From Susie and Leanne on The Nutrition Couch this episode:
- We take a look at habits during the late afternoon eating period and the easy ways you can take control;
- We review the latest research about how a Japanese style diet can promote brain health;
- We road test the Strong Roots Proper Chips;
- We our listener question is about 100% choc nut spreads, how healthy are they?
So sit back, relax and enjoy this week’s episode!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When do you find yourself at greatest risk of overeating?
Is it after you've had a few cheeky ones, Maybe
it's after dinner, or maybe you're one of the many
busy women who find that that five to six pm
time slot is where you find yourself overdoing the calories
with extra snacks, kids foods.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
And sampling the dinner.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
On today's episode of The Nutrition Couch, we take a
closer look at the late afternoon eating period and why
it's such a risky time and the easy ways that
you can take control back. Hi, I'm Leanne Ward and
I'm Cuzi Burrel, and together we bring you The Nutrition Couch,
the weekly podcast that keeps you up to date on
everything that you need to know in the world of
nutrition as well as late afternoon over eating. We share
(00:41):
some new data on the Japanese diet and brain health.
We've also found a particularly good frozen chip option for
our listeners, and our listener question is all about healthier
chocolate spreads and are they really that good for us?
But to kick us off today, Susie, you wanted to
talk us through late afternoon or should we say pre
in not over eating?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
What are your thoughts on this one.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I think that it is so common, and I think
it's common for quite a few reasons, and it can
really be quite derailing to our diets in general. But
I think often we sort of get angry at ourselves
for doing it. But there's often some key physiological reasons
that happens, and also some really easy ways to take
control of it. So the general pattern is that people
(01:26):
arrive home frazzled and late. So it might be picking
kids up from daycare or finishing work, maybe going to
the gym, and you sort of walk in the door
five point thirty six even later, and in most cases
we're absolutely starving, and we then reach for whatever is
quick and easy, so that's that snack food, platter style food,
(01:48):
rice crackers, dips. Now it may also be busy mums
unloading the lunch box, and I myself am guilty of this,
where you're not actually even sometimes hungry, but the sort
of carby snacks are still left over. The kids might
have left a few manda in chunks here and a
few grain waves there, and you sort of just mindlessly
eat them. Or sometimes it is preparing food for the
(02:12):
next day, or even preparing dinner and you're sampling, so
you're sampling a few veggies here, or you might have
cooked two meals for the kids, so you have a
couple of their sausages and a bit of their leftover pasta. Like,
there's many different reasons it happens. But the issue, of course,
Leanne is that when we do eat a lot of
calories at that time. So for example, homice and rice
(02:33):
crackers can easily give you two or three hundred calories
in a few dips. Like it's really easy to get
a lot of calories in a short period of time,
particularly if you're someone who is quite sensitive when it
comes to bloo glucose levels and you literally feel like
you are going to faint, so you're literally shoving the
carbs in really quickly. And then, of course, in many
cases we've overeaten, we're not hungry for dinner, so we
(02:54):
eat the dinner anyway, or we sort of feel so
stuffed that we skip dinner and have a slice of toast.
So I find it has a really derailing effect on
the evening meal in general, and lends to that eating
more calories in the second half a day and over
eating at night. So then we don't wake up hungry.
So very common patterns, but also quite detrimental ones from
(03:17):
a weight control perspective, and even more so if your
goal is wanting to lose weight, because you just end
up eating two, three, four hundred extra calories before you've
even had dinner. So I want us to talk about
it in terms of not feeling guilty about it, because
there's some very clear reasons it happens, and when we
understand why it happens, it's much easier to sort of
(03:37):
give yourself permission or forgiveness to take control. Because what
I hear a lot with my women is they feelly
down on themselves. You know, they feel guilty, they're angry
at themselves, they feel like they're failing. And as I
pointed out to or point out to my clients regularly,
keep in mind that at that time of day, you're
usually at your wits end. You're generally exhausted, you've come
(03:59):
through track. If you've got young children, that's the worst
time of the day for managing young kids. You're trying
to get them fed, you're dealing with fussy eaters, you're hungry,
everyone's tired, Like, what do we do to relieve stress.
We often eat because it's instant stress relief, or you
may just be really hungry, because sometimes people will not
have that afternoon snack that we strongly encourage at four o'clock,
(04:21):
and then they try and exercise as well, and then
their sugar goes low and they wonder why they want
to eat the house down. So rather than feel like
you're doing it wrong and feeling guilty about it, it's
much more about accepting that they's completely normal for women
or in any adult to be very, very hungry come
five or six o'clock. And if you think naturally to
your appetite, I'm much happiert eating dinner at five five
(04:43):
point thirty six than I am at eight. But often
we keep pushing it back, so we think, oh, it's
better to feed the kids at five and wait till
the husband comes home at seven or eight. Well, I disagree,
You're better to eat with the kids. So there's a
little bit of that that goes on too. We're trying
to follow norms that may not actually suit your natural physiology.
So the first thing I would say is stop feeling
guilty about it. It happens to everyone, and there's many things
(05:05):
you can do to kind of take control over it.
So the first thing is to try and really proactively
have something at about four and ideally something savory, because
what you'll notice is if you have something sweet and
you grab a biscuit or you grab even a sweet
protein bar, it will keep you going, whereas if you
have a slice of cheese and a cracker, if you
have some more tart yogurt with a tart fruit like
(05:26):
some passion fruit, if you have a mini rite with
ham and cheese. Because you go into the gym all
of a sudden, you won't even be hungry when you
arrive home, and then you're in a much more powerful
place to take control of it. It's really difficult when
you're actually really genuinely hungry, because then you have to
decide what you're going to do with your calorie load.
So that's the first thing. Try not to be hungry.
If you do a arrive home hungry, you're absolutely better
(05:48):
to eat something because otherwise you'll keep picking. So a
couple of suggestions I have for my own clients is
to do the veggie soup, something that you can quickly
heat up in the microwave, because it's still going to
be better. Even if it's a cup of soup which
is heavily processed, that is still going to be better
from a calorie perspective than having a few crackers here,
a bit of dip there, a bit of kids sausage here.
(06:10):
It's that nibbling that you want to get rid of
as much as you can. So I would much rather
you have even something as processed as a cup of soup.
And mind you, there's heaps of good soup options out there,
it doesn't have to be that, but actually have a
bowl of soup, or open half a salad bag, put
the dressing through it, and munch on that and actually
have something so you can focus again on what you
need to be doing rather than the food. If you're
(06:30):
in the position to eat, I would eat, I would
come home and have dinner, but I understand for a
range of different reasons that may not be the case.
The other thing is to just have the cut up
veggies going on, so you're munching on those. But in
many cases that's not satisfying, and hence we have the
disconnect between thinking what we should do and what we
actually want to do. So hence I sort of would
almost encourage you to have half of the dinner rather
(06:52):
than sort of have a few veggies and then keep
snacking anyway, because you're looking for something actually that you're
crunching and eating through. And then the other thing I
would say is if you, for whatever reason, have overeaten
when you've come home, you have eaten the kids half
a sandwich, you have eaten half of their pasta, you
don't have to eat dinner. And that may seem a
bit shocking, but what I noticed repeatedly is I've got
(07:14):
clients who will eat a lot in that afternoon period.
And then I've had clients say I'm not that hungry,
do I need dinner, And I'm like, no, it's okay
to not eat. Keep it for lunch to the next day,
have a bowl of soup, see how you feel. But
stuffing food in because you also need to have dinner
when you've eaten all this extra stuff completely goes against
appetite regulation. And basically it is teaching us to eat
when not hungry. So there's kind of ideal where you
(07:38):
create a situation where you're not overly hungry. That's number one.
Number two, it's trying to make better choices, or at
least something that's a bit substantial, even if it's half
your dinner, just to take the edge off. And then third,
if you end up overeating for whatever reason, it's okay
to skip dinner. But toast crackers are not dinner raps,
They're not dinner. So you've got to remember that dinner
(07:58):
should be a lighter, vegetable and protein rich meal. So
you're much better to do some tuna and some cut
up salad later on. If you then feel a bit hungry,
then say, I haven't had much dinner. I'm going to
eat a slice of toast.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, I agree, And I think it's important to think,
you know, as you said, not feel guilty for it,
but really just take a step back and think about
it quite logically. Or right, what did I over eat?
Was it a ton of rice crackers? And I sampled
too much of the kid's pasta. Well, that's predominantly carbohydrate.
So where you might then build a nice, healthy, balanced
stir fry which had some rice and chickens and veggies
and some sauce in it, remove the rice component because
(08:32):
you've already had the carbohydrate kind of need that you
had for dinner. And just focus on the vegetables, some
healthy vats, maybe some olive oil when you're cooking it,
a bit of sauce, and then you know, add the
protein into that as well, because I think that's probably
the two biggest components that we lack when we're either
snacking or filling up on the kids leftover is the
protein and vegetable component, because we know that we don't
(08:53):
want to give our kids and small children too much protein.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
It's not good for them.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And we also know, particularly if your kids are a
lot younger, they're quite fun when it comes to vegetables,
and they might be okay eating you know a casal
piece of carrots or occasional you know, bit of cucumb up,
but they're not going to sit down to a really veggy,
dense stur fry, which we would recommend for you know,
ninety nine percent of the adult population. So I think
it's really just taking a step back and saying, right,
what is it that I overrate on. If it was
(09:19):
massive handfuls of nuts, then potentially, yeah, you just need
you know a bit of protein and some some healthy
vegetables and maybe a very small serving of carbohydrate to
kind of complete all round at that dinner, I wouldn't
be throwing on loads of cheese or avocado or more
olive oil and nuts onto a salad or into a
sturf ry a dinner, because you've already had that nice
healthy fat component from overeating on nuts. So I think
(09:41):
it's just important to really try to identify what components
if overeaten, and if this is something that happens regularly,
like an occasional thing, completely fine. But if you're someone
who overeats in the afternoon or just before dinner very regularly,
as Zusie said, it might be important to play with
the timing of the things. Can you perhaps have your
meal with the kids and then have a light snack
(10:03):
with your hubby later, because I'm very much somebody who
has two snacks in the afternoon and they're more substantial snacks,
like it'll be some cheese and crackers. Then it might
be a bit of yogurt fruit with a bit of
nut butter or something, or it might be some fruit
and nut butter, and then it might be a piece
of protein toast with a bit of I don't know,
vegiemote or something on top of it. So it's really
for me about having more balanced and bigger snacks in
(10:24):
the afternoon to then when I come to feed my
kids at sort of that five six pm mark, feed them,
get the bath, at the shower, the book routine, get
them into bed, and then I'll come and sit down
and have dinner with Hubby, because I just prefer to
eat my dinner more mindfully, not be rushed. And we
do eat very differently to what the kids eat. David
and I will very much eat a lot of you know,
heavily sort of flavored meals, not like in a bad way,
(10:47):
just we use a lot of different herbs and spices,
sometimes chili, you know. We eat a lot of fish
and salmon, which you know, my toddler i'd love her
to eat, but she's not really there yet. So we
eat quite different food to what the kids eat, so
we prefer to eat that a little bit later. And
for us, it's just too to eat at five o'clock.
So that's what works really well for us. But I
know that if I don't have a more substantial, often
too substantial afternoon snacks, I am going to be hungry
(11:08):
and I am going to be picking off their dinner
plates at that five five thirty PM mark. So I
think you've given our listeners a lot of practical tips today, Susie.
I don't really have much more to add there, but
I think it is really important to, you know, just
recognize that this happens to the best of us, you
and I included, and if it is something that you're
doing more regularly than not, it is probably an important
time to kind of think, all right, what is actually
(11:29):
happening here, and how can I be really proactive in
changing this behavior if it's not leading me closer to
the goals that I have for my health or for
my nutrition.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
True, and I think keep in mind that the biggest
predicture of food consumption is availability. So if you come
home from work hungry, you open the fridge and you
see dip, you see cheese, you see crackers, you'll eat them.
It's not that you're weak, you're human. So you've got
to keep food like that that you know you're more
prone to overeating out of sight, So pack it away
in those kind of containers in the so you don't
(12:00):
see it straight away. Maybe have a bowl of cut
up veggies in the fridge draw or buy a lower
cow thing like a sorcerer tazeki, which won't cause undrew
damage if you do sort of need something quickly when
you walk in. And then just keep in mind that
the later dinner gets, the smaller it can be, which
does give license to having something at five o'clock. And
then if you're eating at seven thirty eight, you might
only need a few dumplings, but a whole load of veggies,
(12:22):
which leads me to actually news breaking announcement. They have
deleted my Bird's Eye cauliflower rice rosotto. Now I'm devastated
because I think it was an amazing product. They had
a fried rice one as well, and it was a
great way to bulk up Asian type dishes or have
a light meal, and it's been deleted. Leanne, So you've
heard it here first on the podcast. Very upsetting. Right
(12:44):
to Bird's Eye and tell them how appalled you are,
because I am. But I just thought of that because
that's how I bulk up meals, particularly when they're later
on in the evening. But you are going to share
now about some new data on the Japanese diet.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yes, I am.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So there's some exciting new research and I've been Japan
a couple of times, and I must say I absolutely
love it. I'm a massive fan of a Japanese cuisine,
but I will say that particularly what the majority of
is eat, myself included, even if we go to your
nicer type Japanese restaurant, it is still quite Western style
Japanese food. So this article, which was written up in
(13:18):
the Conversation is a traditional Japanese diet is associated with
less brain shrinkage in women compared.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
To a Western style diet.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
So it's a newer article that is essentially just published
this week, and I think it's a really good one.
But I think the key difference is to understand that
it's a traditional Japanese diet, which will break it down
and we'll go through it. It's not really the type
of Western Japanese Just going down to your local sushi
train is not going to give you the benefits from a.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Brain health perspective.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
So there's been a lot of research around cognition dementia
early onset dementia for a lot of years now, and
it's estimated that worldwide there are over fifty five million
people that have cognitive decline or dementia. So the numbers
are absolutely massive. Both of my grandparents suffered from dementia,
so it's in my family. It's something I'm very conscious of.
(14:06):
My parents both do crosswords, they both take fishial oil.
They're both very conscious of this sort of demensia link
that we have in our families. So whenever I see
a bit of research around cognitive health or dementia, I
always sort of perk up that little bit and think, okay, right,
I've got to see if there's anything more we can
implement it here. So fifty five million people worldwide is
a huge number, and they're actually predicting that this number
(14:27):
is going to skyrocket over the next few decades as
the population ages and as sadly our diets get worse
and worse, because that's honestly what's happened over the last
few decades. We're not getting healthier, we're getting more unhealthy.
So it's not something that we have a whole lot
of control over because there are some genetic predisposition factors involved,
but there are also some modifiable risk factors or lifestyle habits. Certainly,
(14:51):
things like smoking, obesity, lack of exercise. These have all
been shown in the research to be linked to a
higher risk of dementia. So there are certainly some things
we do have control over and others, sadly more from
a genetic component, we don't have too much control over. Now,
the research around cognitive health has really shown that one
of the most beneficial diets is a Mediterranean diet. So
(15:14):
this has been shown to have a really positive effect
on brain health essentially, and on some important metrics of
a healthy brain such as total brain volume, cortisol thickness,
and the integrity of the white matter in your brain
as well. So we do know that following a very
Mediterranean style diet can be very helpful for brain health.
But now this newer I guess research and study is
(15:36):
showing this that also following a traditional Japanese style diet
may also be beneficial for brain health as well. So
we do know that the populations in Japan are renowned
for their longevity.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
If you've ever heard of the Blue zones, I think so.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Susie and I have talked about the Blue Zones a
little bit on the podcast as well. They're areas in
the world where people are known to live exceptionally long lives,
like you know, well into the nineties, if not into
the hundreds as well, and there's a few key areas
around the world, and Japan is one of those areas
as well. So it's traditional Japanese style dyet is really
characterized by foods such as rice fish, shellfish, at amamai tofu, soybeans,
(16:15):
and fruit, particularly citrus type fruits as well. But what
makes their diet very unique is that they use a
lot of fermented foods, particularly things like miso, which is
a fermented soybean paste.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
They have seaweed, they have pickles.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
They also have things that are really high in antioxidants
such as green tea. Now we talked about soybeans, they
use soybeans sprouts as well. I think are they called
nato or nato. That's quite traditional Japanese and that's a
fermented type of bean as well, that's quite popular. And
also good quality mushrooms such as chataki mushrooms as well.
And I also think the important thing to note in
(16:51):
a traditional Japanese style diet it's very low in the
intake of red meat and very low in the intake
of coffee, and depending on I guess who talk to
or even more gender specific, it's quite low in alcohol,
particularly for the females. The men seem to enjoy their
sake a little bit as well. So it is also
worth noting that Japanese culture, there's not a whole lot
(17:12):
of obesity in that culture compared to somewhere like Australia,
and how the Japanese seemed to be raised was really
enjoying the meals at a dining table and really having
those good conversations and having the family aspect to meals
or as when you look at a traditional Western style diet,
a lot of people are eating on the run. We're
eating in front of a screen. You know, we're not
so used to sitting at a dining table eating mindfully.
(17:35):
The Japanese have a beautiful concept called is it hurry
Harry butcher or it's eat until eight parts full. You know,
we don't seem to do a lot of that in
austral A lot of us tend to eat too quickly,
We eat while we're distracted, We eat well past satisfaction
levels into you know, I'm actually too full or I'm
over full as well. So there's a lot of beautiful
principles within the Japanese culture, not just what they put
(17:57):
in their mouth, but how they actually eat their meals
as well when it comes to eating with loved ones,
eating around a dining table, eating very mindfully, and eating
until satisfied not over full as well.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
So the culture itself.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Is beautiful when it comes to health and weight loss,
but there is actually some brain health benefits as well.
So in this new study, the sample size was just
over sixteen hundred Japanese adults age forty to eighty nine,
so a really good I guess subset of people, and
well into that close to ninety age group as well,
which is good. Now they identify the participants typical diet
(18:31):
by asking them to record everything that they ate and
drank for three days, so there is a little bit
of potential you know, error is there, I guess because
you're relying on people's recall and memories. But then they
were also given disposable cameras to take pictures of their
plates before and after their meal, so they could produce
a visual record of.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
What they ate and how much they ate as well.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So combining the written diet record with also the photographs,
they then calculated a person's average daily food intake and
it gave them a bit of I guess baseline measure
of what their normal eating habits were. So based on
those dietary records, they found five hundred and eighty nine
participants followed a traditional Japanese diet and a further six
(19:11):
hundred and ninety seven participants eateed typical Western style diet
and that was very much characterized by a high consumption
of refined carbohydrates, high fat foods, soft drinks, alcohol, takeaways,
and then a very small number of participants, so three
hundred and fifty eight a diet containing a higher than
average amount of plant based foods. This was classified as
(19:32):
whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and dairy products. The researcher is
named the style of eating the vegetable fruit dairy diet.
So once they analyzed all of these different diets in
the subgroups of people where their diet sat, they actually
found that overall, women who followed the traditional Japanese diet
had less brain shrinkage over the two year study periods
(19:53):
that actually studied their brains and they did scans on
them compared to women who followed a traditional Western style diet.
It was less clear about what the effects with the
vegetable fruit dairy diet. Had, and that was potentially due
to the smaller number of participants in that group. Now,
the interesting thing was that the brain shrinkage of the
Japanese diet compared to the Western star diet was only
(20:15):
apparent in women. That actually didn't see any difference in
the amount of brain shrinkage in men, which I thought
was quite fascinating, And they sort of gave a couple
of reasons for why this might be. They sort of
thought that in those traditional Japanese style diets there are
certain nutrients such as magnesium, plant estrogens found in fish
and mushrooms and whole grains and leg rooms. These nutrients
(20:36):
seem to have a positive stronger effects on women's brains. Now,
the other thing that they sort of found as well
potentially lifestyle factors that they didn't look too much into,
but things like smoking sometimes obesity, and other things like
men preferred to preference more carbohydrates potentially also refined carbohydrates
like more noodles and white rice, and also alcoholic beverages
(20:59):
such as saki compared to what women did. So also
these factors may have contributed to brain trinkage as well.
They weren't sort of sure, so I think it's new
and emerging research. It's not enough to say a Japanese
style diet, a traditional Japanese style diet will help with
cognitive function. But I think that there are many many
(21:19):
things we can take away from this, particularly how neutrine
rich a Japanese diet is, because we've got huge amounts
of vitamins, minerals, polyfeenos fit or chemicals, great amounts of
unsaturated fatty acids. All of these components are known for
the antioxidants and their anti inflammatory effects, which is going
to help basically the brain work at its best and
(21:40):
those neurons to keep firing and minimize any sort of
potential brain degradation long term. So I do think that
we need a lot more further research in this area.
But trying to embrace a lot of the elements of
the traditional Japanese culture within our traditional Western style diet
will only give you positive health benefits. So it's trying
to swap a lot of your meat, particularly that process
(22:01):
type meat, for more fish, seafood, soy tofus at a marmaie,
trying to use a lot of things like miso paste.
I love making, you know, salad dressings out of I
added into my soups, things like seaweed and chataki mushrooms,
adding them into your salads, into your surf fries, and
as much as possible fermented foods for their probotic effect
in terms of improving your gut health as well. So
(22:23):
all of these things, if you can build them into
a better quality, whole food based diet, you're only going
to reap benefits from a health perspective and even potentially
maybe even a cognitive perspective longer term.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
True, And I think for me the standout is just
the extremely high amount of amiga three that they consume
on a daily basis. You know, it's recommended in Australia
that we have two serves of fish each week. Really
the Japanese average intake is so much higher than that. Now,
it's not an inexpensive food sashimi, but certainly just adding
more oily fish into the diet you will get some
of those benefits. And I think green tea is massive.
(22:58):
We know how beneficial it is from an antiox perspective
in general, and it also I find it really useful
with sugar cravings because it's sort of that really changes
that the taste of the palette, and I think you
can find some great I know the old English tea
shop has got this divine pomegranate green tea which is
calorie free. But if you find green tea a little
(23:18):
bit acidic and a bit harsh, I find the pomegranate
version is also lemon are really really nice, So that
is something to add into your daily routine. I used
to always have green tea after a meal and I've
stopped and it's just reminded me it's such a positive
thing we can do for cell health. So particularly at
the moment it's winter, it's particularly chilli right down the
eastern seaboard, green tea is a great way to have
(23:40):
a lot more warm beverages, minus the extreme milks of
coffees and hot chocolates, except for, of course, the hot
chocolate we're about to bring out, because we're strongly encouraging
you to enjoy that great some really and you're always
good at the research papers. But I am going to
shift the gear out to chips because we've found a
particularly nice pre cut chip at the supermarket. Now, I
(24:02):
will preface this segment by saying we're not saying that
it's better than making your own sweet potato or potato
fries from actual potatoes. What we're saying is that it
actually is very tricky to find a pre cut chip
that doesn't have loads and loads of process vegetable oil.
Sometimes the chips in the supermarket are as low as
sixty seventy percent potato, and I Lean have found one
(24:23):
that I think is amazing. Now. It is a product
that you can only find in woolies. I haven't seen
it in coals, and it's called the Strong Roots Company
Proper Chips. They're in a purple bag. They also have
a sweet potato version, but I have just been buying
the potato one because Lean. It is ninety seven percent
potato and just three percent vegetable oil, which means it's
(24:46):
actually a low fat food still with those nutritionals, so
it's basically one hundred percent potato. And most importantly, when
you put it into the oven, so I just get
the baking tray and put them in, so nothing needed.
They actually take really good. The kids love them, which
is such a win to a quick and easy dinner. Addition,
without doing all the potatoes, cutting them, washing them, and
(25:09):
it's got the skin on the potato which is so good. Now.
The downside is that they are imported. They're not Australian.
I think they come from the UK, and they're not cheap.
They're seven dollars fifty per bag. Now I get four
serves out of that. It certainly feeds both my twins
and Chris as well. And I don't really eat them,
but there's certainly four serves in there. But we want
(25:30):
to really say it's not inexpensive. We know it's a
lot cheaper, Well is it cheaper? Potatoes aren't overly cheap.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
It's definitely cheaper to do your own. Absolutely, yeah, like
a bag of potatoes, what five six bucks? Like, it's
definitely cheaper to do your own. But these are the
if you're buying pre made chips, these are by far
and away the best nutritionally.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Now.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
They used to have Wooly Steakhouse chips. They don't have
them anymore. I can't find them again. They were very
similar nutritionals in an Australian product, So but yeah, I
can't fault them. And I usually whenever I do on
a Monday for the kids, I always do these with
them and they love them.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I love them too.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
It's just a shame they're imported from Ireland.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
It is a shame.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Where else would I potato go potato? We do like
potato an Island. But yeah, it's the.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Problem in Australia. The cost of food is so high
and it's so hard for brands to keep competitive in supermarket,
so it's a really tricky one. So I think, yeah,
I agree they're imported, but in terms of, you know,
if you're happy to spend a little bit more for
a really good quality because we were just saying before
we hopped on, like hot chips are not cheap. If
you go to the chargirl Charlie's and by chips, they're
(26:36):
like seven to ten bucks just for fried potato and
s nowhere near as good quality as this. So it's
not like they're cheap.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Man.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Back in the day when we were kids like to
you know, your parents will give you two dollars, you'd
walk down to the corner fish and chip store.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
You'd have more chip.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You could feed eight friends with the amount of chips
you'd get for two bucks. These days, like are small
serving your chips. You're like, you know, twelve dollars for
you know, half the amount and used to get back then,
so it's not it's you know, these has certainly got
to be tubute than going to your local fish and
chip shop, but it is always going to be cheaper
or more budget friendly to make them yourself at home.
If you're going to buy frozen chips, these are by
far some of the best on the market. I will
(27:10):
say Susie that these are my preference the strong roots
proper chips because a they have the skin on and
like you said, they use a very minimal amount of oil.
Most frozen chips use a lot of oil, so the
calorie content is higher. I don't love the sweet potato
version of these as much because they are more I.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Think like battered.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
So the sweet potato versions are eighty nine percent sweet potato.
They also add vegetable oil, potato starch, rice flour, ammoth flour,
corn flour, corn starch, salt, and paprika, so they are
sort of they do have more like a seasoning and
coating on them versus the potato chips are literally just
potato from Ireland with some spray oil on it, I imagine,
So they're very very clean, not that there's anything overly
(27:48):
wrong with the ingredients that they put into the sweet
potato ones, but they do have I guess like a
little bit of a batter of coating on them, So
particularly for small children, I always feel like the least
processing on, the least additives and that sort of thing,
the better.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
So if you've got kids, I would be going for
the standard chips.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And the fact that they have the skin on as
well is a massive thumbs up from me because a
serving of these, if you're looking at one hundred grams
and a serve, which is quite a lot for children anyway,
it's two point five grams of fiber, which is great,
some from the potato and a lot from leaving the
skin on as well, which makes me really happy to
see because I always tell my clients to leave the
skin on their potato just for the extra fiber and
gut health benefits that it provides.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
But they think the thing with the me is they
taste good?
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Now?
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Is it an Irish potato thing? I don't know, but
like I myself don't love like I wouldn't, potato is
not my favorite food, you know what I mean? Like
I'll use it in a mash with different veggies, but
I could give or take a chip like it wouldn't,
I wouldn't be drawn to it. But they actually taste
really good, and that's not always the case with that
kind of very plain chip. So yeah, I don't know
(28:49):
if it's an Irish thing, if it's the way they've
cut them, if it's the skin, but they really taste great.
My kids, you know how fussy kids are. My kids
demolish them. So yeah, big big thumbs are. We really
like them, But we do say they are a little
bit a bit higher on the price, and I haven't
really seen them discounted much in supermarket, which is upsetting.
But if you, yeah, want to sort of add them
to your fish on a Monday on Sunday, thumbs up
(29:10):
from us. And then to finish off Leanne. This is
a question from our Instagram, where we get most of
our listener questions from, and the question is are the
one hundred percent choknuts spreads actually healthy? So I think
when we're talking about chalknuts spreads in general, traditionally it's
been the tower. Now without being too targeted with a
(29:31):
food product in the teller, is heavily based on vegetable
oil and sugar with far less nut action, and it's
certainly not a food I would be including in my
child's diet on a regular basis. It's heavily processed, as
I said, the basis sugar and oil. We know the
kids love it, we all love it, but it's not
overly healthy. Let's be honest. I prefer min Natella in
a Ferrero Rishare if I'm being completely honest. But there
(29:53):
is a growing range of one hundred percent chalknut spreads,
whether it's got a peanut butter base or in another
brand as well, which is literally just nuts and cocone.
Now those varieties are much healthier. Yes, if you scan
an ingredient list and you only see nuts and a
bit of cocoa powder, you don't see sugar added, you
don't see oil. They're a whole kind of natural food really,
(30:17):
But they're very, very high in calories, similar to peanut butter.
So a tablespoon of a nuts spread in general, and
a chocnut spread is well over one hundred calories. And
that's not a whole lot like a tablespoon like that's
maybe one slice of toast. Really, So my issue with
them in the house is that when people spread them
on sandwiches or probably not at school, but even at
(30:38):
home they're getting a whole lot of fat and calories,
which it's better quality than say a processed Natella variety,
but it's still a lot. So I think, yes, if
you like them, they're much better, but you've got to
stick to just a tea spoon or two once a
day because it's really an added fat and it's not
just a food you can eat a lot of. Because
(30:59):
they're very high in calori and because it's chocolate, they're
easy to overeat, like I have people who go and
just spoon it out of the container like it's one
for me and one for the pop kind of thing.
So just keep in mind that food is really easy
to overeat. It's also easy to overeat because they're often
quite runny, so you sort of scoop out a lot,
so keep that in mind. So guess the latest ones
(31:19):
that are hundred percent chop nut are better, but they're
certainly not a food we would be proactively adding into
many diets because, yeah, I just think they're really easy
to overeat.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, I think from a child perspective, like small children
to larger teenagers that sort of thing, particularly the boys
who you know, we have a hard time filling them up.
I think it's a great option. I just don't think
if you're an adult and your goal is fat loss,
potentially not. It's sort of like you're eating you know,
peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Or almond butter. Nothing wrong with that, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
But they are quite coloridens if you're adding a couple
of tablespoons, if you're putting a few tablespoons on your
bread than eating if you out of the jar as well,
like Susie said, it can have a bit of a
health halo effect to it. So absolutely nothing wrong with them,
one hundred percent a better option than like a traditional
chocolate based spread, much much much better for your children.
I would buy them for my kids, I honestly would.
Butt Me has quite a few nut allergies, and the
(32:08):
bulk of them have a blend of you know, peanuts
in them as well, because peanuts are a much cheaper
legume than they might blend them with a bit of
hazel nush or something like that. So that's why I
personally don't bind them, but otherwise, if she didn't have
her allergies, I probably would because I do think it's
a much better option than what most people will put
on toast for their children, which is traditionally in natalla
or jam.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
And they're not like the good ones. They're a lot
more expensive, you know what I mean. I'm just having
a look online, Like they.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Do regularly come on sale, like I often get them
for thirty forty fifty pan off often. Yeah, and they
have a good shelf you know, like I'll buy two
three bottles at once and then put them on the
top of my shelf because I can only really give
them to Tilly when me is like daycare two days
a week. I don't like to give them when she's
around in the household, just because of the allergy risks.
So they have quite a good shelf life. I've always
got a few in my pantry and they seem to
last quite a long time. So I'm always a you know,
(32:54):
you and me, Susie, we love I barkain. So I
would never buy a full price. I'll always wait for
a good sale.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
But like I'm just looking the wooly. Yes, the wool
is chockhazel dots spread. See that is similar blend to
Natella that sugar vegetable oil. It's got ten percent hazel
nut in it, so that one is probably cheaper, but
the good one, like one of these hundred percent ones
is seven eight dollars a jar, So that's indicative of
the quality too. Yeah, you pay for the quality, You
pay for the quality, and that's eight like you said,
(33:19):
eighty percent peanut chocolate sixteen percent, which is sugar cocoa solid.
So I would encourage you to have a good look
at the ingredient list and the shorter the better in
that space. And if you see sugar at the top,
it's probably not the best quality product.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
All right, Well that brings us to another end of
our nutrition cotch episode for another week. If you know
that your diet needs a little boost in protein, or
you're feeling extra hungry at meals, you'd like to add
a little bit of fabulous dietitian design protein powder into
some of your meals will snacks. Go check out our
scientifically formulated protein range of nosh. We've got a pre
and probotic blend and a women's health blend. Go check
(33:53):
them out at designed by a Dietitians dot com. And
we thank you for listening, thank you for your support,
and we'll catch you in next week's episode.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Have a great weeks,
When do you find yourself at greatest risk of overeating?
Is it after you've had a few cheeky ones, Maybe
it's after dinner, or maybe you're one of the many
busy women who find that that five to six pm
time slot is where you find yourself overdoing the calories
with extra snacks, kids foods.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
And sampling the dinner.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
On today's episode of The Nutrition Couch, we take a
closer look at the late afternoon eating period and why
it's such a risky time and the easy ways that
you can take control back. Hi, I'm Leanne Ward and
I'm Cuzi Burrel, and together we bring you The Nutrition Couch,
the weekly podcast that keeps you up to date on
everything that you need to know in the world of
nutrition as well as late afternoon over eating. We share
(00:41):
some new data on the Japanese diet and brain health.
We've also found a particularly good frozen chip option for
our listeners, and our listener question is all about healthier
chocolate spreads and are they really that good for us?
But to kick us off today, Susie, you wanted to
talk us through late afternoon or should we say pre
in not over eating?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
What are your thoughts on this one.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I think that it is so common, and I think
it's common for quite a few reasons, and it can
really be quite derailing to our diets in general. But
I think often we sort of get angry at ourselves
for doing it. But there's often some key physiological reasons
that happens, and also some really easy ways to take
control of it. So the general pattern is that people
(01:26):
arrive home frazzled and late. So it might be picking
kids up from daycare or finishing work, maybe going to
the gym, and you sort of walk in the door
five point thirty six even later, and in most cases
we're absolutely starving, and we then reach for whatever is
quick and easy, so that's that snack food, platter style food,
(01:48):
rice crackers, dips. Now it may also be busy mums
unloading the lunch box, and I myself am guilty of this,
where you're not actually even sometimes hungry, but the sort
of carby snacks are still left over. The kids might
have left a few manda in chunks here and a
few grain waves there, and you sort of just mindlessly
eat them. Or sometimes it is preparing food for the
(02:12):
next day, or even preparing dinner and you're sampling, so
you're sampling a few veggies here, or you might have
cooked two meals for the kids, so you have a
couple of their sausages and a bit of their leftover pasta. Like,
there's many different reasons it happens. But the issue, of course,
Leanne is that when we do eat a lot of
calories at that time. So for example, homice and rice
(02:33):
crackers can easily give you two or three hundred calories
in a few dips. Like it's really easy to get
a lot of calories in a short period of time,
particularly if you're someone who is quite sensitive when it
comes to bloo glucose levels and you literally feel like
you are going to faint, so you're literally shoving the
carbs in really quickly. And then, of course, in many
cases we've overeaten, we're not hungry for dinner, so we
(02:54):
eat the dinner anyway, or we sort of feel so
stuffed that we skip dinner and have a slice of toast.
So I find it has a really derailing effect on
the evening meal in general, and lends to that eating
more calories in the second half a day and over
eating at night. So then we don't wake up hungry.
So very common patterns, but also quite detrimental ones from
(03:17):
a weight control perspective, and even more so if your
goal is wanting to lose weight, because you just end
up eating two, three, four hundred extra calories before you've
even had dinner. So I want us to talk about
it in terms of not feeling guilty about it, because
there's some very clear reasons it happens, and when we
understand why it happens, it's much easier to sort of
(03:37):
give yourself permission or forgiveness to take control. Because what
I hear a lot with my women is they feelly
down on themselves. You know, they feel guilty, they're angry
at themselves, they feel like they're failing. And as I
pointed out to or point out to my clients regularly,
keep in mind that at that time of day, you're
usually at your wits end. You're generally exhausted, you've come
(03:59):
through track. If you've got young children, that's the worst
time of the day for managing young kids. You're trying
to get them fed, you're dealing with fussy eaters, you're hungry,
everyone's tired, Like, what do we do to relieve stress.
We often eat because it's instant stress relief, or you
may just be really hungry, because sometimes people will not
have that afternoon snack that we strongly encourage at four o'clock,
(04:21):
and then they try and exercise as well, and then
their sugar goes low and they wonder why they want
to eat the house down. So rather than feel like
you're doing it wrong and feeling guilty about it, it's
much more about accepting that they's completely normal for women
or in any adult to be very, very hungry come
five or six o'clock. And if you think naturally to
your appetite, I'm much happiert eating dinner at five five
(04:43):
point thirty six than I am at eight. But often
we keep pushing it back, so we think, oh, it's
better to feed the kids at five and wait till
the husband comes home at seven or eight. Well, I disagree,
You're better to eat with the kids. So there's a
little bit of that that goes on too. We're trying
to follow norms that may not actually suit your natural physiology.
So the first thing I would say is stop feeling
guilty about it. It happens to everyone, and there's many things
(05:05):
you can do to kind of take control over it.
So the first thing is to try and really proactively
have something at about four and ideally something savory, because
what you'll notice is if you have something sweet and
you grab a biscuit or you grab even a sweet
protein bar, it will keep you going, whereas if you
have a slice of cheese and a cracker, if you
have some more tart yogurt with a tart fruit like
(05:26):
some passion fruit, if you have a mini rite with
ham and cheese. Because you go into the gym all
of a sudden, you won't even be hungry when you
arrive home, and then you're in a much more powerful
place to take control of it. It's really difficult when
you're actually really genuinely hungry, because then you have to
decide what you're going to do with your calorie load.
So that's the first thing. Try not to be hungry.
If you do a arrive home hungry, you're absolutely better
(05:48):
to eat something because otherwise you'll keep picking. So a
couple of suggestions I have for my own clients is
to do the veggie soup, something that you can quickly
heat up in the microwave, because it's still going to
be better. Even if it's a cup of soup which
is heavily processed, that is still going to be better
from a calorie perspective than having a few crackers here,
a bit of dip there, a bit of kids sausage here.
(06:10):
It's that nibbling that you want to get rid of
as much as you can. So I would much rather
you have even something as processed as a cup of soup.
And mind you, there's heaps of good soup options out there,
it doesn't have to be that, but actually have a
bowl of soup, or open half a salad bag, put
the dressing through it, and munch on that and actually
have something so you can focus again on what you
need to be doing rather than the food. If you're
(06:30):
in the position to eat, I would eat, I would
come home and have dinner, but I understand for a
range of different reasons that may not be the case.
The other thing is to just have the cut up
veggies going on, so you're munching on those. But in
many cases that's not satisfying, and hence we have the
disconnect between thinking what we should do and what we
actually want to do. So hence I sort of would
almost encourage you to have half of the dinner rather
(06:52):
than sort of have a few veggies and then keep
snacking anyway, because you're looking for something actually that you're
crunching and eating through. And then the other thing I
would say is if you, for whatever reason, have overeaten
when you've come home, you have eaten the kids half
a sandwich, you have eaten half of their pasta, you
don't have to eat dinner. And that may seem a
bit shocking, but what I noticed repeatedly is I've got
(07:14):
clients who will eat a lot in that afternoon period.
And then I've had clients say I'm not that hungry,
do I need dinner, And I'm like, no, it's okay
to not eat. Keep it for lunch to the next day,
have a bowl of soup, see how you feel. But
stuffing food in because you also need to have dinner
when you've eaten all this extra stuff completely goes against
appetite regulation. And basically it is teaching us to eat
when not hungry. So there's kind of ideal where you
(07:38):
create a situation where you're not overly hungry. That's number one.
Number two, it's trying to make better choices, or at
least something that's a bit substantial, even if it's half
your dinner, just to take the edge off. And then third,
if you end up overeating for whatever reason, it's okay
to skip dinner. But toast crackers are not dinner raps,
They're not dinner. So you've got to remember that dinner
(07:58):
should be a lighter, vegetable and protein rich meal. So
you're much better to do some tuna and some cut
up salad later on. If you then feel a bit hungry,
then say, I haven't had much dinner. I'm going to
eat a slice of toast.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, I agree, And I think it's important to think,
you know, as you said, not feel guilty for it,
but really just take a step back and think about
it quite logically. Or right, what did I over eat?
Was it a ton of rice crackers? And I sampled
too much of the kid's pasta. Well, that's predominantly carbohydrate.
So where you might then build a nice, healthy, balanced
stir fry which had some rice and chickens and veggies
and some sauce in it, remove the rice component because
(08:32):
you've already had the carbohydrate kind of need that you
had for dinner. And just focus on the vegetables, some
healthy vats, maybe some olive oil when you're cooking it,
a bit of sauce, and then you know, add the
protein into that as well, because I think that's probably
the two biggest components that we lack when we're either
snacking or filling up on the kids leftover is the
protein and vegetable component, because we know that we don't
(08:53):
want to give our kids and small children too much protein.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
It's not good for them.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And we also know, particularly if your kids are a
lot younger, they're quite fun when it comes to vegetables,
and they might be okay eating you know a casal
piece of carrots or occasional you know, bit of cucumb up,
but they're not going to sit down to a really veggy,
dense stur fry, which we would recommend for you know,
ninety nine percent of the adult population. So I think
it's really just taking a step back and saying, right,
what is it that I overrate on. If it was
(09:19):
massive handfuls of nuts, then potentially, yeah, you just need
you know a bit of protein and some some healthy
vegetables and maybe a very small serving of carbohydrate to
kind of complete all round at that dinner, I wouldn't
be throwing on loads of cheese or avocado or more
olive oil and nuts onto a salad or into a
sturf ry a dinner, because you've already had that nice
healthy fat component from overeating on nuts. So I think
(09:41):
it's just important to really try to identify what components
if overeaten, and if this is something that happens regularly,
like an occasional thing, completely fine. But if you're someone
who overeats in the afternoon or just before dinner very regularly,
as Zusie said, it might be important to play with
the timing of the things. Can you perhaps have your
meal with the kids and then have a light snack
(10:03):
with your hubby later, because I'm very much somebody who
has two snacks in the afternoon and they're more substantial snacks,
like it'll be some cheese and crackers. Then it might
be a bit of yogurt fruit with a bit of
nut butter or something, or it might be some fruit
and nut butter, and then it might be a piece
of protein toast with a bit of I don't know,
vegiemote or something on top of it. So it's really
for me about having more balanced and bigger snacks in
(10:24):
the afternoon to then when I come to feed my
kids at sort of that five six pm mark, feed them,
get the bath, at the shower, the book routine, get
them into bed, and then I'll come and sit down
and have dinner with Hubby, because I just prefer to
eat my dinner more mindfully, not be rushed. And we
do eat very differently to what the kids eat. David
and I will very much eat a lot of you know,
heavily sort of flavored meals, not like in a bad way,
(10:47):
just we use a lot of different herbs and spices,
sometimes chili, you know. We eat a lot of fish
and salmon, which you know, my toddler i'd love her
to eat, but she's not really there yet. So we
eat quite different food to what the kids eat, so
we prefer to eat that a little bit later. And
for us, it's just too to eat at five o'clock.
So that's what works really well for us. But I
know that if I don't have a more substantial, often
too substantial afternoon snacks, I am going to be hungry
(11:08):
and I am going to be picking off their dinner
plates at that five five thirty PM mark. So I
think you've given our listeners a lot of practical tips today, Susie.
I don't really have much more to add there, but
I think it is really important to, you know, just
recognize that this happens to the best of us, you
and I included, and if it is something that you're
doing more regularly than not, it is probably an important
time to kind of think, all right, what is actually
(11:29):
happening here, and how can I be really proactive in
changing this behavior if it's not leading me closer to
the goals that I have for my health or for
my nutrition.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
True, and I think keep in mind that the biggest
predicture of food consumption is availability. So if you come
home from work hungry, you open the fridge and you
see dip, you see cheese, you see crackers, you'll eat them.
It's not that you're weak, you're human. So you've got
to keep food like that that you know you're more
prone to overeating out of sight, So pack it away
in those kind of containers in the so you don't
(12:00):
see it straight away. Maybe have a bowl of cut
up veggies in the fridge draw or buy a lower
cow thing like a sorcerer tazeki, which won't cause undrew
damage if you do sort of need something quickly when
you walk in. And then just keep in mind that
the later dinner gets, the smaller it can be, which
does give license to having something at five o'clock. And
then if you're eating at seven thirty eight, you might
only need a few dumplings, but a whole load of veggies,
(12:22):
which leads me to actually news breaking announcement. They have
deleted my Bird's Eye cauliflower rice rosotto. Now I'm devastated
because I think it was an amazing product. They had
a fried rice one as well, and it was a
great way to bulk up Asian type dishes or have
a light meal, and it's been deleted. Leanne, So you've
heard it here first on the podcast. Very upsetting. Right
(12:44):
to Bird's Eye and tell them how appalled you are,
because I am. But I just thought of that because
that's how I bulk up meals, particularly when they're later
on in the evening. But you are going to share
now about some new data on the Japanese diet.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yes, I am.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So there's some exciting new research and I've been Japan
a couple of times, and I must say I absolutely
love it. I'm a massive fan of a Japanese cuisine,
but I will say that particularly what the majority of
is eat, myself included, even if we go to your
nicer type Japanese restaurant, it is still quite Western style
Japanese food. So this article, which was written up in
(13:18):
the Conversation is a traditional Japanese diet is associated with
less brain shrinkage in women compared.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
To a Western style diet.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
So it's a newer article that is essentially just published
this week, and I think it's a really good one.
But I think the key difference is to understand that
it's a traditional Japanese diet, which will break it down
and we'll go through it. It's not really the type
of Western Japanese Just going down to your local sushi
train is not going to give you the benefits from a.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Brain health perspective.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
So there's been a lot of research around cognition dementia
early onset dementia for a lot of years now, and
it's estimated that worldwide there are over fifty five million
people that have cognitive decline or dementia. So the numbers
are absolutely massive. Both of my grandparents suffered from dementia,
so it's in my family. It's something I'm very conscious of.
(14:06):
My parents both do crosswords, they both take fishial oil.
They're both very conscious of this sort of demensia link
that we have in our families. So whenever I see
a bit of research around cognitive health or dementia, I
always sort of perk up that little bit and think, okay, right,
I've got to see if there's anything more we can
implement it here. So fifty five million people worldwide is
a huge number, and they're actually predicting that this number
(14:27):
is going to skyrocket over the next few decades as
the population ages and as sadly our diets get worse
and worse, because that's honestly what's happened over the last
few decades. We're not getting healthier, we're getting more unhealthy.
So it's not something that we have a whole lot
of control over because there are some genetic predisposition factors involved,
but there are also some modifiable risk factors or lifestyle habits. Certainly,
(14:51):
things like smoking, obesity, lack of exercise. These have all
been shown in the research to be linked to a
higher risk of dementia. So there are certainly some things
we do have control over and others, sadly more from
a genetic component, we don't have too much control over. Now,
the research around cognitive health has really shown that one
of the most beneficial diets is a Mediterranean diet. So
(15:14):
this has been shown to have a really positive effect
on brain health essentially, and on some important metrics of
a healthy brain such as total brain volume, cortisol thickness,
and the integrity of the white matter in your brain
as well. So we do know that following a very
Mediterranean style diet can be very helpful for brain health.
But now this newer I guess research and study is
(15:36):
showing this that also following a traditional Japanese style diet
may also be beneficial for brain health as well. So
we do know that the populations in Japan are renowned
for their longevity.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
If you've ever heard of the Blue zones, I think so.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Susie and I have talked about the Blue Zones a
little bit on the podcast as well. They're areas in
the world where people are known to live exceptionally long lives,
like you know, well into the nineties, if not into
the hundreds as well, and there's a few key areas
around the world, and Japan is one of those areas
as well. So it's traditional Japanese style dyet is really
characterized by foods such as rice fish, shellfish, at amamai tofu, soybeans,
(16:15):
and fruit, particularly citrus type fruits as well. But what
makes their diet very unique is that they use a
lot of fermented foods, particularly things like miso, which is
a fermented soybean paste.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
They have seaweed, they have pickles.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
They also have things that are really high in antioxidants
such as green tea. Now we talked about soybeans, they
use soybeans sprouts as well. I think are they called
nato or nato. That's quite traditional Japanese and that's a
fermented type of bean as well, that's quite popular. And
also good quality mushrooms such as chataki mushrooms as well.
And I also think the important thing to note in
(16:51):
a traditional Japanese style diet it's very low in the
intake of red meat and very low in the intake
of coffee, and depending on I guess who talk to
or even more gender specific, it's quite low in alcohol,
particularly for the females. The men seem to enjoy their
sake a little bit as well. So it is also
worth noting that Japanese culture, there's not a whole lot
(17:12):
of obesity in that culture compared to somewhere like Australia,
and how the Japanese seemed to be raised was really
enjoying the meals at a dining table and really having
those good conversations and having the family aspect to meals
or as when you look at a traditional Western style diet,
a lot of people are eating on the run. We're
eating in front of a screen. You know, we're not
so used to sitting at a dining table eating mindfully.
(17:35):
The Japanese have a beautiful concept called is it hurry
Harry butcher or it's eat until eight parts full. You know,
we don't seem to do a lot of that in
austral A lot of us tend to eat too quickly,
We eat while we're distracted, We eat well past satisfaction
levels into you know, I'm actually too full or I'm
over full as well. So there's a lot of beautiful
principles within the Japanese culture, not just what they put
(17:57):
in their mouth, but how they actually eat their meals
as well when it comes to eating with loved ones,
eating around a dining table, eating very mindfully, and eating
until satisfied not over full as well.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
So the culture itself.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Is beautiful when it comes to health and weight loss,
but there is actually some brain health benefits as well.
So in this new study, the sample size was just
over sixteen hundred Japanese adults age forty to eighty nine,
so a really good I guess subset of people, and
well into that close to ninety age group as well,
which is good. Now they identify the participants typical diet
(18:31):
by asking them to record everything that they ate and
drank for three days, so there is a little bit
of potential you know, error is there, I guess because
you're relying on people's recall and memories. But then they
were also given disposable cameras to take pictures of their
plates before and after their meal, so they could produce
a visual record of.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
What they ate and how much they ate as well.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So combining the written diet record with also the photographs,
they then calculated a person's average daily food intake and
it gave them a bit of I guess baseline measure
of what their normal eating habits were. So based on
those dietary records, they found five hundred and eighty nine
participants followed a traditional Japanese diet and a further six
(19:11):
hundred and ninety seven participants eateed typical Western style diet
and that was very much characterized by a high consumption
of refined carbohydrates, high fat foods, soft drinks, alcohol, takeaways,
and then a very small number of participants, so three
hundred and fifty eight a diet containing a higher than
average amount of plant based foods. This was classified as
(19:32):
whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and dairy products. The researcher is
named the style of eating the vegetable fruit dairy diet.
So once they analyzed all of these different diets in
the subgroups of people where their diet sat, they actually
found that overall, women who followed the traditional Japanese diet
had less brain shrinkage over the two year study periods
(19:53):
that actually studied their brains and they did scans on
them compared to women who followed a traditional Western style diet.
It was less clear about what the effects with the
vegetable fruit dairy diet. Had, and that was potentially due
to the smaller number of participants in that group. Now,
the interesting thing was that the brain shrinkage of the
Japanese diet compared to the Western star diet was only
(20:15):
apparent in women. That actually didn't see any difference in
the amount of brain shrinkage in men, which I thought
was quite fascinating, And they sort of gave a couple
of reasons for why this might be. They sort of
thought that in those traditional Japanese style diets there are
certain nutrients such as magnesium, plant estrogens found in fish
and mushrooms and whole grains and leg rooms. These nutrients
(20:36):
seem to have a positive stronger effects on women's brains. Now,
the other thing that they sort of found as well
potentially lifestyle factors that they didn't look too much into,
but things like smoking sometimes obesity, and other things like
men preferred to preference more carbohydrates potentially also refined carbohydrates
like more noodles and white rice, and also alcoholic beverages
(20:59):
such as saki compared to what women did. So also
these factors may have contributed to brain trinkage as well.
They weren't sort of sure, so I think it's new
and emerging research. It's not enough to say a Japanese
style diet, a traditional Japanese style diet will help with
cognitive function. But I think that there are many many
(21:19):
things we can take away from this, particularly how neutrine
rich a Japanese diet is, because we've got huge amounts
of vitamins, minerals, polyfeenos fit or chemicals, great amounts of
unsaturated fatty acids. All of these components are known for
the antioxidants and their anti inflammatory effects, which is going
to help basically the brain work at its best and
(21:40):
those neurons to keep firing and minimize any sort of
potential brain degradation long term. So I do think that
we need a lot more further research in this area.
But trying to embrace a lot of the elements of
the traditional Japanese culture within our traditional Western style diet
will only give you positive health benefits. So it's trying
to swap a lot of your meat, particularly that process
(22:01):
type meat, for more fish, seafood, soy tofus at a marmaie,
trying to use a lot of things like miso paste.
I love making, you know, salad dressings out of I
added into my soups, things like seaweed and chataki mushrooms,
adding them into your salads, into your surf fries, and
as much as possible fermented foods for their probotic effect
in terms of improving your gut health as well. So
(22:23):
all of these things, if you can build them into
a better quality, whole food based diet, you're only going
to reap benefits from a health perspective and even potentially
maybe even a cognitive perspective longer term.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
True, And I think for me the standout is just
the extremely high amount of amiga three that they consume
on a daily basis. You know, it's recommended in Australia
that we have two serves of fish each week. Really
the Japanese average intake is so much higher than that. Now,
it's not an inexpensive food sashimi, but certainly just adding
more oily fish into the diet you will get some
of those benefits. And I think green tea is massive.
(22:58):
We know how beneficial it is from an antiox perspective
in general, and it also I find it really useful
with sugar cravings because it's sort of that really changes
that the taste of the palette, and I think you
can find some great I know the old English tea
shop has got this divine pomegranate green tea which is
calorie free. But if you find green tea a little
(23:18):
bit acidic and a bit harsh, I find the pomegranate
version is also lemon are really really nice, So that
is something to add into your daily routine. I used
to always have green tea after a meal and I've
stopped and it's just reminded me it's such a positive
thing we can do for cell health. So particularly at
the moment it's winter, it's particularly chilli right down the
eastern seaboard, green tea is a great way to have
(23:40):
a lot more warm beverages, minus the extreme milks of
coffees and hot chocolates, except for, of course, the hot
chocolate we're about to bring out, because we're strongly encouraging
you to enjoy that great some really and you're always
good at the research papers. But I am going to
shift the gear out to chips because we've found a
particularly nice pre cut chip at the supermarket. Now, I
(24:02):
will preface this segment by saying we're not saying that
it's better than making your own sweet potato or potato
fries from actual potatoes. What we're saying is that it
actually is very tricky to find a pre cut chip
that doesn't have loads and loads of process vegetable oil.
Sometimes the chips in the supermarket are as low as
sixty seventy percent potato, and I Lean have found one
(24:23):
that I think is amazing. Now. It is a product
that you can only find in woolies. I haven't seen
it in coals, and it's called the Strong Roots Company
Proper Chips. They're in a purple bag. They also have
a sweet potato version, but I have just been buying
the potato one because Lean. It is ninety seven percent
potato and just three percent vegetable oil, which means it's
(24:46):
actually a low fat food still with those nutritionals, so
it's basically one hundred percent potato. And most importantly, when
you put it into the oven, so I just get
the baking tray and put them in, so nothing needed.
They actually take really good. The kids love them, which
is such a win to a quick and easy dinner. Addition,
without doing all the potatoes, cutting them, washing them, and
(25:09):
it's got the skin on the potato which is so good. Now.
The downside is that they are imported. They're not Australian.
I think they come from the UK, and they're not cheap.
They're seven dollars fifty per bag. Now I get four
serves out of that. It certainly feeds both my twins
and Chris as well. And I don't really eat them,
but there's certainly four serves in there. But we want
(25:30):
to really say it's not inexpensive. We know it's a
lot cheaper, Well is it cheaper? Potatoes aren't overly cheap.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
It's definitely cheaper to do your own. Absolutely, yeah, like
a bag of potatoes, what five six bucks? Like, it's
definitely cheaper to do your own. But these are the
if you're buying pre made chips, these are by far
and away the best nutritionally.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Now.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
They used to have Wooly Steakhouse chips. They don't have
them anymore. I can't find them again. They were very
similar nutritionals in an Australian product, So but yeah, I
can't fault them. And I usually whenever I do on
a Monday for the kids, I always do these with
them and they love them.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I love them too.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
It's just a shame they're imported from Ireland.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
It is a shame.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Where else would I potato go potato? We do like
potato an Island. But yeah, it's the.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Problem in Australia. The cost of food is so high
and it's so hard for brands to keep competitive in supermarket,
so it's a really tricky one. So I think, yeah,
I agree they're imported, but in terms of, you know,
if you're happy to spend a little bit more for
a really good quality because we were just saying before
we hopped on, like hot chips are not cheap. If
you go to the chargirl Charlie's and by chips, they're
(26:36):
like seven to ten bucks just for fried potato and
s nowhere near as good quality as this. So it's
not like they're cheap.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Man.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Back in the day when we were kids like to
you know, your parents will give you two dollars, you'd
walk down to the corner fish and chip store.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
You'd have more chip.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You could feed eight friends with the amount of chips
you'd get for two bucks. These days, like are small
serving your chips. You're like, you know, twelve dollars for
you know, half the amount and used to get back then,
so it's not it's you know, these has certainly got
to be tubute than going to your local fish and
chip shop, but it is always going to be cheaper
or more budget friendly to make them yourself at home.
If you're going to buy frozen chips, these are by
far some of the best on the market. I will
(27:10):
say Susie that these are my preference the strong roots
proper chips because a they have the skin on and
like you said, they use a very minimal amount of oil.
Most frozen chips use a lot of oil, so the
calorie content is higher. I don't love the sweet potato
version of these as much because they are more I.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Think like battered.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
So the sweet potato versions are eighty nine percent sweet potato.
They also add vegetable oil, potato starch, rice flour, ammoth flour,
corn flour, corn starch, salt, and paprika, so they are
sort of they do have more like a seasoning and
coating on them versus the potato chips are literally just
potato from Ireland with some spray oil on it, I imagine,
So they're very very clean, not that there's anything overly
(27:48):
wrong with the ingredients that they put into the sweet
potato ones, but they do have I guess like a
little bit of a batter of coating on them, So
particularly for small children, I always feel like the least
processing on, the least additives and that sort of thing,
the better.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
So if you've got kids, I would be going for
the standard chips.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And the fact that they have the skin on as
well is a massive thumbs up from me because a
serving of these, if you're looking at one hundred grams
and a serve, which is quite a lot for children anyway,
it's two point five grams of fiber, which is great,
some from the potato and a lot from leaving the
skin on as well, which makes me really happy to
see because I always tell my clients to leave the
skin on their potato just for the extra fiber and
gut health benefits that it provides.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
But they think the thing with the me is they
taste good?
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Now?
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Is it an Irish potato thing? I don't know, but
like I myself don't love like I wouldn't, potato is
not my favorite food, you know what I mean? Like
I'll use it in a mash with different veggies, but
I could give or take a chip like it wouldn't,
I wouldn't be drawn to it. But they actually taste
really good, and that's not always the case with that
kind of very plain chip. So yeah, I don't know
(28:49):
if it's an Irish thing, if it's the way they've
cut them, if it's the skin, but they really taste great.
My kids, you know how fussy kids are. My kids
demolish them. So yeah, big big thumbs are. We really
like them, But we do say they are a little
bit a bit higher on the price, and I haven't
really seen them discounted much in supermarket, which is upsetting.
But if you, yeah, want to sort of add them
to your fish on a Monday on Sunday, thumbs up
(29:10):
from us. And then to finish off Leanne. This is
a question from our Instagram, where we get most of
our listener questions from, and the question is are the
one hundred percent choknuts spreads actually healthy? So I think
when we're talking about chalknuts spreads in general, traditionally it's
been the tower. Now without being too targeted with a
(29:31):
food product in the teller, is heavily based on vegetable
oil and sugar with far less nut action, and it's
certainly not a food I would be including in my
child's diet on a regular basis. It's heavily processed, as
I said, the basis sugar and oil. We know the
kids love it, we all love it, but it's not
overly healthy. Let's be honest. I prefer min Natella in
a Ferrero Rishare if I'm being completely honest. But there
(29:53):
is a growing range of one hundred percent chalknut spreads,
whether it's got a peanut butter base or in another
brand as well, which is literally just nuts and cocone.
Now those varieties are much healthier. Yes, if you scan
an ingredient list and you only see nuts and a
bit of cocoa powder, you don't see sugar added, you
don't see oil. They're a whole kind of natural food really,
(30:17):
But they're very, very high in calories, similar to peanut butter.
So a tablespoon of a nuts spread in general, and
a chocnut spread is well over one hundred calories. And
that's not a whole lot like a tablespoon like that's
maybe one slice of toast. Really, So my issue with
them in the house is that when people spread them
on sandwiches or probably not at school, but even at
(30:38):
home they're getting a whole lot of fat and calories,
which it's better quality than say a processed Natella variety,
but it's still a lot. So I think, yes, if
you like them, they're much better, but you've got to
stick to just a tea spoon or two once a
day because it's really an added fat and it's not
just a food you can eat a lot of. Because
(30:59):
they're very high in calori and because it's chocolate, they're
easy to overeat, like I have people who go and
just spoon it out of the container like it's one
for me and one for the pop kind of thing.
So just keep in mind that food is really easy
to overeat. It's also easy to overeat because they're often
quite runny, so you sort of scoop out a lot,
so keep that in mind. So guess the latest ones
(31:19):
that are hundred percent chop nut are better, but they're
certainly not a food we would be proactively adding into
many diets because, yeah, I just think they're really easy
to overeat.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, I think from a child perspective, like small children
to larger teenagers that sort of thing, particularly the boys
who you know, we have a hard time filling them up.
I think it's a great option. I just don't think
if you're an adult and your goal is fat loss,
potentially not. It's sort of like you're eating you know,
peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Or almond butter. Nothing wrong with that, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
But they are quite coloridens if you're adding a couple
of tablespoons, if you're putting a few tablespoons on your
bread than eating if you out of the jar as well,
like Susie said, it can have a bit of a
health halo effect to it. So absolutely nothing wrong with them,
one hundred percent a better option than like a traditional
chocolate based spread, much much much better for your children.
I would buy them for my kids, I honestly would.
Butt Me has quite a few nut allergies, and the
(32:08):
bulk of them have a blend of you know, peanuts
in them as well, because peanuts are a much cheaper
legume than they might blend them with a bit of
hazel nush or something like that. So that's why I
personally don't bind them, but otherwise, if she didn't have
her allergies, I probably would because I do think it's
a much better option than what most people will put
on toast for their children, which is traditionally in natalla
or jam.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
And they're not like the good ones. They're a lot
more expensive, you know what I mean. I'm just having
a look online, Like they.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Do regularly come on sale, like I often get them
for thirty forty fifty pan off often. Yeah, and they
have a good shelf you know, like I'll buy two
three bottles at once and then put them on the
top of my shelf because I can only really give
them to Tilly when me is like daycare two days
a week. I don't like to give them when she's
around in the household, just because of the allergy risks.
So they have quite a good shelf life. I've always
got a few in my pantry and they seem to
last quite a long time. So I'm always a you know,
(32:54):
you and me, Susie, we love I barkain. So I
would never buy a full price. I'll always wait for
a good sale.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
But like I'm just looking the wooly. Yes, the wool
is chockhazel dots spread. See that is similar blend to
Natella that sugar vegetable oil. It's got ten percent hazel
nut in it, so that one is probably cheaper, but
the good one, like one of these hundred percent ones
is seven eight dollars a jar, So that's indicative of
the quality too. Yeah, you pay for the quality, You
pay for the quality, and that's eight like you said,
(33:19):
eighty percent peanut chocolate sixteen percent, which is sugar cocoa solid.
So I would encourage you to have a good look
at the ingredient list and the shorter the better in
that space. And if you see sugar at the top,
it's probably not the best quality product.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
All right, Well that brings us to another end of
our nutrition cotch episode for another week. If you know
that your diet needs a little boost in protein, or
you're feeling extra hungry at meals, you'd like to add
a little bit of fabulous dietitian design protein powder into
some of your meals will snacks. Go check out our
scientifically formulated protein range of nosh. We've got a pre
and probotic blend and a women's health blend. Go check
(33:53):
them out at designed by a Dietitians dot com. And
we thank you for listening, thank you for your support,
and we'll catch you in next week's episode.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Have a great weeks,
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