Ever picked up a spinach wrap or veggie chips thinking they were a healthy choice? Think again! On this week’s episode of The Nutrition Couch, Leanne Ward and Susie Burrell reveal the sneaky tricks behind supermarket foods masquerading as “healthy” options. Plus, we tackle critical nutrient deficiencies, including one that might shock you, and share smart strategies to support kids’ bone health.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- The surprising truth behind “healthier” supermarket products.
- Real-life cases of nutrient deficiencies, from scurvy to post-surgery challenges.
- The highest calcium-packed yogurt on the market and how it can transform your diet.
- How to help your kids meet their calcium needs—even without milk.
Whether you’re shopping for yourself or your family, this episode will arm you with the tools to make smarter, healthier food choices!
Resources:
- Interested in joining the March 2025 retreat? Email us at admin@thenutritioncouch.com to get on the waitlist!
- Explore our range at designedbydietitians.com and check out our book, Reset, Nourish, Burn, available in paperback and on Audible for a perfect holiday gift!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you saw a spinach wrap, would you think that
it was healthier? What about some veggie based chips? There
are tons of supermarket foods that appear to be healthier,
but on closer inspection, this may not always be the case.
On today's episode of The Nutrition Couch, we share some
of the worst healthy masquerades that we've found in the soupermarket. Hi,
I'm Leanne Maud and I'm Sidney Burrow, and together we
(00:23):
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 healthy
foods disguised as other things. Today we chat about the
increasing number of people presenting with nutrient deficiencies post extreme
diets and weight loss surgery. We've also found a yogurt
that is particularly high in calcium, and our listener question
(00:45):
is all about kids and bone help. So to kick
us off today, Zuzie, I'll start off with I did
a little bit of real on TikTok a couple of
weeks ago now and I found these Should I name
the brand? These wraps? My lade to name the brand?
Maybe not? I found these spinach wraps on the market
and they were green, and I picked them up, but
I thought, interesting, as you do as a dietitian, you
(01:06):
think green wrap must be healthier. And I had in
big letters across the front of the back spinach wraps
and they're on sale, and I thought, well, forty percent off.
That's pretty good, right, And then right next to them
were the sweet potato wraps, and I thought, oh, that's
interesting because I could see how a lot of people
who perhaps were trying to reduce the amount of maybe
they had in their diet, or just perceived as a
sweet potato wrappers potentially with healthier a lot of people
(01:27):
would be buying them. And I thought, I'm really interested
to see the percentage of spinach and sweet potato in
these wraps. Lo and behold Susie. I turned them over
and the spinach was and I kid you not, I
nearly dropped the packet. I was so shocked. I knew
that it wouldn't be high, because as dietitians were trained
to really analyze the marketing and the food labeling, but
(01:48):
even I was shocked, and that doesn't happen very often
these days. Those wraps had one percent spinach of them,
and I was like, is this a joke? How are
they so green? And so they obviously had a bit
they said natural color in them to give them the
green appeal in the effect, and the sweet potato ones
would know real better. They were two point five percent,
I think from memory, and I just thought this is shocking.
(02:08):
How are they even allowed to advertise something as contained
spinach with one percent and the amount of people that
would pick that up thinking that that is absolutely a
healthy alternative, or think I'm going to give that to
my fussy kid so that they don't have to eat
their vegetables, and I just think that's not a replacement
for eating vegetables. I would rather my client had a
better multi grain wrap with some visible whole grains in there,
(02:29):
because the reality is that spinach wrap was still a
white refined rap with one percent spinach a bit of green,
I don't know, natural coloring or whatever, and it was
still just a white refined wrap. I would probably I
would much rather my clients had a better quality, nutritious
whole grain wrapp or even a couple of slices of
dense whole grain bread added a ton of spinach onto
(02:49):
it along with some other lovely veggies like some grated carrots,
some grated beetood and a bit of lean protein and
really built a balance wrap or sandwich with that, rather
than buying those wraps even if they were you know,
on sale, the home brand variety is you know, the
nice multi grain ones were still you know, a bit cheaper,
a bit more budget friendly. So I just it was
a good discussion. There's quite a few products in the
(03:10):
supermarket that kind of masked as healthier products, and I
think if we're not smart, and we're not we don't
take the time to read our food labels, it can
be very easy to be conned into buying something that
we think, oh, this is going to give me that
little bit of a boost, or you know, I don't
really love my veggies, so I'll choose this getting a
really nice veggie based wrap in. But the reality is
that one percent is not even going to make a
(03:32):
little blip on the radar in terms of how many
vegetables and salad you really need to be eating. Is it?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
No? And I noticed it actually. First of all, your
video was hilarious. It pops up on my social media
and I strongly encourage you to go and check it.
Out on lands TikTok or Instagram when she was horrified
about the wrap finding she was it's worth watching. And
I think that when we had closer to Lukalan that
it actually had color. It had chlorophylinage and that to
(03:57):
give it the green to make a green. So of
course in the spinach. I'd noticed it when I was
doing a crispbread review because I knew that there was
sort of a couple of new products in supermarkets to
replace a Lina And one of the ones is Splits,
the Splits range, which is stocked in coals, and they're
actually got vegetable names. So there's like pumpkin, carrot, and
(04:19):
when you have a closer look, one of them's got
like three percent carrot powder. This one I'm looking at,
it's got dried pumpkin three percent. Like that is not vegetable,
you know, like a bit of vegetable powder is not
the same, particularly in a really refined product where you're
getting no nutrition. And I think in the case of raps,
for example, wraps are are highly processed. Definitely, bread is
(04:39):
a less processed product. I think raps really masquerade is
being healthy, but it takes a lot of processing to
create that consistency in texture. And you'll notice that wraps
you can keep for a really long time as well.
So again nutritionally not superior, but when you sort of
associate them with vegetables, they get that feeling. And the
same with these crisp bread But these chrisp bread are
(04:59):
so ultra pro like the base is rice, which is
highly refined. It's not brown rice, and as such, there's
very little fiber in them and they barely feel you.
But they've all got vegetable names. I see it then,
I do see it in some of the sort of snacks.
Now we're not talking about some of the veggie chips,
which are clearly like vegetables, like you can literally see
the slice of beet troot in the packet. That's not
(05:21):
the one because we're talking about. We're talking about the
ones that are more like the extruded kind of snacks
that look nothing like a vegetable, and often they don't
have a whole lot of vegetable in them. I think
those some of those pea snap ones as well a
little bit, but they're I've just looked at the vegie
straws actually because I thought they would be a bit dodged,
but they're actually got quite a high vegetable percentage. They
(05:41):
are still ultra processed. There's still ultra processed because you're right,
but they actually do have quite a high vegetable content.
So it's kind of in that gray area. But some
of the sort of ones that we've spoken about before
that i've got msg aded, they don't have a whole lot.
And I also think looking back to some kids products,
I remember in the kids section, you might be more
aware of this than I because your kids are that
(06:02):
age that there's a few like chip type products for kids,
like popped things, and they've got like a little bit
of vegetable, but when you look it's very very small,
so you don't have to do it one scan.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, kids, Isla. I remember Hindes have a good one.
I think it was like tomato and lentil. There are
some definitely some better ones, but have a scan because
I think they've gone off the market now because there
was a lot of controversy around them. This was a
few years ago, before I even had my kids. I
remember from a memory it was something like I think
they were like the veggie the fruit straps, like almost
not roll ups, but kind of a similar thing, right,
(06:34):
But they were trying to be a bit healthier, and
they were saying that they're like fruit and veggie straps basically,
and I remember from memory they were like eighty percent
ninety percent fruit, like they were basically all sugar, even
though it was natural and it was fruit, and it
was like one percent vegetable powder. And again I think
there was actually from memory, like a bit of a
legal case or something. I'll have to look it up
and go back, but I remember I think they got
pulled off the market soon after because they weren't actually
(06:56):
allowed to say maybe it wasn't even one percent, maybe
it was even less than one percent vegetable in them,
but they were calling them like, you know, strawberry and
beech root, or they were calling them zucchini and blueberry
or something. But it was like heavy sugar. It was
added sugar. Like they just shouldn't have been anywhere near
the Kid's aisle basically, and I don't think they even
really exist anymore, but I have seen similar things pop
up in there, like in the music bar Aile recently
(07:18):
because misaw something and I think it had Elsa on
the front and she'sn't going through her elsie ear at
the moment, and the other one had Spider Man and
she's like, oh, those and I was like, absolutely not.
They were basically just like the roll ups, but they
said you know, a bit of a kind of fruit
and vege on the front of it, but they were
still really high sugar, like over ten grams from memory.
So I think it's just an important recap to always
be reading our food labels and always just be that
(07:40):
a little bit aware and not get sucked into the
front of pack marketing, because really, brands can say anything,
can't they. And a lot of times brands get around
it by what they call the name, like they might say,
you know, veggie Field or something, but I think they
can just say that right, or they can say I
remember the years ago, there was a brand of shampoo
called I can't remember the name, but it sounded like organic,
(08:02):
like it had the last couple of letters were changed,
but it wasn't organic at all, and it was just
this huge marketing thing where the brand didn't use organic products,
but the actual name of the brand kind of sounded
like that, so everybody naturally made the assumption. So I
think it's just a really important reminder not to really
pay too much attention to the front of pack marketing
and really turn that over and look at the nutrition ingredients,
(08:22):
look at the nutritional information panel, and really make sure
if you're buying that as a better product to kind
of boost the veggie intake in your diet or your
kid's diart, it actually has a decent amount. And by
decent amount, I would say at least over ten percent,
wouldn't you.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, so I've just found another one organic carrot puff
So these are in the kids section over seven months old.
The ingredient organic cornflower seventy seven percent, organic sunflower or
rape seed oil, and then organic carrot powder ten percent.
But to me, it's it's just a powder form. You're
not getting any dietary fiber, so it's masquerading because that's
(08:57):
ultimately a highly processed food for kids that offers no
dietary fiber. But it's got carrot written all over it,
so you'd be thinking it's healthy where it's really it's
just puff corn. It's not that much better than a
puff corn chip really, So yeah, you do have to
be careful. But if I saw a powder added I
don't count that as a vegetable. That's not the same
thing because nutritionally from a vegetable you're getting vitamins and
(09:19):
minerals which is in the whole form of the food
and dietary fiber, and a powder. You're just getting a
refined form and giving it the color. So yeah, as
soon as you see that, I'd be a little bit
bit suspicious. So again, if you see a spinach wraps,
probably not that great loomba. Alright, you actually mentioned this
to me a few weeks ago, and you said that
(09:41):
you had come across a case of clinical scurvy. Now,
for those of you who are thinking, oh, I've heard
that word before, I want you to think back to
your time at school when you were thinking about and
learning about Captain Cook and when the first fleet first
came out to Australia, and of course a lot of
the people on the boat suffered scurvy, which was the
clinical nutrient deficiency of vitamin C that we get from
(10:04):
fresh food. And of course, in the olden days, when
we were on boats for months at a time, the
amounts of fresh food were very very light on and
over time people could develop vitamin seed deficiency. Now it
is very very rare to see that in Australia. I've
never heard or seen of it, but just by chance
on my news feed it popped up that there had
been another clinical case reported from a person who'd been
(10:25):
post gastric sleeve surgery or gastric band surgery, and you
and I were just having a little discussion about it,
and it doesn't surprise me because one of the secondary
effects of weight loss surgery at the extreme, whether it's
a gastric bipass or sleeve, where people's food intake is
severely restricted, or also more recently where people are using
(10:46):
semaglue tides like ozen peak and more govy for those
who are very strict with their diet or have severe
limitation physically, as in the case with gastric surgeries, and
the first foods to often go from the menu are
fresh whole foods. So in the case of gastric surgery,
one sort of soft food tends to go down better,
(11:06):
or there's a real focus on getting enough protein, and
if you can't eat a lot and you're getting your protein,
there's not that much room for salad and vegetables left,
or the same in the case of GLP or semaglue tides,
where you've got severely limited appetite and you're really focused
on protein rich foods, there's not a lot of room
necessarily for a large salad or if that's not your
natural preference. It's very easy to say, have you know,
(11:26):
an egg for breakfast or yogurt mash tuna and rice
for lunch, Like, if you're not really onto it, over time,
you can absolutely and we're seeing it more and more
because of these more extreme diets. So we just thought
it was an interesting discussion about the importance you know,
nutrition and food. It's not just about diet and weight control.
It's actually about getting key nutrients we need for optimal function.
(11:47):
And just fresh back from our retreat, you know, we
saw several of our ten ds with nutrient deficiencies, even
though they're pretty healthy bunts, you know, listening to the
nutrition couch and having a firm, interesting nutrition and even
then with modern day pressures on life and food often
eaten on the run, you know, it does happen, and
vitamin see can be at risk if you're limiting fresh food,
(12:07):
particularly fruits and veggies in the diet.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Absolutely and I'll go back to the story which I
was telling you. I think it was a couple of
weeks ago, but this actually happened years ago, back when
I was still a clinical dietitian back at one of
the Brisbane hospitals. And that time, you used to sit
in clinic and you go through your referrals that morning,
and the doctors would just right on the top of
the referral like why they preferred the client. Because in
that dietitian clinic, we took a lot of referrals from
(12:31):
doctors and I typically see stuff like, you know, newly
diagnosed celiac. I might see weight loss and you know,
blood sugar management for poorly controlled diabetes. And this one
day I picked up a referral form and it said
scurvy with a couple of exclamation points next to it,
and I went, no, they're kidding, like scurvy. No, I've
never seen that. I've been practicing for over a decade
and I've never seen scurvy. And you just said, Susan,
(12:52):
you've never seen a clinical diagnosis and scurvy and you're
an entire practice as well, And I thought, surely this
is this is not right, right, surely they made a
missa and the one behold, this lady came in and
she yeah, she had scurvy. She had all of the symptoms.
So from a symptom based perspective, some of the signs
of a very severe vitamin seed deficiency that would lead
to scurvy are things like bleeding, gums, wobbly toothed, like
(13:15):
a lot of issues were dental, really poor wound healing.
She had these little like red spots and stuff all
up her arms and they just wouldn't heal. Anemia, fatigue,
black circles under your eyes, weakness and fatigue. So there's
some of the big signs, and obviously they're not just
signs of scurvy. They can be signs of a range
of other things, including simple things like malnutrition and other
(13:36):
types of vitamin and mineral deficiencies as well. And when
it came down to it, we did a full diet
review because I was like, how was you know, a
woman in this day and age, living in Australia, we
have good access to food and fresh food, how does
this happen? And the crux of it was Susie that
she was following such a restrictive keutogenic diet for the
last two years. That she had not allowed herself a
(13:57):
piece of fruit or juice or nothing with fruit in
it for years, and the only vegetables she allowed herself
to eat were the green ones. So we do know
that some of our veggies have vitamin C in them
as well, things like capsigerm and tomato. She didn't do
any colors but green, and even then she would weigh
the amount of green vegetables because she was so worried
about the carb content and that kicking her out of katosis. Basically,
(14:20):
so this ketogenic diet that she was using for you know,
weight loss and health had actually done the opposite effect
and created malnutrition and scurvy in her. So we basically
slowly just took her off that and slowly started to
reintroduce carbohydrates and some fresh foods and some better quality
vegetables and more diversity into her diet. But it can
take a really long time to reverse in people as well.
(14:43):
But it's just crazy to be seeing these types of
things in this day and age. But it really does
come down to overly restricted diet. Sometimes it's intentional, other
times it's not. You might have you know, some quite
severe malabsorption medical issues going on where your body's just
not able to absorb some neutral You may have had
some big surgery like Susie mentioned for potentially weight loss,
(15:04):
and you're simply just not able to eat the required amount,
volume or texture of foods to get the nutrition or
volume in. And you know, even post a lot of
these big barometric type surgeries, you're supposed to take essentially
multivitamins for life. And what I used to see when
I was doing the baroer to clinics as well, is
a lot of people just couldn't tolerate them because they
were massive tablets and they just couldn't get them down,
(15:25):
and they had so many symptoms like nausea in volmenting
post surgery that they were really really struggling. So we
saw so much malnutrition in those clinics, and it was
awful because you know, people were like, oh, I've lost
thirty kilos, this is so amazing, but at the same
time they felt so crap because they couldn't get in
the required amounts of nutrition. So I think it's just
another really good example where balanced eating always trumps, doesn't it.
(15:48):
Like we always come back to good quality, balanced eating
fresh foods. If the diet that you're following is not
maintainable for life, if it's creating nutrient deficiencies, it's probably
not something that's actually really healthy for you. Were probably
not something you can do long term or should do
long term.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Even I think that fruit gets a bit of a
beating because we're so focused and even myself on people
getting enough vegetables. So really, and I think there's that
belief out there that green vegetables are so superior nutritionally,
and indeed they do have a number of key nutrient
properties which make them a souper food, particularly for cell
health and anti cancer action. But the orange and red
(16:24):
group to the sweet potato, red capsicum tomato, as you said,
also very very rich in antioxidants, even though they may
have a high carbohydrate content in the case of something
like sweet potato. But certainly with fruit, I think you're
either a fruit eater or you're note. So my fruit
eaters are like so happy right now because it's coming
into stone fruit season and they're like, oh my god,
how much can I cram in? You know, the beautiful
(16:47):
apricots and peaches and nectarines, which are so nutrient rich
and very high in vitamin C, so such beautiful skin
and so good for us. But then you have people
who don't eat a lot of fruit at all. You know,
they'll struggle to even get a piece in per day.
For me, that's the ones who are at risk offor
of constipation because they're not getting that beautiful soluble fiber
from things like apples, oranges and then stone fruits. So
(17:08):
if you know yourself you're not a big fruit eater,
it is important that you're getting I would say, at
least one piece a day, and ideally of something vitamin
sea rich. So things like your berries are great, particularly
you can add them to smoothies or to yogurt. Coming
into stone fruit season another great option, keyway fruit not
in season now, but very nutrient rich. You know, really
make a concerted effort to try and get at least
(17:29):
one piece of fresh food and that will go a
long way and ticking the box on your vitamin seed intake.
But for anyone listening who has had gastric bypass or
sleeve surgery in the past or is taking that a
new range of ozen peak w go vy and know
that your intake has significantly reduced in the short term,
This would absolutely be a group I would suggest a
(17:50):
general multi vitamin because when your intakes significantly reduced for
whatever reason, you might be unwell, you might be having
some sort of treatment, you might not be able to
eat very much because of a throat issue, dental issue,
or you may be taking one of these new drugs
or physically restricted with gastric surgeries. Absolutely, you should be
taking a women's multi vitamin because at least then in
(18:10):
the background you're getting that kind of nutrient hit at
least every second day. And we recently spoke about supplements
on the podcast and how you and I often take
a lot of clients of supplements. But in that instance
where you know your intake is severely reduced, or you
may be doing a strict diet for a period of
time for whatever reason, that is a perfect reason to
add a general multi vitamin to your regime, just to
(18:31):
tick the box on those key nutrients.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah. Absolutely, And actually, if you've had barotric surgery, you
just need to go that one step further because generally
there are specific multi vitamins that you actually should be taking.
They have higher amounts of things than just the standard
multi vitamin that you might pick off the shelf from
Coals or will Worth or the local pharmacy. So really
make sure that you're following up with your team, your surgery,
and your dietisian to ensure that you're getting those higher
(18:55):
amounts of some of those because depending on the type
of bariotric surgery of the type of that you've had,
sometimes that can actually create more malabsorption and more issues
with different types of nutrients. So really make sure that
you're taking the appropriate type of multi vitem and not
just a random one that you've found in your local
pharmacy as well. Moving on to our next section, sushi.
(19:15):
Talking about nutrients, calcium we harp on about all the time.
All of our listeners are how important it is, and
I thought that everybody kind of knew about this, and
as I was recommending it so often in my retreat,
we I think we need to talk about this on
the podcast because there are so many of our ladies
who are really into those kind of menopause yas. And
the calcium requirements go from around about one thousand milligrams
(19:36):
up to thirteen hundred milligrams a day for most women
over fifty and that is a heck of a lot
of calcium. And if you're someone that doesn't really drink
a lot of tea, your coffee, or just doesn't enjoy milk,
you can have a really hard time getting that in
through diet, a really hard time. So a product that
I use routinely, or two products that I use routinely,
one of them will go through today. One of them
(19:56):
is a John West calcium fortified tuna that's kill high
in calcium because it's got the bones in the tuner
or mixed in. And the second one is the new
range of Yopro Perform. So it's in a black tub
with silver writing saying perform. They do tubs and they
do the pouches of it as well, and this is
really marketed at the athlete, right. So it's got compared
(20:17):
to the normal yopro range, which is about fifteen grams
of protein, this has got an additional five grams. It's
got twenty grams of protein per tub. It's got added BCAS,
which we know is our branch chain amino acid. It's
got some added probotics as well. But the reason I
use in isn't more for my athletic clients for some sure,
but the majority of time, I'm using this to really
(20:37):
bumper up my client's calcium intake, because one serving, which
is one hundred and seventy five grams in little tubs,
has four hundred and forty milligrams of calcium. That is
the as far as I'm aware, that is the highest
retail food product on the market in terms of calcium.
That's higher than a glass of milk. It's higher than
anything else on the market. Zuozi four hundred and forty
(20:59):
milligrams for more, tub of yogurt is insane. For an example,
a standard tub of yogurt, if you're choosing any brand
Greek yogurt, normal yogurt, or range between about watsuzi one
fifty two hundred milligrams. That's kind of the standard amount
of calcium.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
In a yogurt maxim yeah, maximum two hundred. I would
say some of the little ones, those little kind of
half tubs have got about one hundred one twenty five usually,
So yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, so maybe one to two hundred mac. So to
get four forty milligrams of calcium out of a single
tub of yogurt with twenty grams of protein because we
know in the age group that needs more calcium, that
age group also needs more protein because we tend to
lose our muscle mass. Most people aren't doing enough weight
training to support that muscle volume metabolically and for that
bone house, we want that extra protein and we absolutely
(21:44):
need that extra calcium. So it's a product that I'm
using quite strategically. So as I mentioned, it's the Yoproperform
range one hundred and seventy five grands. There's a couple
of different flavors. There's a mixed berry. I think there's
a banana and a mango off the top of my head,
So today we're going to go through the mixed berry.
It's found at coals and wool worse, they are that
little bit more expensive. But again it is that real
(22:06):
particular product that we're recommending for a particular type of client.
It's not for everybody. I don't I don't routinely put
my clients on it just because it's got a couple
of extra grams of protein in there. It's really only
if they need that high calcium amount. So ingredient wise,
it has milk, milk powder, concentrate way powder concentrates, so
that's how they're buffering up the protein and the calcium
(22:27):
in there. They're using a real mix of concentrated milk
proteins in there. Then it's followed by cream mixed berries
azero point five percent. It's got some apple pure and
some thickness, some lemon pulp, some live yogurt cultures, natural flavor,
natural color, sweetener being steavier, salt, and some milk minerals,
so they're also adding some extra minerals and calcium in
(22:48):
there as well. So per serving, per one seventy five
gram tub, five hundred kilogules, which is roughly about one
hundred and twenty calories, so very lean calorie wise for
how much protein can you're getting, it's insane really, twenty
point one grams of protein with nearly four grams of
branch channel A minium acids in there as well. So
a great little post workout option as well. And I
(23:10):
think that's what they're really trying to market that ad
as like a post workout kind of snack at that
athletic population. But as I said, I use it more
for my menopausal pause or ladies who also better for it.
Than the added protein, so it's kind of a win
win fat wise, very low in fat, one point two
grams of fat with only point seven of that being saturated,
six point eight grams of carbohydrate, Very low in carbohydrate
(23:32):
as well, with six grams of total sugar, ninety one
milligrams of sodium, and are whopping four hundred and forty
milligrams of calcium, which is just enormous. And then I'm
just trying to see if that is gluten free as well, Susie.
There's no mention of processing or anything. It just says
contains milk, so I think that looks safe for ours
Celiac as well. But as always, if you do have
(23:54):
celiax dicas, you need to be very careful and always
reading your labels. Even if as product is safe, you
need to just be checking that couple of months because
sometimes they change where the products are made in the
processing lines. So yeah, I just think an outstanding product
over all. It tastes really good. I've I've bought quite
a few of them myself for a post workout little snack,
and I really can't fault it. It is a little bit
runnier than the standard Yo pros the standard Joe pros
(24:16):
and even the Chibani fit range we quite like as well.
They're very thick. This is a bit runner, I think,
because of all the added milk powders and the calcium,
but still a really really functional product to use.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Have we China, Well, I sort of when it first
came out, I was like, oh, well, the general Yo
Pro's pretty good, so I've sort of kept my clients
on that, and I really quite like the pouches for
busy women. But when you told me this that the retreat,
I was shocked. I had no idea that there was
such a huge amount of calcium in there, and I
find thirteen hundred milligrams for postmenopausal women really difficult because
(24:49):
I don't necessarily want them having three milk coffees per day.
So this is a fantastic product. I will now use
it a lot more because you've told me about it.
Because with that, say, between a coffee a serve of cheese,
which most people are very happy to have, and that
they're right up there around one thousand. So yeah, great find,
and I will recommend it a whole lot more because
(25:09):
of that. And that's where functional foods can actually be
really really helpful in reaching nutrient goals and just being aware,
and some I think brands don't market aggressively on that.
Like as I said, no one told me that unless
you had, so I haven't had any comms from Yopa
to tell us that that's in there. So yeah, I
think it's fantastic. So it's a very good choice for
women in general or anyone who perhaps isn't a milk
(25:30):
drinker but doesn't mind yogurt, because I think that's the issue,
isn't it if you're not a milk person, and it
really is difficult to get the amounts that you need.
So if you do enjoy yogat, it's great. Because people
often say to me, can I have two yogats a day?
And I'll say, yeah, I don't have a problem. It's
more if you try and get food variety in. But
there's actually no issue with having a couple of yogurts.
It's low calorie, it's naturally in general not much sugar,
(25:53):
So yeah, you could, if you're a yogat person, you
could definitely have two serves a day and really get
right up there with calcium.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah. Absolutely. And I will also say because a lot
of people will write into us on Instagram and say, oh,
you know you mentioned this product. I just want to
know if that was sponsored, and absolutely not. Susie and
I will always be very very clear if a segment
is sponsored or a product is sponsored, we will always
be the first to just close that. So this segment
where we review products, it's completely not biased at all.
Susie and I just find great products in the supermarket.
(26:20):
Ninety percent of the time we review really good products.
Occasionally we find things and we go we don't like
that at all, and you'll see a negative from a
promise as well. But in this instance, always unless we
say so, it is not sponsored. It is just something
that we've found in the supermarket. I use it regularly
for my clients. I was quite shocked that other people
didn't realize how much calcium is it. As Susie said,
they don't really promote it. They promote it more from
(26:41):
an athletic perspective. But I've been using it for my
fifty plus ladies for basically a year since it came out.
Now it's such such a great product and fine, So
we will always be open and honest with you guys.
Our listeners mean the world to us, and if we
do occasionally have some sponsored segments, we will let you
know that as well. So we really do appreciate just
writing it and asking U is that, But the reality
(27:02):
is that we will always say that We'll never know
hide that from you guys. This is just generally a
great product that we found in the supermarket that we
think will benefit so many of our listeners.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
All right, then, well, for our last segment of the day,
it's our listener question and it came to my mind
this week. This is more of a personal experience because
my boys are at that age they're eight and a
half where a lot of kids around them are starting
to have bone fractures. And I'm finding it really interesting
observing that because you know, I always think, oh, if
(27:33):
the child's had a few fractures in a short period
of time, I'm thinking, oh, what's going on with their
bone health? So I think it's a good conversation for
mums of any growing children to take a look at
some of their key nutrient intakes and what do you
do from a calcium perspective if your child is not
a big milk drinker. So it's not unrelated to our
product discussion, because it's very common to have kids who
(27:56):
aren't biggest milk drinkers one hundred percent for a whole
range of reasons. They might not like the taste, they
might not have been exposed to it. And as a
parent of young children, if your child doesn't drink milk,
it is going to be very difficult to reach the
calcium requirements, which is crucial for bone development and bone
health long term through the ages. So what I would
(28:18):
first of all say is that if there is no
milk at all going in, hopefully they at least like
cheese and yogurt, and you would be wanting at least
three serves a day of those foods. So that might
be yoga in the morning, it might be yogurt at school,
and cheese at school. But I do also use with
this group leand more functional products like up and Go. Now,
(28:39):
if you said to me, is up and Go a
good choice? I would be like, Oh, it's pretty process.
It's got a lot of added sugar, but nutritionally for
kids who are on the fussy side or who won't,
for example, drink plain milk or yogurt, it can be
a really smart, functional food because it's got three hundred
milligams of calcium in it. It's so leanne got vitamin
(29:01):
D because one of the issues with young children in
Australia is that they're covered up all the time, and
what is important for bone health is not only calcium
but vitamin D. So if you've got a very fair
skin child who's always covered because you're petrified of them
getting burnt, it's quite possible they're not getting enough vitamin D,
which is a real issue functionally because it will be
(29:22):
affecting bone health and an number of other disease risks
through the ages. So I'm certainly not saying go out
and get your kid burnt each week, but I'm saying
be mindful that if your small child is always covered,
and you've got a very fair skin child, as I've
got one who's very fair, and we're so petrified of
them getting burnt, we cover them and you've got to
make sure they're getting their vitamin D. And the benefit
(29:43):
of up and Go is it also contains some vitamin D.
So if they you know, as I said, flatly, refuse milk.
That's a really functional product. The other functional product that
again I wouldn't routinely recommend for children is things like
Milo and I think even ovaltine, because again, I think
that they're fortified with a number of those key nutrients,
(30:03):
so you get that extra boost. I'm having a very
quick look now, I should have done it before I
logged on, because yeah, there is also vitamin D in
small amounts in Milo. And sometimes you'll have a child
who won't consume milk, but they might have it with
a bit of Milo, or they might have it on
ice cream, and that's a really other nice way for
them to get a little bit. Now I'm keep in
mind the way I'm using this. I'm not saying it's
(30:24):
great for kids to drink up and go and Milo.
I'm saying that if you have a very fussy child
and you're worried about their calcium intake because they're probably
not eating tuna with bones in it, these can be
really functional foods that you can use to increase their intake.
Because we can always go back to supplementation, but it's
never as good as having the nutrients in their natural
(30:44):
form in food because the synergistic effect of different nutrients
they absorb better in whole food. And yeah, I'm just
having a look. Ovaltine also has in it vitamin D
and also some calcium and iron added. So there can
you think of any but just off the top of
my head, there are three sort of functional super foods
I would use in the diets of children who are
(31:05):
either fussy or perhaps not getting enough sunlight. Sash calcium
to ensure optimal bone health.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, I would say that if it's milk in general,
like if the family I don't know, it might be
plant based, or the kid has a cow'smalk protein allergy
and won't drink milk at all, or like it's fair
enough if they're fussy, but if they just if the
milk is just not an option using your plant based milks,
but you need to ensure that they've got three hundred
milligrams of calcium as serve. So smoothie is a really
(31:32):
great idea. One of my friend's kid has a COLISMUK
protein allergy and can't have any and so we have
him on a fortified I think he takes a fortified
oat milk with three hundred grams And I said to
my friend, make sure you're adding in things to that
smoothie to make it taste really good, so he's enjoying it.
He has one a day, other makes it as a
breakfast or a snack. I said, cheer seeds are actually
pretty good in terms of calcium. Two tablespoons of cheer
(31:53):
seeds provide nearly two hundred milligrams of calcium. But if
you're talking about a small child or a baby, that's
way too much, way too much fiber. It's going to
all comes fround that nap. It's not going to be
a fun time. So just start with sort of like
a teaspoon, maybe a tablespoon max. But two tablespoons for
an adult is okay, but for a child's probably far
too much fiber. It's not going to be very fun.
But also in terms of using a good fortified plant
(32:16):
based milk and some cheer siage, you can use something
like almond butter. A cup of almonds contains nearly four
hundred milligrams of calcium. But no small child's gonna eat
a cup of almonds. So actually, just utilizing all of
these little things together in your diet and regularly focus
on things like almond butter instead of peanut butter. Dried
figs actually also have quite a lot of calcium, So
(32:36):
you can throw a handful of dried figs into a
smoothie or they can have a little bit of dried
figs is a snack. About six to eight dried figs
provide nearly two hundred and fifty milligrams of calcium. All
of your beans and legum, so I know, particularly for
older kids, beans and legumes are a fussy one, like
if you haven't really raised your kids to have a
lot of beans and legumes, it can be really hard.
(32:57):
But things like white beans, black beans and a mama
beans are really high and plant based calcium as well,
so where you can try to get them onto beans
and legumes, and even if it is in the dried
flavored form like you know our flavored father beans or
you know roasted chickpeas with a bit of flavoring on
them as well. The Happy Snack Company do these kid ones.
They're the Father Beans, a pizza flavor. I think me
(33:18):
eat them sometimes. They're pretty good as well. So any
sort of bean and legum is really good. And one
of our favorite ones which we recommend to our non
dairy based ladies is unhold tarhini, so that is really
really high calcium unhold tarhini, but from a flavor preference,
a child is not gonna want to eat that. So again,
adding something like that into a smoothie with some beautiful
frozen mango berries, maybe a little bit of honey and
(33:41):
some plant based milk and some unhold tarhini is a
really good way to get in quite a lot of
calcium into a small child or a child's diet as well.
So just being really conscious of a lot of these
things and trying to use little amounts of them throughout
the day, because kids aren't going to chow down a
couple of white beans, two tablespoons of cheer seas, a
couple of tablespoons and unhold tahini. You have to be
(34:01):
really smart about how you're utilizing these things, or mixing
a little bit of unhaltahini with a little bit of
honey with a little bit of peanut butter to kind
of buffer the taste of it, because it is it
is not really a great taste or something that a
child is actively going to enjoy, I don't think, so
being smart with how you use them, but using them
regularly as well. Another one is calcium set tofu is
(34:24):
really quite high in calcium, but really look for a
brand that is calcium set as well, and there's one
or two brands available at Coals and Wolworst. And again,
small children are probably not going to eat calcium unless
they've grown up, whether it's really culturally you know, known
food and they see it a lot. But you can
use a little bit of tofu and blend it into
a smoothie again where not a huge amount, but a
(34:45):
small amount of calcium set tofu, which again is a
smart way to boost up you know, the calcium intake
in a child's start who just doesn't really have all
or want a bar of dairy.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
You just will take any opportunity to stick tofu in
like it's a question about kids calcium, Like, I don't
know how you got into tofu in a smoothie like
that is a long shot. I was going to say,
make a Milo weep big slice, because then the Milo's
got vitamin D and calcium in it, not tofu in
a smoothie. I can't apologize to listeners. I need to
speak to her about a tofa addiction. But I think
(35:18):
go back to the ovaltine Milo of the children.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Milo.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
If you've got it, because I think it can be
a very functional food. The question was on kids lean kids.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I was for those that can't have dairy at all.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Okay, if anyone has mixed tofu into a smoothie, let
us know, I'm hugely interested.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
And that's where we're going to wrap up the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
So yes, but also just keep in mind with your kids,
whether or not, whatever form of calcium they're getting, get
a little bit of sunlight, because that is one of
the best ways to ensure that they're getting the vitamin
D they need to activate and make sure that the
bone synthesis it's just not enough to have calcium on
its own.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, definitely. All right, Well that brings us to the
end of another episode of the Nutution counch. If you
know that your own needs a little bit of a
booster in terms of protein, or maybe some delicious hot chocolates.
If you're an adult, you don't like your milo, maybe
you want a little bit of a hot chocolate. Check
out our delicious range of protein powders and hot chocolates
at design Biadietitians dot com. We have quite a few
functional products there with some added nutrients in there that
(36:16):
we know are beneficial to Women's House, So thank you
for listening and we will catch you in the next
week's episode.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Have a great week.
If you saw a spinach wrap, would you think that
it was healthier? What about some veggie based chips? There
are tons of supermarket foods that appear to be healthier,
but on closer inspection, this may not always be the case.
On today's episode of The Nutrition Couch, we share some
of the worst healthy masquerades that we've found in the soupermarket. Hi,
I'm Leanne Maud and I'm Sidney Burrow, and together we
(00:23):
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 healthy
foods disguised as other things. Today we chat about the
increasing number of people presenting with nutrient deficiencies post extreme
diets and weight loss surgery. We've also found a yogurt
that is particularly high in calcium, and our listener question
(00:45):
is all about kids and bone help. So to kick
us off today, Zuzie, I'll start off with I did
a little bit of real on TikTok a couple of
weeks ago now and I found these Should I name
the brand? These wraps? My lade to name the brand?
Maybe not? I found these spinach wraps on the market
and they were green, and I picked them up, but
I thought, interesting, as you do as a dietitian, you
(01:06):
think green wrap must be healthier. And I had in
big letters across the front of the back spinach wraps
and they're on sale, and I thought, well, forty percent off.
That's pretty good, right, And then right next to them
were the sweet potato wraps, and I thought, oh, that's
interesting because I could see how a lot of people
who perhaps were trying to reduce the amount of maybe
they had in their diet, or just perceived as a
sweet potato wrappers potentially with healthier a lot of people
(01:27):
would be buying them. And I thought, I'm really interested
to see the percentage of spinach and sweet potato in
these wraps. Lo and behold Susie. I turned them over
and the spinach was and I kid you not, I
nearly dropped the packet. I was so shocked. I knew
that it wouldn't be high, because as dietitians were trained
to really analyze the marketing and the food labeling, but
(01:48):
even I was shocked, and that doesn't happen very often
these days. Those wraps had one percent spinach of them,
and I was like, is this a joke? How are
they so green? And so they obviously had a bit
they said natural color in them to give them the
green appeal in the effect, and the sweet potato ones
would know real better. They were two point five percent,
I think from memory, and I just thought this is shocking.
(02:08):
How are they even allowed to advertise something as contained
spinach with one percent and the amount of people that
would pick that up thinking that that is absolutely a
healthy alternative, or think I'm going to give that to
my fussy kid so that they don't have to eat
their vegetables, and I just think that's not a replacement
for eating vegetables. I would rather my client had a
better multi grain wrap with some visible whole grains in there,
(02:29):
because the reality is that spinach wrap was still a
white refined rap with one percent spinach a bit of green,
I don't know, natural coloring or whatever, and it was
still just a white refined wrap. I would probably I
would much rather my clients had a better quality, nutritious
whole grain wrapp or even a couple of slices of
dense whole grain bread added a ton of spinach onto
(02:49):
it along with some other lovely veggies like some grated carrots,
some grated beetood and a bit of lean protein and
really built a balance wrap or sandwich with that, rather
than buying those wraps even if they were you know,
on sale, the home brand variety is you know, the
nice multi grain ones were still you know, a bit cheaper,
a bit more budget friendly. So I just it was
a good discussion. There's quite a few products in the
(03:10):
supermarket that kind of masked as healthier products, and I
think if we're not smart, and we're not we don't
take the time to read our food labels, it can
be very easy to be conned into buying something that
we think, oh, this is going to give me that
little bit of a boost, or you know, I don't
really love my veggies, so I'll choose this getting a
really nice veggie based wrap in. But the reality is
that one percent is not even going to make a
(03:32):
little blip on the radar in terms of how many
vegetables and salad you really need to be eating. Is it?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
No? And I noticed it actually. First of all, your
video was hilarious. It pops up on my social media
and I strongly encourage you to go and check it.
Out on lands TikTok or Instagram when she was horrified
about the wrap finding she was it's worth watching. And
I think that when we had closer to Lukalan that
it actually had color. It had chlorophylinage and that to
(03:57):
give it the green to make a green. So of
course in the spinach. I'd noticed it when I was
doing a crispbread review because I knew that there was
sort of a couple of new products in supermarkets to
replace a Lina And one of the ones is Splits,
the Splits range, which is stocked in coals, and they're
actually got vegetable names. So there's like pumpkin, carrot, and
(04:19):
when you have a closer look, one of them's got
like three percent carrot powder. This one I'm looking at,
it's got dried pumpkin three percent. Like that is not vegetable,
you know, like a bit of vegetable powder is not
the same, particularly in a really refined product where you're
getting no nutrition. And I think in the case of raps,
for example, wraps are are highly processed. Definitely, bread is
(04:39):
a less processed product. I think raps really masquerade is
being healthy, but it takes a lot of processing to
create that consistency in texture. And you'll notice that wraps
you can keep for a really long time as well.
So again nutritionally not superior, but when you sort of
associate them with vegetables, they get that feeling. And the
same with these crisp bread But these chrisp bread are
(04:59):
so ultra pro like the base is rice, which is
highly refined. It's not brown rice, and as such, there's
very little fiber in them and they barely feel you.
But they've all got vegetable names. I see it then,
I do see it in some of the sort of snacks.
Now we're not talking about some of the veggie chips,
which are clearly like vegetables, like you can literally see
the slice of beet troot in the packet. That's not
(05:21):
the one because we're talking about. We're talking about the
ones that are more like the extruded kind of snacks
that look nothing like a vegetable, and often they don't
have a whole lot of vegetable in them. I think
those some of those pea snap ones as well a
little bit, but they're I've just looked at the vegie
straws actually because I thought they would be a bit dodged,
but they're actually got quite a high vegetable percentage. They
(05:41):
are still ultra processed. There's still ultra processed because you're right,
but they actually do have quite a high vegetable content.
So it's kind of in that gray area. But some
of the sort of ones that we've spoken about before
that i've got msg aded, they don't have a whole lot.
And I also think looking back to some kids products,
I remember in the kids section, you might be more
aware of this than I because your kids are that
(06:02):
age that there's a few like chip type products for kids,
like popped things, and they've got like a little bit
of vegetable, but when you look it's very very small,
so you don't have to do it one scan.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, kids, Isla. I remember Hindes have a good one.
I think it was like tomato and lentil. There are
some definitely some better ones, but have a scan because
I think they've gone off the market now because there
was a lot of controversy around them. This was a
few years ago, before I even had my kids. I
remember from a memory it was something like I think
they were like the veggie the fruit straps, like almost
not roll ups, but kind of a similar thing, right,
(06:34):
But they were trying to be a bit healthier, and
they were saying that they're like fruit and veggie straps basically,
and I remember from memory they were like eighty percent
ninety percent fruit, like they were basically all sugar, even
though it was natural and it was fruit, and it
was like one percent vegetable powder. And again I think
there was actually from memory, like a bit of a
legal case or something. I'll have to look it up
and go back, but I remember I think they got
pulled off the market soon after because they weren't actually
(06:56):
allowed to say maybe it wasn't even one percent, maybe
it was even less than one percent vegetable in them,
but they were calling them like, you know, strawberry and
beech root, or they were calling them zucchini and blueberry
or something. But it was like heavy sugar. It was
added sugar. Like they just shouldn't have been anywhere near
the Kid's aisle basically, and I don't think they even
really exist anymore, but I have seen similar things pop
up in there, like in the music bar Aile recently
(07:18):
because misaw something and I think it had Elsa on
the front and she'sn't going through her elsie ear at
the moment, and the other one had Spider Man and
she's like, oh, those and I was like, absolutely not.
They were basically just like the roll ups, but they
said you know, a bit of a kind of fruit
and vege on the front of it, but they were
still really high sugar, like over ten grams from memory.
So I think it's just an important recap to always
be reading our food labels and always just be that
(07:40):
a little bit aware and not get sucked into the
front of pack marketing, because really, brands can say anything,
can't they. And a lot of times brands get around
it by what they call the name, like they might say,
you know, veggie Field or something, but I think they
can just say that right, or they can say I
remember the years ago, there was a brand of shampoo
called I can't remember the name, but it sounded like organic,
(08:02):
like it had the last couple of letters were changed,
but it wasn't organic at all, and it was just
this huge marketing thing where the brand didn't use organic products,
but the actual name of the brand kind of sounded
like that, so everybody naturally made the assumption. So I
think it's just a really important reminder not to really
pay too much attention to the front of pack marketing
and really turn that over and look at the nutrition ingredients,
(08:22):
look at the nutritional information panel, and really make sure
if you're buying that as a better product to kind
of boost the veggie intake in your diet or your
kid's diart, it actually has a decent amount. And by
decent amount, I would say at least over ten percent,
wouldn't you.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, so I've just found another one organic carrot puff
So these are in the kids section over seven months old.
The ingredient organic cornflower seventy seven percent, organic sunflower or
rape seed oil, and then organic carrot powder ten percent.
But to me, it's it's just a powder form. You're
not getting any dietary fiber, so it's masquerading because that's
(08:57):
ultimately a highly processed food for kids that offers no
dietary fiber. But it's got carrot written all over it,
so you'd be thinking it's healthy where it's really it's
just puff corn. It's not that much better than a
puff corn chip really, So yeah, you do have to
be careful. But if I saw a powder added I
don't count that as a vegetable. That's not the same
thing because nutritionally from a vegetable you're getting vitamins and
(09:19):
minerals which is in the whole form of the food
and dietary fiber, and a powder. You're just getting a
refined form and giving it the color. So yeah, as
soon as you see that, I'd be a little bit
bit suspicious. So again, if you see a spinach wraps,
probably not that great loomba. Alright, you actually mentioned this
to me a few weeks ago, and you said that
(09:41):
you had come across a case of clinical scurvy. Now,
for those of you who are thinking, oh, I've heard
that word before, I want you to think back to
your time at school when you were thinking about and
learning about Captain Cook and when the first fleet first
came out to Australia, and of course a lot of
the people on the boat suffered scurvy, which was the
clinical nutrient deficiency of vitamin C that we get from
(10:04):
fresh food. And of course, in the olden days, when
we were on boats for months at a time, the
amounts of fresh food were very very light on and
over time people could develop vitamin seed deficiency. Now it
is very very rare to see that in Australia. I've
never heard or seen of it, but just by chance
on my news feed it popped up that there had
been another clinical case reported from a person who'd been
(10:25):
post gastric sleeve surgery or gastric band surgery, and you
and I were just having a little discussion about it,
and it doesn't surprise me because one of the secondary
effects of weight loss surgery at the extreme, whether it's
a gastric bipass or sleeve, where people's food intake is
severely restricted, or also more recently where people are using
(10:46):
semaglue tides like ozen peak and more govy for those
who are very strict with their diet or have severe
limitation physically, as in the case with gastric surgeries, and
the first foods to often go from the menu are
fresh whole foods. So in the case of gastric surgery,
one sort of soft food tends to go down better,
(11:06):
or there's a real focus on getting enough protein, and
if you can't eat a lot and you're getting your protein,
there's not that much room for salad and vegetables left,
or the same in the case of GLP or semaglue tides,
where you've got severely limited appetite and you're really focused
on protein rich foods, there's not a lot of room
necessarily for a large salad or if that's not your
natural preference. It's very easy to say, have you know,
(11:26):
an egg for breakfast or yogurt mash tuna and rice
for lunch, Like, if you're not really onto it, over time,
you can absolutely and we're seeing it more and more
because of these more extreme diets. So we just thought
it was an interesting discussion about the importance you know,
nutrition and food. It's not just about diet and weight control.
It's actually about getting key nutrients we need for optimal function.
(11:47):
And just fresh back from our retreat, you know, we
saw several of our ten ds with nutrient deficiencies, even
though they're pretty healthy bunts, you know, listening to the
nutrition couch and having a firm, interesting nutrition and even
then with modern day pressures on life and food often
eaten on the run, you know, it does happen, and
vitamin see can be at risk if you're limiting fresh food,
(12:07):
particularly fruits and veggies in the diet.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Absolutely and I'll go back to the story which I
was telling you. I think it was a couple of
weeks ago, but this actually happened years ago, back when
I was still a clinical dietitian back at one of
the Brisbane hospitals. And that time, you used to sit
in clinic and you go through your referrals that morning,
and the doctors would just right on the top of
the referral like why they preferred the client. Because in
that dietitian clinic, we took a lot of referrals from
(12:31):
doctors and I typically see stuff like, you know, newly
diagnosed celiac. I might see weight loss and you know,
blood sugar management for poorly controlled diabetes. And this one
day I picked up a referral form and it said
scurvy with a couple of exclamation points next to it,
and I went, no, they're kidding, like scurvy. No, I've
never seen that. I've been practicing for over a decade
and I've never seen scurvy. And you just said, Susan,
(12:52):
you've never seen a clinical diagnosis and scurvy and you're
an entire practice as well, And I thought, surely this
is this is not right, right, surely they made a
missa and the one behold, this lady came in and
she yeah, she had scurvy. She had all of the symptoms.
So from a symptom based perspective, some of the signs
of a very severe vitamin seed deficiency that would lead
to scurvy are things like bleeding, gums, wobbly toothed, like
(13:15):
a lot of issues were dental, really poor wound healing.
She had these little like red spots and stuff all
up her arms and they just wouldn't heal. Anemia, fatigue,
black circles under your eyes, weakness and fatigue. So there's
some of the big signs, and obviously they're not just
signs of scurvy. They can be signs of a range
of other things, including simple things like malnutrition and other
(13:36):
types of vitamin and mineral deficiencies as well. And when
it came down to it, we did a full diet
review because I was like, how was you know, a
woman in this day and age, living in Australia, we
have good access to food and fresh food, how does
this happen? And the crux of it was Susie that
she was following such a restrictive keutogenic diet for the
last two years. That she had not allowed herself a
(13:57):
piece of fruit or juice or nothing with fruit in
it for years, and the only vegetables she allowed herself
to eat were the green ones. So we do know
that some of our veggies have vitamin C in them
as well, things like capsigerm and tomato. She didn't do
any colors but green, and even then she would weigh
the amount of green vegetables because she was so worried
about the carb content and that kicking her out of katosis. Basically,
(14:20):
so this ketogenic diet that she was using for you know,
weight loss and health had actually done the opposite effect
and created malnutrition and scurvy in her. So we basically
slowly just took her off that and slowly started to
reintroduce carbohydrates and some fresh foods and some better quality
vegetables and more diversity into her diet. But it can
take a really long time to reverse in people as well.
(14:43):
But it's just crazy to be seeing these types of
things in this day and age. But it really does
come down to overly restricted diet. Sometimes it's intentional, other
times it's not. You might have you know, some quite
severe malabsorption medical issues going on where your body's just
not able to absorb some neutral You may have had
some big surgery like Susie mentioned for potentially weight loss,
(15:04):
and you're simply just not able to eat the required amount,
volume or texture of foods to get the nutrition or
volume in. And you know, even post a lot of
these big barometric type surgeries, you're supposed to take essentially
multivitamins for life. And what I used to see when
I was doing the baroer to clinics as well, is
a lot of people just couldn't tolerate them because they
were massive tablets and they just couldn't get them down,
(15:25):
and they had so many symptoms like nausea in volmenting
post surgery that they were really really struggling. So we
saw so much malnutrition in those clinics, and it was
awful because you know, people were like, oh, I've lost
thirty kilos, this is so amazing, but at the same
time they felt so crap because they couldn't get in
the required amounts of nutrition. So I think it's just
another really good example where balanced eating always trumps, doesn't it.
(15:48):
Like we always come back to good quality, balanced eating
fresh foods. If the diet that you're following is not
maintainable for life, if it's creating nutrient deficiencies, it's probably
not something that's actually really healthy for you. Were probably
not something you can do long term or should do
long term.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Even I think that fruit gets a bit of a
beating because we're so focused and even myself on people
getting enough vegetables. So really, and I think there's that
belief out there that green vegetables are so superior nutritionally,
and indeed they do have a number of key nutrient
properties which make them a souper food, particularly for cell
health and anti cancer action. But the orange and red
(16:24):
group to the sweet potato, red capsicum tomato, as you said,
also very very rich in antioxidants, even though they may
have a high carbohydrate content in the case of something
like sweet potato. But certainly with fruit, I think you're
either a fruit eater or you're note. So my fruit
eaters are like so happy right now because it's coming
into stone fruit season and they're like, oh my god,
how much can I cram in? You know, the beautiful
(16:47):
apricots and peaches and nectarines, which are so nutrient rich
and very high in vitamin C, so such beautiful skin
and so good for us. But then you have people
who don't eat a lot of fruit at all. You know,
they'll struggle to even get a piece in per day.
For me, that's the ones who are at risk offor
of constipation because they're not getting that beautiful soluble fiber
from things like apples, oranges and then stone fruits. So
(17:08):
if you know yourself you're not a big fruit eater,
it is important that you're getting I would say, at
least one piece a day, and ideally of something vitamin
sea rich. So things like your berries are great, particularly
you can add them to smoothies or to yogurt. Coming
into stone fruit season another great option, keyway fruit not
in season now, but very nutrient rich. You know, really
make a concerted effort to try and get at least
(17:29):
one piece of fresh food and that will go a
long way and ticking the box on your vitamin seed intake.
But for anyone listening who has had gastric bypass or
sleeve surgery in the past or is taking that a
new range of ozen peak w go vy and know
that your intake has significantly reduced in the short term,
This would absolutely be a group I would suggest a
(17:50):
general multi vitamin because when your intakes significantly reduced for
whatever reason, you might be unwell, you might be having
some sort of treatment, you might not be able to
eat very much because of a throat issue, dental issue,
or you may be taking one of these new drugs
or physically restricted with gastric surgeries. Absolutely, you should be
taking a women's multi vitamin because at least then in
(18:10):
the background you're getting that kind of nutrient hit at
least every second day. And we recently spoke about supplements
on the podcast and how you and I often take
a lot of clients of supplements. But in that instance
where you know your intake is severely reduced, or you
may be doing a strict diet for a period of
time for whatever reason, that is a perfect reason to
add a general multi vitamin to your regime, just to
(18:31):
tick the box on those key nutrients.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah. Absolutely, And actually, if you've had barotric surgery, you
just need to go that one step further because generally
there are specific multi vitamins that you actually should be taking.
They have higher amounts of things than just the standard
multi vitamin that you might pick off the shelf from
Coals or will Worth or the local pharmacy. So really
make sure that you're following up with your team, your surgery,
and your dietisian to ensure that you're getting those higher
(18:55):
amounts of some of those because depending on the type
of bariotric surgery of the type of that you've had,
sometimes that can actually create more malabsorption and more issues
with different types of nutrients. So really make sure that
you're taking the appropriate type of multi vitem and not
just a random one that you've found in your local
pharmacy as well. Moving on to our next section, sushi.
(19:15):
Talking about nutrients, calcium we harp on about all the time.
All of our listeners are how important it is, and
I thought that everybody kind of knew about this, and
as I was recommending it so often in my retreat,
we I think we need to talk about this on
the podcast because there are so many of our ladies
who are really into those kind of menopause yas. And
the calcium requirements go from around about one thousand milligrams
(19:36):
up to thirteen hundred milligrams a day for most women
over fifty and that is a heck of a lot
of calcium. And if you're someone that doesn't really drink
a lot of tea, your coffee, or just doesn't enjoy milk,
you can have a really hard time getting that in
through diet, a really hard time. So a product that
I use routinely, or two products that I use routinely,
one of them will go through today. One of them
(19:56):
is a John West calcium fortified tuna that's kill high
in calcium because it's got the bones in the tuner
or mixed in. And the second one is the new
range of Yopro Perform. So it's in a black tub
with silver writing saying perform. They do tubs and they
do the pouches of it as well, and this is
really marketed at the athlete, right. So it's got compared
(20:17):
to the normal yopro range, which is about fifteen grams
of protein, this has got an additional five grams. It's
got twenty grams of protein per tub. It's got added BCAS,
which we know is our branch chain amino acid. It's
got some added probotics as well. But the reason I
use in isn't more for my athletic clients for some sure,
but the majority of time, I'm using this to really
(20:37):
bumper up my client's calcium intake, because one serving, which
is one hundred and seventy five grams in little tubs,
has four hundred and forty milligrams of calcium. That is
the as far as I'm aware, that is the highest
retail food product on the market in terms of calcium.
That's higher than a glass of milk. It's higher than
anything else on the market. Zuozi four hundred and forty
(20:59):
milligrams for more, tub of yogurt is insane. For an example,
a standard tub of yogurt, if you're choosing any brand
Greek yogurt, normal yogurt, or range between about watsuzi one
fifty two hundred milligrams. That's kind of the standard amount
of calcium.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
In a yogurt maxim yeah, maximum two hundred. I would
say some of the little ones, those little kind of
half tubs have got about one hundred one twenty five usually,
So yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, so maybe one to two hundred mac. So to
get four forty milligrams of calcium out of a single
tub of yogurt with twenty grams of protein because we
know in the age group that needs more calcium, that
age group also needs more protein because we tend to
lose our muscle mass. Most people aren't doing enough weight
training to support that muscle volume metabolically and for that
bone house, we want that extra protein and we absolutely
(21:44):
need that extra calcium. So it's a product that I'm
using quite strategically. So as I mentioned, it's the Yoproperform
range one hundred and seventy five grands. There's a couple
of different flavors. There's a mixed berry. I think there's
a banana and a mango off the top of my head,
So today we're going to go through the mixed berry.
It's found at coals and wool worse, they are that
little bit more expensive. But again it is that real
(22:06):
particular product that we're recommending for a particular type of client.
It's not for everybody. I don't I don't routinely put
my clients on it just because it's got a couple
of extra grams of protein in there. It's really only
if they need that high calcium amount. So ingredient wise,
it has milk, milk powder, concentrate way powder concentrates, so
that's how they're buffering up the protein and the calcium
(22:27):
in there. They're using a real mix of concentrated milk
proteins in there. Then it's followed by cream mixed berries
azero point five percent. It's got some apple pure and
some thickness, some lemon pulp, some live yogurt cultures, natural flavor,
natural color, sweetener being steavier, salt, and some milk minerals,
so they're also adding some extra minerals and calcium in
(22:48):
there as well. So per serving, per one seventy five
gram tub, five hundred kilogules, which is roughly about one
hundred and twenty calories, so very lean calorie wise for
how much protein can you're getting, it's insane really, twenty
point one grams of protein with nearly four grams of
branch channel A minium acids in there as well. So
a great little post workout option as well. And I
(23:10):
think that's what they're really trying to market that ad
as like a post workout kind of snack at that
athletic population. But as I said, I use it more
for my menopausal pause or ladies who also better for it.
Than the added protein, so it's kind of a win
win fat wise, very low in fat, one point two
grams of fat with only point seven of that being saturated,
six point eight grams of carbohydrate, Very low in carbohydrate
(23:32):
as well, with six grams of total sugar, ninety one
milligrams of sodium, and are whopping four hundred and forty
milligrams of calcium, which is just enormous. And then I'm
just trying to see if that is gluten free as well, Susie.
There's no mention of processing or anything. It just says
contains milk, so I think that looks safe for ours
Celiac as well. But as always, if you do have
(23:54):
celiax dicas, you need to be very careful and always
reading your labels. Even if as product is safe, you
need to just be checking that couple of months because
sometimes they change where the products are made in the
processing lines. So yeah, I just think an outstanding product
over all. It tastes really good. I've I've bought quite
a few of them myself for a post workout little snack,
and I really can't fault it. It is a little bit
runnier than the standard Yo pros the standard Joe pros
(24:16):
and even the Chibani fit range we quite like as well.
They're very thick. This is a bit runner, I think,
because of all the added milk powders and the calcium,
but still a really really functional product to use.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Have we China, Well, I sort of when it first
came out, I was like, oh, well, the general Yo
Pro's pretty good, so I've sort of kept my clients
on that, and I really quite like the pouches for
busy women. But when you told me this that the retreat,
I was shocked. I had no idea that there was
such a huge amount of calcium in there, and I
find thirteen hundred milligrams for postmenopausal women really difficult because
(24:49):
I don't necessarily want them having three milk coffees per day.
So this is a fantastic product. I will now use
it a lot more because you've told me about it.
Because with that, say, between a coffee a serve of cheese,
which most people are very happy to have, and that
they're right up there around one thousand. So yeah, great find,
and I will recommend it a whole lot more because
(25:09):
of that. And that's where functional foods can actually be
really really helpful in reaching nutrient goals and just being aware,
and some I think brands don't market aggressively on that.
Like as I said, no one told me that unless
you had, so I haven't had any comms from Yopa
to tell us that that's in there. So yeah, I
think it's fantastic. So it's a very good choice for
women in general or anyone who perhaps isn't a milk
(25:30):
drinker but doesn't mind yogurt, because I think that's the issue,
isn't it if you're not a milk person, and it
really is difficult to get the amounts that you need.
So if you do enjoy yogat, it's great. Because people
often say to me, can I have two yogats a day?
And I'll say, yeah, I don't have a problem. It's
more if you try and get food variety in. But
there's actually no issue with having a couple of yogurts.
It's low calorie, it's naturally in general not much sugar,
(25:53):
So yeah, you could, if you're a yogat person, you
could definitely have two serves a day and really get
right up there with calcium.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah. Absolutely. And I will also say because a lot
of people will write into us on Instagram and say, oh,
you know you mentioned this product. I just want to
know if that was sponsored, and absolutely not. Susie and
I will always be very very clear if a segment
is sponsored or a product is sponsored, we will always
be the first to just close that. So this segment
where we review products, it's completely not biased at all.
Susie and I just find great products in the supermarket.
(26:20):
Ninety percent of the time we review really good products.
Occasionally we find things and we go we don't like
that at all, and you'll see a negative from a
promise as well. But in this instance, always unless we
say so, it is not sponsored. It is just something
that we've found in the supermarket. I use it regularly
for my clients. I was quite shocked that other people
didn't realize how much calcium is it. As Susie said,
they don't really promote it. They promote it more from
(26:41):
an athletic perspective. But I've been using it for my
fifty plus ladies for basically a year since it came out.
Now it's such such a great product and fine, So
we will always be open and honest with you guys.
Our listeners mean the world to us, and if we
do occasionally have some sponsored segments, we will let you
know that as well. So we really do appreciate just
writing it and asking U is that, But the reality
(27:02):
is that we will always say that We'll never know
hide that from you guys. This is just generally a
great product that we found in the supermarket that we
think will benefit so many of our listeners.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
All right, then, well, for our last segment of the day,
it's our listener question and it came to my mind
this week. This is more of a personal experience because
my boys are at that age they're eight and a
half where a lot of kids around them are starting
to have bone fractures. And I'm finding it really interesting
observing that because you know, I always think, oh, if
(27:33):
the child's had a few fractures in a short period
of time, I'm thinking, oh, what's going on with their
bone health? So I think it's a good conversation for
mums of any growing children to take a look at
some of their key nutrient intakes and what do you
do from a calcium perspective if your child is not
a big milk drinker. So it's not unrelated to our
product discussion, because it's very common to have kids who
(27:56):
aren't biggest milk drinkers one hundred percent for a whole
range of reasons. They might not like the taste, they
might not have been exposed to it. And as a
parent of young children, if your child doesn't drink milk,
it is going to be very difficult to reach the
calcium requirements, which is crucial for bone development and bone
health long term through the ages. So what I would
(28:18):
first of all say is that if there is no
milk at all going in, hopefully they at least like
cheese and yogurt, and you would be wanting at least
three serves a day of those foods. So that might
be yoga in the morning, it might be yogurt at school,
and cheese at school. But I do also use with
this group leand more functional products like up and Go. Now,
(28:39):
if you said to me, is up and Go a
good choice? I would be like, Oh, it's pretty process.
It's got a lot of added sugar, but nutritionally for
kids who are on the fussy side or who won't,
for example, drink plain milk or yogurt, it can be
a really smart, functional food because it's got three hundred
milligams of calcium in it. It's so leanne got vitamin
(29:01):
D because one of the issues with young children in
Australia is that they're covered up all the time, and
what is important for bone health is not only calcium
but vitamin D. So if you've got a very fair
skin child who's always covered because you're petrified of them
getting burnt, it's quite possible they're not getting enough vitamin D,
which is a real issue functionally because it will be
(29:22):
affecting bone health and an number of other disease risks
through the ages. So I'm certainly not saying go out
and get your kid burnt each week, but I'm saying
be mindful that if your small child is always covered,
and you've got a very fair skin child, as I've
got one who's very fair, and we're so petrified of
them getting burnt, we cover them and you've got to
make sure they're getting their vitamin D. And the benefit
(29:43):
of up and Go is it also contains some vitamin D.
So if they you know, as I said, flatly, refuse milk.
That's a really functional product. The other functional product that
again I wouldn't routinely recommend for children is things like
Milo and I think even ovaltine, because again, I think
that they're fortified with a number of those key nutrients,
(30:03):
so you get that extra boost. I'm having a very
quick look now, I should have done it before I
logged on, because yeah, there is also vitamin D in
small amounts in Milo. And sometimes you'll have a child
who won't consume milk, but they might have it with
a bit of Milo, or they might have it on
ice cream, and that's a really other nice way for
them to get a little bit. Now I'm keep in
mind the way I'm using this. I'm not saying it's
(30:24):
great for kids to drink up and go and Milo.
I'm saying that if you have a very fussy child
and you're worried about their calcium intake because they're probably
not eating tuna with bones in it, these can be
really functional foods that you can use to increase their intake.
Because we can always go back to supplementation, but it's
never as good as having the nutrients in their natural
(30:44):
form in food because the synergistic effect of different nutrients
they absorb better in whole food. And yeah, I'm just
having a look. Ovaltine also has in it vitamin D
and also some calcium and iron added. So there can
you think of any but just off the top of
my head, there are three sort of functional super foods
I would use in the diets of children who are
(31:05):
either fussy or perhaps not getting enough sunlight. Sash calcium
to ensure optimal bone health.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, I would say that if it's milk in general,
like if the family I don't know, it might be
plant based, or the kid has a cow'smalk protein allergy
and won't drink milk at all, or like it's fair
enough if they're fussy, but if they just if the
milk is just not an option using your plant based milks,
but you need to ensure that they've got three hundred
milligrams of calcium as serve. So smoothie is a really
(31:32):
great idea. One of my friend's kid has a COLISMUK
protein allergy and can't have any and so we have
him on a fortified I think he takes a fortified
oat milk with three hundred grams And I said to
my friend, make sure you're adding in things to that
smoothie to make it taste really good, so he's enjoying it.
He has one a day, other makes it as a
breakfast or a snack. I said, cheer seeds are actually
pretty good in terms of calcium. Two tablespoons of cheer
(31:53):
seeds provide nearly two hundred milligrams of calcium. But if
you're talking about a small child or a baby, that's
way too much, way too much fiber. It's going to
all comes fround that nap. It's not going to be
a fun time. So just start with sort of like
a teaspoon, maybe a tablespoon max. But two tablespoons for
an adult is okay, but for a child's probably far
too much fiber. It's not going to be very fun.
But also in terms of using a good fortified plant
(32:16):
based milk and some cheer siage, you can use something
like almond butter. A cup of almonds contains nearly four
hundred milligrams of calcium. But no small child's gonna eat
a cup of almonds. So actually, just utilizing all of
these little things together in your diet and regularly focus
on things like almond butter instead of peanut butter. Dried
figs actually also have quite a lot of calcium, So
(32:36):
you can throw a handful of dried figs into a
smoothie or they can have a little bit of dried
figs is a snack. About six to eight dried figs
provide nearly two hundred and fifty milligrams of calcium. All
of your beans and legum, so I know, particularly for
older kids, beans and legumes are a fussy one, like
if you haven't really raised your kids to have a
lot of beans and legumes, it can be really hard.
(32:57):
But things like white beans, black beans and a mama
beans are really high and plant based calcium as well,
so where you can try to get them onto beans
and legumes, and even if it is in the dried
flavored form like you know our flavored father beans or
you know roasted chickpeas with a bit of flavoring on
them as well. The Happy Snack Company do these kid ones.
They're the Father Beans, a pizza flavor. I think me
(33:18):
eat them sometimes. They're pretty good as well. So any
sort of bean and legum is really good. And one
of our favorite ones which we recommend to our non
dairy based ladies is unhold tarhini, so that is really
really high calcium unhold tarhini, but from a flavor preference,
a child is not gonna want to eat that. So again,
adding something like that into a smoothie with some beautiful
frozen mango berries, maybe a little bit of honey and
(33:41):
some plant based milk and some unhold tarhini is a
really good way to get in quite a lot of
calcium into a small child or a child's diet as well.
So just being really conscious of a lot of these
things and trying to use little amounts of them throughout
the day, because kids aren't going to chow down a
couple of white beans, two tablespoons of cheer seas, a
couple of tablespoons and unhold tahini. You have to be
(34:01):
really smart about how you're utilizing these things, or mixing
a little bit of unhaltahini with a little bit of
honey with a little bit of peanut butter to kind
of buffer the taste of it, because it is it
is not really a great taste or something that a
child is actively going to enjoy, I don't think, so
being smart with how you use them, but using them
regularly as well. Another one is calcium set tofu is
(34:24):
really quite high in calcium, but really look for a
brand that is calcium set as well, and there's one
or two brands available at Coals and Wolworst. And again,
small children are probably not going to eat calcium unless
they've grown up, whether it's really culturally you know, known
food and they see it a lot. But you can
use a little bit of tofu and blend it into
a smoothie again where not a huge amount, but a
(34:45):
small amount of calcium set tofu, which again is a
smart way to boost up you know, the calcium intake
in a child's start who just doesn't really have all
or want a bar of dairy.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
You just will take any opportunity to stick tofu in
like it's a question about kids calcium, Like, I don't
know how you got into tofu in a smoothie like
that is a long shot. I was going to say,
make a Milo weep big slice, because then the Milo's
got vitamin D and calcium in it, not tofu in
a smoothie. I can't apologize to listeners. I need to
speak to her about a tofa addiction. But I think
(35:18):
go back to the ovaltine Milo of the children.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Milo.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
If you've got it, because I think it can be
a very functional food. The question was on kids lean kids.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I was for those that can't have dairy at all.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Okay, if anyone has mixed tofu into a smoothie, let
us know, I'm hugely interested.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
And that's where we're going to wrap up the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
So yes, but also just keep in mind with your kids,
whether or not, whatever form of calcium they're getting, get
a little bit of sunlight, because that is one of
the best ways to ensure that they're getting the vitamin
D they need to activate and make sure that the
bone synthesis it's just not enough to have calcium on
its own.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, definitely. All right, Well that brings us to the
end of another episode of the Nutution counch. If you
know that your own needs a little bit of a
booster in terms of protein, or maybe some delicious hot chocolates.
If you're an adult, you don't like your milo, maybe
you want a little bit of a hot chocolate. Check
out our delicious range of protein powders and hot chocolates
at design Biadietitians dot com. We have quite a few
functional products there with some added nutrients in there that
(36:16):
we know are beneficial to Women's House, So thank you
for listening and we will catch you in the next
week's episode.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Have a great week.
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