, like this is the
produce that I can get through in one day or
when one week. However, often you go to the grocery store,
and so I'm going to supplement it with the canned, dried,
and frozen. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
I love that We've talked about this on the show before.
But like, one thing that's really helpful to do is
just like right out your week what you're doing, so
that way you know what nights you're going to be
eating at home, when nights you might be going out
with friends. And then just you know, if you do
your grocery around on Sunday, look at the week ahead
and just get enough stuff for the days that you
know that you'll be cooking.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Yeah, and I've heard how you talked about doing that
in one of the episodes, and really it's just a
process and there's really no magic to it other than
thinking about your week. I went through this own little
journey for myself and realized, even with the family, I
really only need to cook maybe three nights a week.
I don't cook every night, And so there's a lot
of different ways that we can use up the leftovers.
(38:04):
A great way is to use up leftover veggies and
a fritata. That's a really nice way to get some protein.
That's my favorite way to use up those vegetables that
are starting to whilt a little bit, and it's easy
and you're getting the protein from the eggs.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Oh well, let me tell you all ripe banana hates
to see me coming because that means we're making banana bread.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
We just have a few more questions for you, Melissa.
You know we are in back to school time. What
are some lunch or snack ideas that parents can use
for their kids and also secretly I can use for
myself on days that I go to the office or
I'm feeling sort of lazy when I come home. What
are some little tips and tricks of just making sure
that those lunches, those snacks are healthy and fresh and
(38:48):
not just some salt or sugar junk that we're throwing
in for them.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Lunchables as I always feed.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
My mom never used to let me have those, and
now I do thank her. But at the time I
was so annoying and they look so delisous.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
Just right, we thank our moms for it stuff. I
was mad at you about Now I'm grateful for right. Yeah,
they come around right when you are grown up.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
So basically, my top suggestion for you is to write
down the types of foods you like, and for a snack,
you want to have at least two food groups, So
it'd be great if one of them could be a
fruit or a vegetable, since we know we're lacking in
produce and fiber. But you know, maybe it's cheese and
whole green crackers.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Right.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
Just write down all the types of foods or snacks
that you like and make sure you get those at
the grocery store. It's that planning ahead, so there's really
no magic there other than what do you like two
food groups? Put it on the grocery list, make sure
you plan ahead and have it on hand and ready
to go.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I can do that. That is something I'm capable of doing.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
So all said, we've said a lot of wonderful things today,
But if you were to leave our audience with a
takeaway for those who are feeling like their diet needs
a reset, what are the most important chain, just like
first changes that they can make if they're trying to
do a diet reset.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
First, I suggest tracking your intake, piece of paper and
app however you want to do it, see where you are,
think about what your goals are and where you think
you could make some improvements. Everybody could do better by
getting more produce in any form and more fiber. But
see where your maybe empty calories are or are you
(40:24):
hungry at certain times of the day. Do you need
to shift some protein earlier in the day. What do
you want to work on and what do you think
would be a realistic goal for you. Anytime you do
something drastic big, it's really hard to maintain that, And
only the changes that are able to be sustainable are
going to improve your health. And don't try to make
(40:45):
too many changes at once. Just start slow, go slow,
and maybe work on one thing at a time.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
That's great.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
I love what you said about sticking with changes that
are easy. Like one thing that I grew up on
is like soda, and so I can't believe I can't
do this, But like I don't enjoy really drinking flat
water like you're dying of thirst, I'll drink it. But
like I really just love Seltzer water, and so that's
been a super easy healthy fix to just like I
just don't drink soda anymore. I drink Seltzer and kind
(41:14):
of gives you the same you know, in my opinion,
bang that soda gives you, And you know it's a
completely healthy swap and it's sustained it.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
For a while.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
That's a great point. I'm glad.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
I like bubbles too. A lot of people don't like
plain water, and hydration is so important. We didn't even
touch on that. I did a recent episode. It's such
an important topic. And when I would work with patients
a lot, I would say, Okay, you are.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Kind of saying, well, I feel bad about this.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
I don't like plain water, or you know, I want
to work out, but kind of making excuses.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Those are not excuses. Those are barriers.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
And if you can look at those barriers objectively and say, okay,
how do I work around this barrier? How do I
solve this? This is the reality I don't like plain water.
How am I going to drink more water?
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Bubbles? Problem solved?
Speaker 3 (41:57):
Totally agree.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Okay, well, before we let you go, can you let
everyone know where they can find more of you and
your work.
Speaker 5 (42:03):
You can connect with me on my website, which is
soundbitesrd dot com and I have a free do More
with Dinner resource there, and also information about all of
my favorite cookbooks and kitchen gadgets and supplements and other
fun stuff. And of course you can check out my
Soundbites podcast there or wherever you listen to podcasts, including
(42:26):
iHeart Melissa.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Thank you so much for all of this incredible information.
My stomach is rumbling right now. I am already very hungry,
and I'm like trying to figure out how to make
the best decisions of what I'm going to eat after this.
So thank you very much for helping us make better
choices every day in our lives.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
My pleasure.
Speaker 5 (42:44):
I just hope you walk away from this with the
thought of enjoying your food with health and mind.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
Yes, wonderful. Thanks so much, Melissa.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Okay, Matt, tell me your favorite bite from our chat
with doctor Melissa.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
I really found the ultraprocessed food sections to be fascinating
because I think that she's so right. There's two things, right.
There's the process with which you make food, which you
know she mentioned peanut butter. Peanut butter is actually like
super duper process heavy. But it's not that they're adding
more siff into it. Just to make the peanut butter.
You have to crush the peanuts and you've got to
put it in the jars and whatever else they do,
(43:23):
and so it's classified as a highly processed food, even
though it's just peanuts that are in there for the
most part, depending on the exact brand. But thinking about Twinkies,
Ding Dong's Ho hos that have all those chemicals and
multifiers and shelf stabilizers in there are also considered ultra
processed foods. So I think that the fact that she
put the emphasis on nutrition and just thinking about the
nutritional content of these things regardless of this ultra processed label,
(43:45):
is a really great thing to think about.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
But what about you.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
She kept talking about potassium, and it just made me
think of bananas, and I really now I am, like,
I think I need to make myself a banana bread.
Like I feel so proud of myself when I make
a banana bread.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
You had mentioned your banana breat making. It seems like
it's the thing you do a lot. Are you like
a bread person a baking person.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
I do it enough to be pretty good at it.
I mean I have no complaints. And I actually have
some blueberries left over too, And that's my trick lately.
I've been putting blueberries in the banana bread and.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Like, wow, some sweet some tarts. That is the way
to do it at combination. I love it.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I'll have to save you a piece if I can.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
Great, I'm gonna have some peanut butter. You're gonna make
some banana bread. And we will both be moving in
the right direction forward with our health.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yes we will. And until next time, good luck being
a grown up.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
This is a production of Ruby Studio from My Heart Media.
Our executive producers are Leah Palmery.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
And Matt Stillo. This episode was edited and engineered by
Sierra
Speaker 4 (44:40):
Spreen and we want to thank our teammates at Ruby Studio,
including Sarah You, Evan Fixel, Rachel Swan, krasnov Lydia Kim
at the Aguilar Harper wayIn Salia Verplu, Deborah Garrett and
Andy Kelly.
Ruby.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi, I'm Leah Palmery.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Matt Stillo.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to grown up Stuff. You know, Matt, I'm always
listening to a podcast when I do my grocery shopping,
and if you do the same, today's might have you
taking a different route around your grocery store.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
That's because today we are joined by doctor Melissa Joy Dobbins,
who is a registered dietitian, nutritionist and host of the
sound Bites podcast. She's also a popular speaker and spokesperson
for the food, grocery and healthcare industries, and today she's
going to help us understand a bit more about nutrition
and how it affects so much more than just our
tummies the tum tumbs as I like to call.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It, Well, the medical term is tum tum's for it.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
So yes, and that's the first fact that we're going
to be putting out there today.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, I mean, we all know that you're supposed to
eat your fruits and veggies, but I am feeling too
much pressure lately about eating enough protein and I need
doctor Melissa's help big time. So, Matt, what are you
most curious about when it comes to your snacks and beyond.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I'm curious about fiber.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
You know, I've had some speaking of the tum tum
digestive issues in the past, and I hear adding fiber
supplements into a daily routine can help the digestive system
get back on track. And so I'm actually curious to
hear how she thinks about fiber in a healthy and
complete diet.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, I know that doctor Molks is going to be
able to help you and all of us, so let's
not fill up on any unnecessary empty calories and get
to the good stuff. Here's doctor Melissa Joy Dobbins on
grown up stuff, well stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
My name is Melissa Joy Dobbins and I'm a registered
dietitian and a certified diabetes educator with many years of experience.
I'm known as the Guilt Free RD because my goal
is to help people enjoy their food with health in mind.
I've been hosting the sound Bites podcast for over ten years,
where I interview a variety of experts on topics ranging
(02:01):
from fad diets to farming. I also help other dietitians
and other food and nutrition professionals improve their communication skills
so that we can help get those credible voices out
there and combat a lot of the misinformation and fear
mongering that's out in the media and social media. I
think one of the first things that I would like
(02:21):
people to know is what is the difference between a
registered dietitian nutritionist and somebody who calls themselves a nutritionist.
And there's quite a difference. A registered dietitian nutritionist has
to have the credentials, which is at least a bachelor's
degree in science, and pretty soon they're required to have
a master's degree plus one thousand hours of supervised practice experience,
(02:43):
and they have to pass a registration exam, and they
have to maintain those credentials through continuing education and in
many states, unfortunately not all, there's licensure that you have
to maintain a nutritionist. There's really no legal definition or
credential definition for that word. So they could have varying
(03:04):
levels of expertise. They could be just a health food
store owner, they could have a PhD In nutrition, So
it's just really kind of the wild wild West when
it comes to that. So if somebody is really looking
for credible nutrition information, the dietitian is the gold standard.
One of the things that I talk about a lot
in my profession these days is the state of affairs
(03:27):
with nutrition and health, and a big part of that
is where are people getting their information? Who do they
trust for information? And actually there's quite a gap between
those the people they trust medical professionals, dietitians, science professionals,
is not where they're getting their information. They're getting most
of their information from family, friends, and media and social media.
(03:48):
So there are a lot of challenges inherent in being
a dietitian and a food and nutrition communicator where there's
a lot of strong voices out in the media and
social media that aren't necessarily credible voices. So that's why
I do a lot with my podcast and like being
on podcasts like this and other ways of communicating nutrition
(04:10):
is to just try to help people get the facts
and not be afraid of food, and like, what do
you worry about? What do you not worry about? So
that's what I like to talk about.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
I'm glad you're here because I am guilty of that.
I am definitely somebody who sees a lot on Instagram
and I have several questions for you today that I
know you're going to clear up for us. So thank you.
For being here.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Yeah, and actually we can kind of dive in right there,
right Like, actually our first question is like, what are
some of the biggest misconceptions about nutrition?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Think there's so much out there. There's the trends, the fads,
the myths. It's constantly changing. But it's interesting. Like you
mentioned Instagram, but also TikTok. There was a survey, a
TikTok survey done by my fitness Pal, and they found
that TikTok was the number one search engine over Google
for half of the gen z's population. And they reviewed
(05:01):
over seventy thousand videos for nutrition content and found that
only two point one percent of them were accurate.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Now there's some caveats to that, like if part of it.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
Was inaccurate, but part of it was accurate, it was
still considered inaccurate. But I think the short answer to
that whole problem is short form content like we see
on Instagram and TikTok, you really can't get into the
nuances of nutrition and science, and so long form content
like your podcast is where you can really.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Get into the nuances.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
So good news for both of us in that respect,
and also just maybe thinking of social media as more
of entertainment versus education. But yeah, so the trending fads
or myths that I'm seeing right now, seed oils is
a big one, and ultra processed foods, food die bands,
all of those things. But what I really like to
(05:53):
say is those are sort of like I say, like
red dye number three is a red herring. Let's not
be distracted by things that aren't really going to make
a big difference in your health. But like, what we
know is that most people, nine out of ten people
are not getting enough fruits and vegetables. Only six percent
of people are getting enough fiber. Most of us are
not getting enough omega three fats. Like how do you
(06:15):
do that? And what do we worry about? What do
we not worry about?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I think the first thing even from that too,
is I'd love to get into the ultra processed foods
because we hear so much about that. What does that mean?
What are people talking about when they're referring to ultra
processed foods? And how did that become such a dominant
part of our diet, especially in the US.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Great question, what does ultra process food mean? There is
no agreed upon definition, so that's problem number one. And
the main problem with that is when research is done
on ultraprocessed foods, it's like apples and oranges. With research,
you want to be able to have the same definition
(06:56):
so that you can compare the research and sort of
have a body of evidence. That's not this study defined
it this way and this study defined it a different
way than you really can't compare the two. So that's
the first problem, and we need to have a definition.
And in the meantime, the most common system of categorizing
them is called NOVA and it says that there's certain
(07:19):
levels of processed food. But the problem is some of
the foods that fall into the ultra process category are
nutrient rich foods like soy milk, plant based beverages, most
peanut butters, whole wheat bread. If you make it at home,
it's not ultra process but if you buy it in
the store, it's ultra processed.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Oh wow.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
Yeah, So it's really looking at the processing level and
not the nutrition. So until there's like a mechanism, which
there were researchers at NIH studying this that unfortunately had
to step down from NIH, which is maybe a whole
other conversation that they were studying this, like, is there
a mechanism, is there an ingredient? Is there a certain
(07:57):
process in some of these foods that is a culprit
for health and chronic disease and weight.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
There's no evidence of that yet.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
So as a dietitian, I keep coming back to, regardless
of the level of processing of a food, let's look
and see how much nutrition it provides. We know the
difference between a potato and potato chips.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
We know that.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
So you can always look at a food label if
you're like, well, how does this cereal compare to this cereal?
Which one provides more fiber, which one provides more calcium
and vitamins. So there's a lot of so called processed
packaged foods in those center store aisles that are really nutritious.
Canned beans, canned fish, canned fruits and vegetables. There's different
(08:38):
things that we can look at that provide a lot
of good nutrition and are actually budget friendly as well.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I used to be a supermarket dietitian, so I always.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Try to get people to take a step back and say, Okay,
this is the food, what are the good nutrients it provides? Protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals,
and what are the nutrients we want to limit, like
total calories, saturated fats, odium, and sugar, and just kind
of find the best tasting product within those choices as well,
because taste is important. Research shows that taste is the
(09:08):
number one reason that people purchase foods, and we can't
ignore that, right.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yeah, I love what you're saying about ultraprocessed foods. That
part of it is the actual mechanical process of making
it can be the definition even if there's really good
nutrition there. And so maybe I want to tailor my
question to talk about the foods that have like bad
nutrition or malnutrition or they're sort of missing a nutritional
component to them. And so the one way that I
(09:34):
really get into this in my own life is there's
this app, and I'm actually curious where you think about.
It's called Yucca, where basically you can scan an item,
it will rate that item zero to one hundred, zero
being really bad, one hundred being really really healthy, and
it will break down the ingredients and the nutrition in it.
And so basically what I love about it is it
will kind of call to attention the ingredients that are
like hard to pronounce or they are chemicals, and you
(09:56):
can actually like click on these ingredients and see kind
of what they do in the They might be disrupting
your endocrine system or stuff like that, but it'll also
tell you, like if you scan it tomato, it's just
gonna be like this is a tomato. Like that's all
there is in this. And that's kind of how I
go about thinking about the foods that I want to buy.
But I'm curious when thinking about these man made, ultra
(10:16):
processed ingredients, be they shelf stabilizers or what have you,
what health impacts are we seeing from foods like that,
and how might changing our diet to maybe a more
whole food diet reverse those impacts.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Right, Yeah, I've heard of that app. I haven't actually
seen it myself, but thank you for sort of explaining
how you're using it and what kinds of feedback you're getting.
And part of that is some of the fear factor. Right,
We've heard if you can't pronounce it, or it's a chemical,
and really essentially everything is chemicals, and if you can't
pronounce something, as we've seen some health experts quote unquote
(10:56):
can't pronounce ribaflavin, and that's a B vitamin, So we
kind of have to take a step back and say, Okay,
we do have processed foods, and there's a lot of
reasons for some of the processing. A lot of it
is to make it shelf stable. So again like what
kind of nutrition is it providing? And ultra processed foods
or processed foods in general, Again, depending on the level
(11:19):
of processing may or may not impact how much nutrition
it's giving you. And we are eating more calories, We're
eating more of everything, though we're not necessarily eating more junk.
We're eating more calories than we were decades ago, and
that seems to be why our waistlines are increasing. So
I wouldn't worry about can I pronounce the food? Can
(11:39):
I not pronounce it? The ingredients list? You know, there
was like this whole clean label push a while ago,
you know, five ingredients or less. Interesting story. I went
on a tour of a frozen food plant. I won't
name the name, but it's a big company and they
make frozen dinners and they make healthy ones, and they
were saying, oh, you know the on sitting in clued pasta,
(12:01):
We've been taking out normally the pasta that week just
get on the shelf is enriched with B vitamins because
we need those. And so when they were using the
pasta in the frozen dinners, they were not enriching the product.
They weren't putting the be vitamins in because that would
make the ingredients list longer, And they were getting pushed
back from customers about wanting a clean label. And it
(12:23):
blew my mind that here people think, when you're getting pasta,
it's got those vitamins in it, or maybe they don't
even know, but they don't even know what they don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
They don't know that.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
Okay, well your ingredients list is shorter now, but you're
not getting some BE vitamins and foliated is an important
B vitamin that is really important, especially for women of
reproductive age.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
So what I worry.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
About with clean labels and short ingredients lists for packaged
foods is are we going to start seeing now micronutrient
deficiencies because of this? And are we throwing the baby
out with the bathwater? And you know, certainly to your point,
it's great to eat whole foods, but not everybody has
access to those or can afford those. But again, I
(13:07):
think that we need to kind of look at the
nutrition it provides. Now, this researcher at NIH who's no
longer at NIH, did come up with an interesting concept
about hyperpalatability, and that means how fast you can eat
or drink something that could be contributing to us getting
extra calories. But again, compare regular milk to soy milk.
(13:29):
Soy milk would be considered ultra processed. You can't drink
soy milk any faster than you can drink regular milk.
A plant based burger versus a regular burger, you can't
eat that faster than the other. But again, chips, ding dongs, doodles,
all those types of things, we can consume a lot
of them. They're not really filling us up making us
feel full, and we can over consume calories that way.
(13:50):
So I mean, that's what I want people to think about,
is how much nutrition am I getting? And there's room
for these foods in the diet. You know, not everything
that we put in our mouth has to be super
nutrient rich, but we want to minimize that sort of
empty calorie foods or the indulgent foods. We really want
to choose them wisely and make sure we really savor
them and enjoy them and not be afraid of having
(14:15):
something like that.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I mean, we have to be realistic, right.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, I mean chips exist in the world, so I'm
not going to not have them, But it's just like
about not having them breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day,
which I would love do. I think a good sick
of them too.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I'm glad you mentioned about the nutrients that we are
or maybe aren't getting. I see a lot about supplements
and vitamins and prebiotics and probiotics. What are these additional
elements that we're maybe not getting from food and we
need a little boost from. What should we actually be
adding and how should we be taking these things making
(14:50):
sure we're sort of making up for the nutritional stuff
we might be lacking or just need a little more of.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
I love this question because, of course we want to
get our nutrients food as much as possible, but we
have to be realistic as well. So there is a
place for supplements to supplement the diet. And there's like
four nutrients of concern that most people are lacking, and
it's fiber, calcium, vitamin D, and potassium, a very little
(15:18):
known nutrient that's really important, and a lot of those
are found in fruits and vegetables. Calcium is more in
dairy products, is found in vegetables as well, but in
smaller quantities, and it's not as bioavailable, which means we
don't absorb it and use it as well. So what
you want to think about is fiber, calcium, vitamin D,
and potassium. Where are those foods in my diet? Am
(15:40):
I getting enough of those in my diet? And I'll
just use a couple of examples. Fiber I think needs
a pr makeover. Proteins in the spotlight, but I'm hoping
fiber is next. Fiber is important for more than just
digestion and motility. It's important for weight management, for gut health,
for cholesterol and heart disease, prevent and management of diabetes
(16:02):
and pre diabetes. Fiber helps maintain or promote healthy LDL
cholesterol levels, and that's the type of cholesterol, the bad
one that you want to keep low if you have
pre diabetes or diabetes. The fiber helps slow the absorption
of carbohydrate and therefore managing blood glucose levels better. It's
also helpful for weight management because it helps you feel
(16:23):
full it provides that satiety, and so that's going to
help decrease your calorie intake. And it's really in a
lot of produce, fruits and vegetables. It's also in whole
grains and nuts and seeds. So you can always look
at a package as well and see how much fiber
is in it. And we need about fourteen grams of
(16:43):
fiber per one thousand calories, so kind of a range
of like twenty two to thirty four grams per day.
Younger men go towards the higher end of the range,
older women go towards the lower end of the range.
Our fiber needs decrease a little bit as we age,
but yeah, if you can try to get some sort
of source of fiber at every meal or snack, and
a variety of fiber, that would be great. And fiber
(17:06):
kind of comes in interesting packages. Sometimes a third of
an avocado is three grams of fiber, and we think
of avocado as like a healthy fat and guacamole, of course,
but it's a good source of fiber. That's a technical term.
That means it's providing at least ten percent of the
daily value. So there's a lot of different ways to
get fiber, and there's many different types of fiber. There's
(17:30):
soluble and insoluble, but within those there's prebiotic fibers and
those are so important to feed the gut microbiome and
for gut health, and so a variety of fibers is
really key there. So that's when when we talk about
some basic nutrition advice, like a variety of foods and moderation,
there's really a purpose for that because if we get
(17:53):
a variety of fruits and vegetables and types of fiber
in our diet, we're getting the variety of fibers that
we need.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
But again, most people are not getting those.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
A lot of people can benefit from a prebiotic supplement
or a probiotic supplement, and the two are different, but
in general those things are just really good for gut health,
which is really an emerging area of study. There's a
lot we don't know about gut health, but we do
know is that if you don't have a healthy gut,
your body can't be healthy. So that is really important
(18:23):
and there's just a lot going on in this field
of study. Vitamin D is really not widely occurring in foods.
We get it from the sun, but we're covering our
skin or using sunscreen to prevent skin cancer, so that
blocks our body making some vitamin D. And I don't
know about you, but I'm in Chicago. We don't have
sun all the time here, so there's limitations for that
(18:45):
as well. So some people, many people might need a
vitamin D supplement. If you get your levels checked at
your doctor's office and you're low, then you should take
a supplement. Like I have a B twelve deficiency. B
twelve is only in animal products. I eat animal products.
Why I have a B twelve deficiency, I don't know,
So I take a B twelve supplement. But yeah, some
(19:07):
people can just benefit from a multivitamin and then talking
to their doctor about checking my vitamin D levels and
where can I get more fiber in the diet.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
That's a great point, Melissa, And it's actually really easy
to check those levels with your doctor at your annual physical.
I discovered that I'm vitamin D deficient that way, and
so I take a supplement now. But I'd like to
talk a little bit more about what I'd consider the
basis of nutrition, and when I think of that, I
think of proteins, fats, carbs, what people refer to as
(19:38):
macro nutrients. We often hear a lot of confusion around
these nutrients and how much we should be getting of
each of them. So I'd love to hear from you
what is the deal with these nutrients and how should
they inform our diets.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
I'm glad we're switching to macros because that is really
something that more people are thinking about than those micro nutrients.
So we get calories from carbohydrates, proteins, and fat. It
depends on the person and it depends on their goals,
but about half of your calories might be coming from
carbohydrate and about twenty percent or so from protein, and
(20:15):
about thirty percent from fat. Now within the carbohydrate category,
you want to get more fiber sources of carbohydrate, those
quality carbohydrates is what we like to call them. We
used to call them like complex carbohydrates versus simple, which
is like sugar. And now we're talking about quality carbohydrate again.
What nutrients are these carbohydrates bringing along with them, and
(20:36):
fiber being a big one of those. And you know
a lot of fruits and vegetables and beans and stuff
will fall into that carbohydrate category. Vegetables have very little
carbohydrate but they do, and they have fiber and phytoonutrients
which are really good for you as well. And then
I'll talk about fat and then protein because protein's always
like the number one point of interest.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I have done so many.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
Podcast episodes on proteins, favorite topic with the it's about
thirty percent of your calories from fat. You want most
of that to be unsaturated fats, poly unsaturated, mono unsaturated,
and fewer of that to be saturated fat. And then protein.
There's also what we talk about with the quality carbohydrates.
There's what types of protein are higher quality, And the
(21:18):
truth is animal sources of protein are typically higher quality.
That's not to knock plant sources of protein. They have
different nutrients, so your plant sources of protein might have
different micronutrients and also fiber or as an animal source
of protein won't, but a plant source of protein won't
have B twelve. And then there's different amino acids in everything,
so a combination is good. If somebody is strictly vegan,
(21:42):
they really need to work with a registered dietitian so
that they're not missing out on any important nutrients and
supplementing where they need to. And as a diabetes educator.
I've worked with patients who know they do great on
about half of their calories from carbohydrate. If they're vegetarian
or vegan, they might have shift a little more of
their calories from carbohydrate, which, even though those are healthy foods,
(22:05):
it could impact their blood sugars negatively. Some people do
much better on lower amounts of carbohydrate and higher amounts
of protein. And where I start with that is what
types of foods do you like and could you shift
to more protein or more carbohydrates like which would be
your preference, and then seeing how that impacts the blood sugar.
(22:27):
But again that's for people with diabetes or pre diabetes
or risk of diabetes.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
We'll be right back after a quick.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Break and we're back with more grown up stuff. How
do I don't.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
The way I've been thinking about nutrition because I've had
a long history of being overweight and trying to lose
weight and stuff like that. So one of the things
that has helped me a ton, And I'm sure this
comes up a lot in your show, but it's been
tracking food, and you know, I want to say that,
like you know, tracking your food is not counting calories.
It's not the same thing but one of the biggest
ways that this has been helpful is by figuring out
(23:10):
an ideal balance of like macro nutrients proteins and fats
and carbs. I use this app called my Fitness Pal
to like just keep tragging my food because basically, I
think when some of these elements sort of get out
of balance, So foods that are really really high in
carbs and fats but low in nutritional value, like I'm
thinking ice cream, you know, things that we just love,
those are the things that are not really as good
for you and are going to contribute, you know, in
(23:31):
my case, to wa gain. And so when I actually
like kind of log foods in this my fitness power
can kind of see where they're falling on this macro
nutrient balance, and I try to keep my macro nutrients
kind of in check. And I find that when I'll
like put together a menu for the day, I'll be like, oh, wow,
this is like all the way carbs and like know
the way protein, and I'll kind of like be able
to rebalance this.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And so maybe I.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Would just love for you to talk about goals that
people have. I think that nutrition is a great way
to achieve goals. And maybe the goals being healthier. Maybe
the goal is losing weight, maybe the goal is gaining muscle.
And so a lot of people talk about like the
Atkins diet or the low carb diet and how that
might help them lose weight, or like the high protein
diet and how that might help them gain muscle, or
the high nutrient diet, or maybe that you know, improves.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Their overall health.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
But yeah, I really just love to get a sense
of how you think about those things.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Well, first of all, tracking food is a very useful tool,
and there's a lot of different ways to do it.
My fitness Pal is a great app. I don't know
if you have the free version or the paid version.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Oh I pay all the way I give them.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Get all the Belgian whistles, right, yeah, and yea. Like
now you can just use the barcode scan, you know
if it's a package product, and yeah, to your point,
you can kind of look and see, oh, I'm really
falling short on protein here, so I need to focus
more on that. So it's very very helpful. Some people
like to just track by pen and paper. Some people
like to do it periodically to just kind of check
in and see where they are. Which I always recommend
(24:53):
for people is just like before you make any changes,
take assessment of where you're at and where you might
be lacking or getting too much, and then adjust from there.
And you know, some people are like you, Matt. They
just can check and track day in and day out
and it helps them stay on track. So that's great.
But yeah, it depends on what your goals are. If
(25:13):
you're looking at weight loss, the short answer to that
is any diet that decreases calories from what you're currently eating.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Should help you lose weight.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
I will say a lot of people don't know that
when you're looking at that equation of diet and exercise,
diet is the driver for weight loss. Exercise is the
driver for weight loss and maintenance. So a lot of
people get frustrated. They're like going to the gym, or
they're running, or they're lifting weights, or they're doing you
know the strength training, you know whatever, and they're not
(25:46):
seeing any improvements on their weight. Exercise has a lot
of wonderful qualities. I want people to exercise because it
makes them feel better, it helps them manage stress, it's
something fun. I do karate and ballet personally do something fun,
but don't get discouraged if it's not helping you lose weight.
It is helping your body composition, it's helping with maintaining
(26:09):
muscle mass and decreasing fat mass. But if you're looking
for weight loss, it's really looking at where those extra
calories in your diet are coming from. If you're looking
to increase your strength and or size of your muscles,
you have to have adequate protein, but you also have
to exercise, and both of those are equally important. And
(26:30):
there's a lot of talk about like how much protein.
Are people eating too much protein? Are they not getting enough?
It really depends on the person, their age, and their
activity level. As we age, we will lose muscle mass,
and so we actually may need more protein as we age.
When we're younger and the hormones are all working doing
(26:51):
wonderful things, we can have sort of a crummy diet
and our bodies just take what it needs and makes
it work. As we get older, that changes a lot,
and so there are a lot of times increased protein
needs for people as they age. If you're exercising, that's
going to help offset some of those protein needs. Again,
you've got to do both of those if you are
(27:12):
looking to really bulk up. Depends again, like a young male,
you know have adequate protein, but they might need more
carbohydrate to enhance their workout to help them bulk up.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I did want to ask you a little bit about
the protein of it all too, because like I'm certainly
hearing it, you know, like being a woman, it's like,
we got to get more protein. I'm not a huge
meat eater from time to time, and I like chicken,
but like I'm not like, give me a steak. Sometimes
my body will tell me, like a lot of steak.
But what are things we can do to be getting protein?
(27:47):
And like how can we be creative about this too,
because you'll hear like eat more protein. How are the
ways that I really can be fueling my body to
make sure I'm maintaining and even building my muscles when
I'm not a huge just like dig into meat eater.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
I'm glad you asked that because it's really important to
talk about other sources of protein, and it is challenging.
Like I personally try to aim for about ninety grams
of protein, so about thirty grams per meal. It's really
hard for me to meet that if I'm not using
core Power or the fair Life Nutrition Shake or whatever,
(28:22):
because it's like twenty six to thirty grams of protein
and it's only like one hundred and seventy calories and
I don't need a lot of calories, and it's also light,
it doesn't fill me up, So that's a great breakfast
for me. And breakfast is a time of day where
most people are not getting a lot of protein.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Most of us have most of it at night, so
that's the other thing.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
You want to try to spread it throughout the day
and think about having some protein at every meal and
possibly every snack. So you know, eggs, Greek yogurt is
an excellent source of protein. Fair Life milk. Again, I'm
not getting paid by fair Life, but fair Life milk
has more protein and more calcium. It's real milk, but
it's lactose free. That's something that a lot of people like,
(29:01):
and it also has a longer shelf life. There's a
lot of plant based proteins as well, beans, quene, wa
legomes are wonderful, lentils, things like that, and if you
don't have those in your diet, you can just google,
like what are they?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
How do I prepare them.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
They're really easy, but trying to get those in in
those quantities can be a challenge.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
I'm not being paid by my fitness Pal either, just
to be clear, but I love what you're saying about,
especially what you said about tracking. Like one thing I
did when I started doing this is like I was like,
I'm not going to eat healthier, I'm just going to
like track, It's kind of an awareness sort of exercise.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
I'm just going to track the food that I eat.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
And I put in what I was eating in a day,
and it was like thirty two hundred calories a day,
mostly of carbs and fat, and I found that, like,
I actually kind of have what I think is like
a metabolic issue where I'm like, my basal metabolic rate
is actually lower than most people's.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
If you've yo yo dieted yep, yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
It hovers around like eighteen hundred calories. And so if
I was eating essentially double my calories in a day,
like it's unsurprising that I was gaining so much weight.
And I've heard if you're basically eating five hundred calories
over what your BMR is, like you're going to gain
like a pound a week or something like that. And
so like imagine you're eating eighteen hundred calories over how
much weight you're going to gain.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Is there any truth to what I just said?
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Yes, absolutely, And like I said, if you've yo yo dieted,
your metabolism probably is lower. And that's everybody listening if
you've done that. And that's why it's harder and harder
to lose weight because when you lose weight, you lose
muscle and fat, and when you gain weight, you only
gain fat. So that's again why it's important to maintain
that muscle, maybe build a little bit of muscle. And
just to be clear, cardiovascular exercise is great for the heart,
(30:44):
Aerobic exercise is great for the heart, but everybody needs
to do some sort of strength training or body weight
exercises to maintain muscle mass. So yes, technically, if you
have five hundred extra calories a day, you gain a
pound a week. Wise, if you have five hundred fewer
calories a day, you lose a pound a week.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Now, that's simple math.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Our bodies are more complex than that, but essentially that's
what you're looking at. So if you can try to
have a calorie deficit and you can look at your
exercise too. I personally don't count exercise calorie deficit. I
just count that as like that's good for me. I'm
just looking at where can I decrease excess calories in
(31:26):
my diet.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And everybody's different.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Some people really like to track and look at those numbers.
Other people that's kind of overwhelming, which is making me
think of another trend, and that's the people wearing the
cgms who don't have diabetes or pre diabetes.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
I just want to stay out there.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
If you like data and that's your jam and it's
not stressing you out, great, but for a lot of
people it can make them really hyper focused and it
can kind of promote disordered eating. And I have to
shout from the rooftops. If your blood sugar is quote
unquote spiking and crashing, but you don't have diabetes or
pre diabetes, it's within normal limits, please do not worry
(32:04):
about it. Like there was a dietician who wrote a
blog that she can't eat sweet potatoes because there was
no time in the day and she was young and fit,
and like, Okay, this is ridiculous. You can't eat a
sweet potato. It's such a nutrient rich food. Yeah, Like,
it's not a can of soda, it's a sweet potato.
So I think this biohacking can get really out of hand.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Yeah, and CGM a continuous glucose monitor, which is a
thing for diabetes to keep track of your bloo chickgar
But a lot of people are just using it just
to use it, yes, which I agree with you can
lead to a little bit of a overthinking.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
Yeah, so people just need to kind of assess for themselves.
Like I weigh myself every morning. It doesn't really mess
with my head, but other people it can really be like, Okay,
well I might as well just do whatever because nothing's changing.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, you're not gonna send me on the scale every morning,
that's for damn sure. But more power to you.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
No, you guy have to know yourself. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, you mentioned sweet potatoes, and I love sweet potatoes
for a lot of reasons, and not just in the
fry form. But potatoes I think are great because they
are the one place in the grocery store where I'm like, oh,
that's all these cost, and most other things in the
grocery store cost so much. I will sometimes get to
the register and then I'm like, what, because it just
(33:19):
feels like grocery prices are going up, up, up every day.
So what are some of the low cost ways that
you like to keep meals both healthy and natural but
also not giving me a stomach ache on the way
out of the grocery store because of the price.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
You're right, grocery prices continue to rise. And I will
say that sweet potato and regular potatoes are an excellent
source of potassium that we were talking about earlier. Potassium
comes in fruits and vegetables and also dairy, but potatoes
are a great source. So as a former supermarket dietician,
I love talking about eating healthy on a budget. And
you know I mentioned some things earlier. Some of those
(33:55):
center store items like canned beans and canned fish are
so nutrient rich and so budget friendly. But there are
some other things that you want to do. If you're
buying in season, and if you don't know what's in season,
you can always check the internet. But also whatever is
lower cost or on sale in the grocery store is
usually what's in season, and it's more at the peak
(34:15):
of nutrition, So those things are going to be more
budget friendly. Buying in bulk. If you can if it's
non perishable or like sometimes we'll go to Costco and
we'll share extra produce with our neighbors and you know,
kind of split it up that way. So if you're
a small household or you're like, well, I don't know
have a place to store it, or it's going to
go bad before I use it up, think about those options.
(34:38):
Some of the other things that you can do is
look for sales. I get so annoyed at my grocery store.
My mother in law uses the app. She had to
show me how to use it. She's eighty five. I
go in the store and I'm trying to clip the
coupons with the app, but the Wi Fi isn't working
and I have to go to the front of the store.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
If I'm in the back of the store, I don't know.
Is this just me?
Speaker 5 (34:57):
So I spend more time at the store because of that.
That's another way that you can really save money. But
the biggest thing you can do to kind of get
the most bang out of your grocery book is to
avoid food waste. And I know that's another trending topic.
It's not just good for the environment, but it's good
for your wallet. So it's really helpful if you can
try to plan, Okay, how much fresh produce do I
(35:21):
need and will eat before it goes bad? How do
I store it properly? And how do I supplement that
fresh produce with canned, frozen, dried, or juices, because all
of those forms count and people tend to not remember
that or not know that. I think a lot of
times we think, well, healthy eating is expensive because we
think our produce has to be fresh and organic. If
(35:43):
you want to buy an organic, fine, but it's not
nutritionally superior to conventionally grown produce. And contrary to popular belief,
organic produce can use pesticides, they're just organic pesticides. So
one of the fear mongering things I see out there,
and I won't repeat the name of this list or
the company that promotes it, but they're trying to get
(36:04):
people to buy more organic. And there's a website called
Safefruits and Veggies dot com where there's a pesticide calculator
where you can choose if you're an adult, a man,
a woman, a child, because smaller bodies can have fewer
pesticides and larger bodies can have bigger ones. But if
you put into the calculator that you're a child and
that you want to look at strawberries, a child could
(36:26):
eat one hundred and eighty one servings of strawberries in
one day without any impact, even if it had the
highest pesticide residue recorded for strawberries. So there's a lot
of fear mongering with regard to pesticides and produce. What's
most important for people to know is organic is fine,
Conventional is fine. That they say to wash your produce,
(36:46):
and what they mean is rinse your produce with water.
Do not wash it with soap or anything like detergent. Wise,
you need to rinse your produce preferably right before you
eat it, because if you rinse it and kind of
bit ahead of time, it's going to go bad more
quickly in the refrigerator. But all produce should be rinsed.
So that's one thing a lot of people don't know.
(37:07):
And so if you're just focusing on fresh produce, you're
probably going to see more food waste. And if you
can kind of again plan accordingly, like this is the
produce that I can get through in one day or
when one week. However, often you go to the grocery store,
and so I'm going to supplement it with the canned, dried,
and frozen. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
I love that We've talked about this on the show before.
But like, one thing that's really helpful to do is
just like right out your week what you're doing, so
that way you know what nights you're going to be
eating at home, when nights you might be going out
with friends. And then just you know, if you do
your grocery around on Sunday, look at the week ahead
and just get enough stuff for the days that you
know that you'll be cooking.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Yeah, and I've heard how you talked about doing that
in one of the episodes, and really it's just a
process and there's really no magic to it other than
thinking about your week. I went through this own little
journey for myself and realized, even with the family, I
really only need to cook maybe three nights a week.
I don't cook every night, And so there's a lot
of different ways that we can use up the leftovers.
(38:04):
A great way is to use up leftover veggies and
a fritata. That's a really nice way to get some protein.
That's my favorite way to use up those vegetables that
are starting to whilt a little bit, and it's easy
and you're getting the protein from the eggs.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Oh well, let me tell you all ripe banana hates
to see me coming because that means we're making banana bread.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
We just have a few more questions for you, Melissa.
You know we are in back to school time. What
are some lunch or snack ideas that parents can use
for their kids and also secretly I can use for
myself on days that I go to the office or
I'm feeling sort of lazy when I come home. What
are some little tips and tricks of just making sure
that those lunches, those snacks are healthy and fresh and
(38:48):
not just some salt or sugar junk that we're throwing
in for them.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Lunchables as I always feed.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
My mom never used to let me have those, and
now I do thank her. But at the time I
was so annoying and they look so delisous.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
Just right, we thank our moms for it stuff. I
was mad at you about Now I'm grateful for right. Yeah,
they come around right when you are grown up.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
So basically, my top suggestion for you is to write
down the types of foods you like, and for a snack,
you want to have at least two food groups, So
it'd be great if one of them could be a
fruit or a vegetable, since we know we're lacking in
produce and fiber. But you know, maybe it's cheese and
whole green crackers.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Right.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
Just write down all the types of foods or snacks
that you like and make sure you get those at
the grocery store. It's that planning ahead, so there's really
no magic there other than what do you like two
food groups? Put it on the grocery list, make sure
you plan ahead and have it on hand and ready
to go.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I can do that. That is something I'm capable of doing.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
So all said, we've said a lot of wonderful things today,
But if you were to leave our audience with a
takeaway for those who are feeling like their diet needs
a reset, what are the most important chain, just like
first changes that they can make if they're trying to
do a diet reset.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
First, I suggest tracking your intake, piece of paper and
app however you want to do it, see where you are,
think about what your goals are and where you think
you could make some improvements. Everybody could do better by
getting more produce in any form and more fiber. But
see where your maybe empty calories are or are you
(40:24):
hungry at certain times of the day. Do you need
to shift some protein earlier in the day. What do
you want to work on and what do you think
would be a realistic goal for you. Anytime you do
something drastic big, it's really hard to maintain that, And
only the changes that are able to be sustainable are
going to improve your health. And don't try to make
(40:45):
too many changes at once. Just start slow, go slow,
and maybe work on one thing at a time.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
That's great.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
I love what you said about sticking with changes that
are easy. Like one thing that I grew up on
is like soda, and so I can't believe I can't
do this, But like I don't enjoy really drinking flat
water like you're dying of thirst, I'll drink it. But
like I really just love Seltzer water, and so that's
been a super easy healthy fix to just like I
just don't drink soda anymore. I drink Seltzer and kind
(41:14):
of gives you the same you know, in my opinion,
bang that soda gives you, And you know it's a
completely healthy swap and it's sustained it.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
For a while.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
That's a great point. I'm glad.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
I like bubbles too. A lot of people don't like
plain water, and hydration is so important. We didn't even
touch on that. I did a recent episode. It's such
an important topic. And when I would work with patients
a lot, I would say, Okay, you are.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Kind of saying, well, I feel bad about this.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
I don't like plain water, or you know, I want
to work out, but kind of making excuses.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Those are not excuses. Those are barriers.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
And if you can look at those barriers objectively and say, okay,
how do I work around this barrier? How do I
solve this? This is the reality I don't like plain water.
How am I going to drink more water?
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Bubbles? Problem solved?
Speaker 3 (41:57):
Totally agree.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Okay, well, before we let you go, can you let
everyone know where they can find more of you and
your work.
Speaker 5 (42:03):
You can connect with me on my website, which is
soundbitesrd dot com and I have a free do More
with Dinner resource there, and also information about all of
my favorite cookbooks and kitchen gadgets and supplements and other
fun stuff. And of course you can check out my
Soundbites podcast there or wherever you listen to podcasts, including
(42:26):
iHeart Melissa.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Thank you so much for all of this incredible information.
My stomach is rumbling right now. I am already very hungry,
and I'm like trying to figure out how to make
the best decisions of what I'm going to eat after this.
So thank you very much for helping us make better
choices every day in our lives.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
My pleasure.
Speaker 5 (42:44):
I just hope you walk away from this with the
thought of enjoying your food with health and mind.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
Yes, wonderful. Thanks so much, Melissa.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Okay, Matt, tell me your favorite bite from our chat
with doctor Melissa.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
I really found the ultraprocessed food sections to be fascinating
because I think that she's so right. There's two things, right.
There's the process with which you make food, which you
know she mentioned peanut butter. Peanut butter is actually like
super duper process heavy. But it's not that they're adding
more siff into it. Just to make the peanut butter.
You have to crush the peanuts and you've got to
put it in the jars and whatever else they do,
(43:23):
and so it's classified as a highly processed food, even
though it's just peanuts that are in there for the
most part, depending on the exact brand. But thinking about Twinkies,
Ding Dong's Ho hos that have all those chemicals and
multifiers and shelf stabilizers in there are also considered ultra
processed foods. So I think that the fact that she
put the emphasis on nutrition and just thinking about the
nutritional content of these things regardless of this ultra processed label,
(43:45):
is a really great thing to think about.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
But what about you.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
She kept talking about potassium, and it just made me
think of bananas, and I really now I am, like,
I think I need to make myself a banana bread.
Like I feel so proud of myself when I make
a banana bread.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
You had mentioned your banana breat making. It seems like
it's the thing you do a lot. Are you like
a bread person a baking person.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
I do it enough to be pretty good at it.
I mean I have no complaints. And I actually have
some blueberries left over too, And that's my trick lately.
I've been putting blueberries in the banana bread and.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Like, wow, some sweet some tarts. That is the way
to do it at combination. I love it.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I'll have to save you a piece if I can.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
Great, I'm gonna have some peanut butter. You're gonna make
some banana bread. And we will both be moving in
the right direction forward with our health.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yes we will. And until next time, good luck being
a grown up.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
This is a production of Ruby Studio from My Heart Media.
Our executive producers are Leah Palmery.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
And Matt Stillo. This episode was edited and engineered by
Sierra
Speaker 4 (44:40):
Spreen and we want to thank our teammates at Ruby Studio,
including Sarah You, Evan Fixel, Rachel Swan, krasnov Lydia Kim
at the Aguilar Harper wayIn Salia Verplu, Deborah Garrett and
Andy Kelly.
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