Everyone is asking AI about their diet. Recipes, meal plans, protein targets, what to eat for weight loss. And some of what it spits out is genuinely useful. Some of it is wrong. And some of it, as one American celebrity found out the hard way after buying a fake celebrity-endorsed Jell-O diet, can actually make you unwell.
This week Leanne and Susie give their honest take on exactly what AI can and cannot do when it comes to nutrition, where it is actually worth using, and the specific reasons why it will never replace the kind of personalised advice that accounts for who you actually are.
Then they go deep on one of the most-requested topics the show has ever had: a comprehensive guide to the best gluten-free products in Australian supermarkets right now.
In this episode:
The Jell-O diet scandal that kicked off this conversation, why fake celebrity diet endorsements generated by AI are now a genuine public health concern, and how to spot them
Where AI genuinely helps with nutrition, including getting recipe ideas from pantry leftovers, converting a meal plan into a shopping list, and even making your food photography look better
The critical limitations of AI diet advice: why it defaults to population averages, cannot account for your individual nutrient needs, does not know the Australian supermarket, and will simply agree with whatever you tell it rather than pushing back when you are wrong
Why accountability is the single biggest thing AI cannot replicate, and why that matters more than most people realise when it comes to actually getting results
The gluten-free product guide for Australian supermarkets in 2025: Leanne and Susie's current recommendations across bread, crackers, cereals, frozen meals, sauces, snacks, and more, including the specific brands and products they actually recommend to their celiac and gluten-intolerant clients
Why newly diagnosed celiac clients make one consistent mistake with gluten-free eating, and the simple shift that saves money and dramatically improves nutrition at the same time
The Health Lab Pistachio and Rose Protein Super Treat reviewed: beautiful packaging, white chocolate as the first ingredient, and 12% saturated fat. Is it a protein bar or a chocolate bar with good PR?
How to eat well after leaving home on a tight budget: the smartest protein sources for young people who have zero cooking experience, very little money, and a toaster
Shop Designed by Dietitians:
If your diet needs a boost of protein, creatine, magnesium, or collagen, explore the evidence-based range formulated by two Australian dietitians at designedbydietitians.com
Keep sharing The Nutrition Couch with the people in your life who need it. Over 5.5 million downloads and counting.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Have you tried AI in your life or work, maybe
for recipes or diet tips, or maybe you've even downloaded
a diet. On this week's episode of The Nutrition Couch,
we deep dive diet and AI and what you need
to be careful of. Hi, I'm City Burrow and I'm
Leanne Lord, and together we bring you The Nutrition Couch,
the weekly podcast that keeps you up to date with
everything you need to know in the world of nutrition
(00:24):
as well as all things AI. We have our annual
gluten free product review, we deep dive a well known
health brand, and our listener question is all about eating
well when you have just left home. So I'll give
you a little intro into this segment first of all,
because first of all, I'll share I think I've shared
before that Leann's in a relationship with AI. I think
her husband's feeling quite threatened. She spends a lot. How
(00:46):
many hours of daily and do you spend talking to
your AI boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
My husband hours a day? I will occasionally ask.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
You a question that's it occasional?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh, I don't know, I'd be pushing I think we
should get some time sheets done. But also assuming he's
a boy which is completely sexist, like it's probably a woman.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Who else could multitask like that? It has to be
a female.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
The reason that I brought this up was that anyone
who watches The Housewives of Beverly Hills, which I know
is lowbrow, don't judge me.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
We all have globsty pleasures.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
But in the finale recently Kathy Hilton, who lets be honest,
is a bit of a legend in terms of American celebrity,
she reported that she had been sold an ai diet.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
It's called the Jello diet.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I haven't seen it here in Australia, but basically it
was endorsed by people like Katie Perry, and she bought
it and got really unwell from it because it's some
sort of diet that you take biicarb soda with jello
and it's meant to see you lose weight very quickly.
Now straight away, if someone was promoting a yello diet
to me, which is like jelly of course with buy carb,
(01:52):
I'd be like you for real. But she basically got
quite unwell with it because it sort of made her
cream extremely bloated. But her rash was that it was
being sold by legit celebrities who she thought, Oh, well,
if it's good enough for Katy Perry, it's good enough
for me. And it just led me to think how
common it is out there to see celebrity and or
(02:12):
diet and the issue, of course now is a lot
of it's fake because it's generated by AI. And my
kids are much better at picking up AI content than
I am. I'll look and show them something funny and
they'll be like, oh, Mum, you're an idiot.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It's AI.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
But it just led me to discuss the pros and
cons of using AI because certainly I've had clients who've
said to me, when I've taken your meal plan, I
stuck it into AI and got a shopping list, and
I thought, oh.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
That's really smart.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I hadn't thought of that because I don't naturally think
of AI in that way because I'm older, but I thought,
that's actually incredibly smart. They just thought, I'll stick it
through and it'll collate the information in a really smart way.
And the way I can see it really working for
nutrition is, for example, if you wanted to have a
three hundred calorie breakfast with twenty grams of protein, put
(03:00):
that prompt in it should give you ten breakfasts that
had three hundred calories and twenty grams of protein. But
there are downsides to it, and we wanted to discuss
those today because whilst you can feed it what you
want it to give you, if you don't know whether
the data is right or not, it does spit out
incorrect information. And so for example, if I'm writing an
(03:23):
article now, I will put it through AI as a
bit of an edit, and it might spell check it
for me, but you have to go back and reread
it because it does make mistakes and change things that
aren't right, and you have to know when the information's
right or wrong. So the issue for a lay person
getting diet information is you don't know if it's right
or wrong. So I heard another journalist talking about it
(03:44):
and she'd put in some prompts to get it to
increase her protein consumption. So basically every three hours it
was prompting her to have thirty grams of protein. The
issue was that she's tiny, it was way too much
for her. So it doesn't give you that specificity for individuals.
So I'd say you can use it for general stuff
stuff like maybe some recipe ideas if you have three
ingredients in the pantry, what can I make from that?
(04:07):
But it's not going to tell you what are the
best ingredients that will lose or coals, because it's only
working off informations that's fed in. It's not coming from
an absolute point of this is the ideal that everyone
should be aiming for, And of course that's only based
on individuals anyway. It's not a one size fits or model,
So it's I think you can use it as a
rough guide, but it will never give you that specificity
(04:27):
for individuals preferences, specific food products and brands. And in
my experience with recipes, it's very American eyed, like you're
getting a lot of American type of popular foods and
we often don't have access to us there. So keep
in mind it's also based on where the data is
coming out of.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And it's also really based on population heals as well,
right like, are you somebody who is the average person
that generally AI will talk about as well? You know,
like are you that average? I think when they use
averages and population health, it's like a seventy kilo female,
you know, Like if you don't fall into that cat agree,
if you're fifty two kilos if you're one hundred and
twenty five kilos, like, it's probably not going to be
(05:04):
that specific for you either. And also it doesn't take
into account like different types of nutrients as well, Like
you might code it to put your exact calories and
protein in like that's all well and good, but did
you consider iron? Did you consider all your different types
of nutrients, your ide and your B twelve, your full laid,
your fiber intake. So it doesn't do what dietitians do.
You know, it hasn't been trained as a dietitian. It
(05:26):
doesn't have a dietetics degree which took four or five
years from university. It hasn't done one hundred plus hours
of training in supervision and all of that thing as well.
And the biggest thing is as well, what I find
the biggest thing my clients struggle with Susie is accountability.
Like AI is not going to give you accountability. You
might get it to print you out the perfect diet,
but if you're then off track all weekend and back
(05:46):
on the diet on Monday, it's not actually going to
work because you actually need to be held accountable regularly
throughout the week to ensure that you're actually getting to
your goals, not just use it to lose two kilos
by Friday and then you know, full off the wagon
on the weekend and restart on Monday. Is something to
be said about that regular accountability, because in my opinion,
that is one of the biggest things that people struggle with.
(06:07):
And AI is also generally a yes man. It will
always tell you yes. It will always be your hype
person and like often ahle say to it, actually that's incorrect. Oh, yes,
you're correct, that is incorrect. It's so don't forget that
AI is generally a yes man, and you should always
over on the side of caution when you're taking nutrition advice.
Like Susie said, it can be really helpful, like I've
(06:28):
got ex ingredient left in the pantry? What meal do
you suggest I make? But then I wouldn't go so
far as to get it to write an actual recipe
for me, because I think that it wouldn't be a
very good idea. I don't think it would come out
very well.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And I think one of the things I thought it
was great for the best way I've used it recently
was we were filming some smoothies for a design by dieticians,
and whenever you see smoothies on Instagram, they're like these
amazing colors.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
It's the same with soup.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
If I make a green soup, it looks like sludge
in the pan, But if you look at Nagi's, it's
like fluorescent green from a rainforest, and it's like, how
is that possible? How does hers look like that? Is
that just editing? But what we used it for was
we could say to it, what are the proportions of
berries or the proportions of greens to get it bright?
And that I've done that since because I'm shooting soups
(07:13):
at the moment, and I thought that was really novel,
because yeah, if you don't know the tricks, say of
proportions of zucchini to this to that, it makes it
a funny color. So I found it actually super helpful
when shooting recipes and how to make things look colorful.
So I think there's a lot that can be done
with recipe for that kind of stuff, because yeah, as
I said, whenever I make a green smoothie, mine looks
(07:33):
like murky green.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
How do you get it to that vivid?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
So I actually thought that was quite a novel way
of using it, So yeah, it's you have a bit
of fun with it. So but it's certainly not a
scientist or a clinician, so yeah, just be careful with
anything technical like that that you're using it for, all right,
Leanne gluten free. We get quite a lot of specific
requests for gluten free. Someone requested we do a whole
episode on gluten free eating, and so what we thought
(07:56):
we would do is strike at a happy medium. And
I remember a few years ago we did a bit
of a product review of some of our favorite gluten
free products because I do have quite a few gluten
free clients and so I'll sort of have some default
pantry staples that I'll go to. So I thought we
will take our listeners through the ones that we're liking
at the moment, because it's certainly tricky with finding gluten
free products which tastes good but also nutritionally are good options.
(08:19):
So I'm going to start off with a handful of mine.
When I'm talking to a client about gluten free, I
will generally say I like the Abbot's Bakery mixed seed
gluten free loaf, and the reason I go for that
is based on the macros and the carbload of that bread,
because inevitably gluten free products are often much more processed.
(08:41):
They've got a higher kind of starch ratio. It's often
coming from things like a rice flour, and it's super
hard to get seeded products and grains in there. So yeah,
my go to default bread is the Abbot's Bakery gluten
free mixed seed option, not taking away from how tricky
it can be to actually find that in the supermarket.
I'll mention I do love any corn based so in
(09:02):
general with my clients, I love the corn thins. I
eat them all the time, my kids love them. I
think cost effective, clean. I know you've got some thoughts
on that, so I'll definitely use a lot of corn thins.
The other cracker I'll go to is the All Grand
Buckwheat crispy bread. Now that brand or Grand has been
one of the biggest gluten free and food intolerance brands
(09:24):
operating in the Australian market for years, and the crackers,
the buck wheat cracker is like almost a right crusket
in consistency, and they're in the health food section along
the bottom. They've got a whole range of it similar
to Freedom Foods and offering foods catering for those with
food intolerance. But yeah, I don't mind those buckwheat crackers either,
(09:44):
but they're a lot more expensive. I think the corn
thins are the most cost effective gluten free product. The
other one I actually really like is there's a product
in Bullies called the Cauliflower Noki the Earth's Kitchen, and
it's a really good retails for ten dollars and when
you look at the ingredients, it's seventy five percent cauliflower,
(10:05):
a bit of cassava flour, potatoes, starch, and extra virgin
olive oil and salt. It's only got five ingredients, incredibly clean,
nutritionally good amount of carbohydrate thirty two grams per serve,
only two point four grams are naturally occurring sugars, eight
grams of dietary fiber. It's a great base if you're
doing pastas and looking for a gluten free alternative with
a bit more bulk. I'm a big fan of that.
(10:26):
It's not specifically a gluten free product, just by chance,
but it's a very good one.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And the other.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Products I use are the Peppercorn range of lean meat
beef patties and lean sausages. Not that we're saying sausages
are a great choice, but they don't contain nitrates, they're
a very high percentage of lean meat, they're less than
ten percent fat, and the burgers and the sausages are
all gluten free, so I am a fan of those.
And the other product if I'm looking in the freezer
(10:53):
section will be the Mister Chens pork and prawn dumplings,
which are gluten free, but they are higher in carbohydrate
and much more process I'd be using that as a
food you might have once a week or once a fortnight,
but they are gluten free and actually tastes not too bad,
mind you. I'll tell you a funny story about that
ad a little bit of humor. So I find my
(11:14):
husband eats everything that I buy. So sometimes if gumpings
are on sale, or stock up on mister Chen's dumplings,
and he ate the packet of the pork ones that
I had to eat, and actually no wrong, he ate
the prawn ones that I had, the normal prawl, not
the gluten free. And I went like baalistic, right, because
you know what it's like. You buy all the food
(11:34):
and everyone eats it. Like, I was furious at him.
So he goes out and he comes back. He replaces them,
but leanne he brought me the gluten free ones, and
I was like, if he goes they're the same thing,
what are you winging about?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Just have them?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And so I left them for him and I ate
the other ones. Anyway, he ate got the gluten free ones,
and he goes, what was wrong with those dumplings, And
I said, I told you they were the same that
you've got. It's not the same thing. And so he
never bought the gluten free ones again. So I'm certainly
not saying they're as good. They're certainly different, but nutritionally
they are too bad. So they're with the pork cargo
(12:11):
in the mister chens. So yeah, some of the staples
that I'll point people to as gluten free products to
stock up on as their carbohydrate staples when they're looking
for options.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
The reality is that gluten free products often do not
taste as good as their non gluten free counterparts. But
we do know that a gluten free, strict gluten free
dit is the only option for sally our clients diagnosed
with celiac disease. I do know that some people prefer
to eat gluten free, perhaps it's an intolerance. I personally,
myself do not believe that gluten free means it is healthier.
(12:45):
I do know that some people medically need to eat
that way, and some people choose that way to eat
as a preference because it makes them feel better, and
all of that is fine, But I personally don't believe
it is a healthier way of eating because a lot
of gluten free products are more highly processed, they do
lack a lot of the natural fiber and then offering
quite low in protein as well. So your best gluten
(13:06):
free products are, of course, your whole food varieties. You know,
we're talking about potatoes, soup, potatoes, rice, kinoa, buckwheat, you know,
natural fruit, legumes, all of that kind of thing. Because
it's less process it's naturally rich in fiber, it's going
to fill you up a lot better as well. But
as Zusi mentioned, of course, we know that we need
some of our gluten free staples for some of our
Celiac clients and those that need it. So, like you said,
(13:29):
the real food multigrain corn thins are one of my
absolute favorite I eat them, my kids eat them. They're
actually one of the standout products in the supermarket, and
it's awesome that they are gluten free as well. One
of my favorite cereals is the Freedom brand. You can
find it at Coals. They've got quite a few good
cereals with whole food bases as well. There's one of
them on the market. I think it might be the
(13:50):
maple granola. No, not that one. One of them has
about forty or fifty percent whole grains or something to
start with, I think, which is a really really great base.
So have a look at the Freedom cereals in Coals
and there's a couple of ones that are stand out
from there. I just can't remember which one. Oh, there
it is the cranberry and buckwheat one that's one of
my favorite ones is sixty five percent multi grain flakes
(14:12):
as the base, coming from buckwheat flour, rice flour, suga maize,
sober corn fiber, chickpea fiber, cilium, and it's got a
couple of different types of seeds. There's eleven percent seeds
of sunflowers and pepeters, six percent dried cranberries in there
as well, So that one. The Freedom crafted Lens cranberry
and buckwheat is one of my favorites. I also like
when we're talking about crackers, I like the Alinas. Alenas
(14:34):
do a gluten free range as well. They're sort of
our teasy and crackers are quite nice as a fig
and sunflower one in are. The Coals are definitely in
wool Worst they're quite good as well. In the frozen
food section. I haven't tried it. Some of my Ciliat
clients say, obviously it's not that great, but there is
a gluten free crumbed fish option. Seaalor does it. It
(14:54):
does say New Zealand Hoky on it, but it also
does say packed in Vietnam, so I'm not quite sure.
But there's not that many crumbfish varieties on the market,
but the Sealord one does do. One a staple that
I recommend for all of my clients, whether you're Celiac
or not, is the brown rice in Qinwa. Mixed Sunrise
does it, but there's also like the home brand varieties
like Coals and wool West do their own blend of
(15:15):
brown rice in Kinwa as well. It's generally that purple
packaging that's really really good. My mum is Malaysian and
she swears that the a Young brand of Asian sauces,
red Tie curry paste, that kind of thing are some
of the best on the market and tastes really authentic.
One of my favorite is the Red Tai curry paste.
It uses like kaffea lime leaf. It's really really good
(15:36):
as a staple as a curry paste. And that's certified
gluten free endorsed by the Celiac Society as well. And
I do also believe the Patax ranges, things like the
Corma paste and stuff are gluten free as well, so
they're quite good too. Oh. In breadwise, I like the
burg and gluten free loaf the soy Limb, but it
is very very hard to get, and I've had many
Celiac clients that tell me they just simply can't find
(15:57):
it in the supermarkets. It's really really hard to get get,
so that one is one of my favorite ones. But
if you can find it, good luck. But yeah, they're
probably some of my favorite to gluten free products in
supermarkets at the moment. Oh. In the Carmens, the original
roasted nut bar is a very very good one as well,
that's probably my favorite out of all of the Carmon spars.
The original in the brown packaging, that roasted nut bar
(16:19):
is very good as well.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
And their original Crispy De Luxe gluten free cereal is
always my go to as well. That's one of the
best gluten free options that's got a decent amount of
fiber and range of grains and seeds in it.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Actually a happy snack, a happy snack. Salt and vinego ones.
They're gluten free as well, aren't they.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, those little faber beans, and they're one of my
favorite ingredients to add into a salad just to give
it crunch, much healthier than croutons, add a bit of
extra dietary protein. So for example, if you're having a
tuna salad and you want a bit more protein. They're
just crunchy and tasty, and I think they come in
all different flavors as like pizza, salt and vinegar. So
they're a great snack that offers some protein.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, there's chickpeas and faber beans, and they're in the
generally the house food section, sort of towards the bottom shelves.
They're quite good and there's like some chocolate covered jickpea
options as well. I think as well if you're looking
for something a bit sweeter, so there are increasingly more
and more and more gluten free options available. I personally
find that Coals has a little bit better selection of
gluten free products in terms of processed foods than what
(17:13):
Wilways does. There's a little bit more haraety, but I
think that one of the biggest misconceptions is for people
who are newly diagnosed with select disease. I personally believe
one of the biggest mistakes is relying too heavily on
your specialty health foods and gluten free foods when you
can actually build very very balanced gluten free meals from
the regular whole food section, the fruits, the veggies, the proteins.
(17:35):
Just shopping the parameter of the supermarket is absolutely your
best option. A lot of the higher protein yogurts and
even some of the frozen potato products, can legumes, frozen berries,
all of those sorts of things are generally gluten free
if you read the label properly, and you're going to
save yourself a lot of money sticking to more of
the whole food options and looking for the expensive, more
specialty gluten free type ranges. I get that it is
(17:58):
nice to have some of these foods occasionally, but really,
like we would recommend someone without Celiac disease, we want
the bulk of our diet to come from whole food sources,
and luckily, the bulk of whole food sources are naturally
gluten free.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
True true, true true.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
All right, then I found you a health product to review,
and I think this might have popped up on my
Instagram and I thought, all that sounds nice.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
I sent out to you or you sent it to
to you, you know, I texted to you.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I sent it to me, and yeah, I want you
to deep dive the intritional I'm going to hand it
to you because my computer's gone low. And about your
I haven't got it in front of me, but this
is your segment, so take us through this brand, which
is talking about its health focus.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So I was in I was in Chemi's warehouse and
sent it to you. I was like, this looks nice,
and I didn't buy it because it's pistacia and my
little mea has a pistachio allergy, so I just don't
bring pistachio into the house despite how delicious it is.
But I was very intrigued because the packaging looked beautiful.
It was like white, it had gold. I just sent
it to Susi because obviously we run our own supplement
company designed by dietitians, and I really like the packaging.
I thought, Oh, this looks really appealing. It's beautiful, it's
(19:00):
it's clean. It just looks really nice. But I didn't
get a chance to buy it and have it. But
they didn't miss you like I think it was four
or five dollars at Chemis Warehouse. So it's a health
lab at Pistachio and rose protein super treat fifty five
grams and retails at Coals for four dollars fifty at
the moment. It is gluten free and it is vegan
friendly as well, and it's described as a luxe high
(19:23):
protein super treat. To elevate any snacking moment, discover a
smooth pistachio based infused with rose essence and chopped with
white chocolate layer and finished with a delectable edible rose petals.
I feel like someone's put that into AI and come
up with a beautifully market marketed way to describe the product.
The first ingredient is white chocolate, so it is one
(19:45):
of those products that is coated in chocolates. So when
the first ingredient is chocolate, you're going to have a
high fat product. So the first ingredient is white chocolate,
which consists of vegetable fat, sugar, trickery, root fiber, tapioca fiber,
coconut milk powder, sunflow, lethuce, and a mulsifier, natural flavors
and natural vegetable colors. Then it's followed by a tapiocre fiber,
(20:06):
rice protein, more tapiocre flour, dates, roasted peanuts, pistachio cream.
It's seven point five percent, and within that pistachio cream,
you've got twelve percent pistachios. So twelve percent pistachio in
a bar is actually more than I thought it would be.
I've seen something, you know, pistachio flavored things less than
five percent, so I'll give a slight credit where it's
(20:27):
honestly more that I thought it would be. And then
after the twelve percent pistachios, we've got more tapioca fibar,
coconut oil, sunflower leathers, and sea salt, natural colors, coconut cashew,
soy protein, coconut oil, sea salt, natural rose flavor, and
edible roast petals, so anybody with a nut allergy seal clear,
but it is it does say lovingly made in Australia
from imported and some locally ingredients, so a bit of
(20:50):
a mix of both, but yeah, gluten free and vegan,
which is good. And then when we look at the
nutritional information panel per serving, which is the whole fifty
five grand bar, one thousand killodules, ten grams of protein,
so at least this contains ten grams of protein, unlike
the product we reviewed on the last episode, which didn't.
Eleven point seven grams of fat, so twenty one percent
(21:10):
fat overall, twenty one point three percent fat, so definitely
not a low fat product, with six point six grams
of that being saturated fat, so twelve percent saturated fat
over all, which is high but makes sense because it's
covered in white chocolate. Right. It's also got basically seventeen
grams of carbohydrate in the bar, nine grams of sugar,
eight grams of dietary fiber, which is pretty good for
(21:31):
a small bar, and eighty seven milligrams of sodium, which
is basically insignificant. So it's an interesting product. What does
it taste like? I can't tell you, but a lot
of the times when we're using a lot of that
sort of tapiocre type fibers and flour that gives a
really nice mouth feel, like it's one of those how
do you describe the bars? Like they're those kind of
blended type they kind of melt in your mouth a
(21:53):
little bit, like I would imagine it would.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Taste pretty good, right, They taste good, But the question is,
like the calorie loads just enormous on it, you know,
And I think that whole brand Health lab it just
you think it's so healthy, and when you deep dive it,
sometimes they're more like chocolate bars than not. And I
just think be discerning with these kind of products. If
they taste like a chocolate bar and look like a
chocolate bar, they probably have those characters. You can't assume
(22:18):
that because it sells in a health food section or
even has the name health on its label, that they
would satisfy what we would define as healthy product. So
the calorie it's like a meal worth of calories, Like
it's you know, huge, and I think we feel all
virtuous and they sponsor events, and you think, but you've
got to deep dive the nutritionals and like I said,
if it tastes like a chocolate bar, it's probably closer
(22:38):
to that nutritionally. So yeah, I think, just buyer beware.
You know, generally speaking, protein bars do not taste amazing
because raw protein and high levels of it is quite
It's got that kind of sports bar density, you know,
so as soon as it's got chocolate and stuff like that,
it's probably more of a treat. As I said, I
talked about a protein cookie a couple of weeks ago. Again,
(22:59):
you know, the calories we're as many as a meal,
So just don't assume that just because it seems healthy.
It's like when you go to the cafe and there's
like those healthy paleo bars like a Snicker's, a Mars bar,
and everyone thinks, are they healthier?
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Not that much more.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
They might be, you know, slightly cleaner ingredients, but the
calorie load and often the fat load remains the same.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
So yeah, in my life, that's bad.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Well I don't know about you, but I don't need
to do fifty calories for a meal, like how many
now fifty two? Fifty it's not a meal, but it's
it's potentially higher than a snack if you were trying
to lose weight. But if you're someone who was super active,
it's fine. But again I think that the problem is
that it literally is called a protein super treat, So
this is a treat. But I think if you're eating
(23:44):
it every day thinking that you're being, you know, healthier
than anyone else, probably not. So it's kind of marketed
as a healthier option based on the name health lab
and then the protein in there. But ten grams of protein,
like you can have a tuba yoga than a limp
ball for probably less calories, right, that's true, and more protein, so,
don't you know, and for four dollars fifty as well.
(24:04):
It could be handy to have in your handbag if
you're traveling and that kind of thing. If for a
long car trip, that's fine, but it's certainly not what
I would call a healthy products. White chocolate is the
first ingredient. It's very high and saturated fat, twelve percent
saturated fat and nearly twenty two percent fat overall. And
the protein is not that high, let's be honest, Like
it's ten grams of protein I could go and buy
(24:24):
a medium, you know, skim martine and get nearly ten
grams of protein. So I think we're stuck in this
protein halo era where protein and everything just makes sense,
but actually it doesn't. Like I'd rather my clients go
get an apple and a late at the cafe and
you're probably gonna get ten grams of protein if that's
what you want, very similar calories. So I think these
things can be convenient. I think that they can suit
(24:46):
more active people, but at four dollars fifty a pop,
I certainly wouldn't be encouraging it because it's not actually
any healthier than I think the majority of things that
you can buy the supermarket is certainly an ultra process food,
and I don't love that a bar a chocolate as
the first ingredient. Like, to me, you've got to raise
the health of the label if you're starting with chocolate
as your first ingredient. That's probably my biggest pain point here.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Yeah, good summary, I agree fully. All right, Lynne.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
For all the mums out there who are sending teenage
boys off to university, I had a question. My son's
just moved out of home and he has very limited
food budget, what should I be advising he buys to
stay healthy? And I thought it was an interesting question
because certainly, what did a lot of young teenage boys
live off two minute noodles?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
And that you're with that is.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
That there's not much protein, So how do you eat
healthy but still have kind of budget and use a
friendly food? So I think that my recommendation would be
yet by far and away when it comes to cost
of food. Tinned options tend to be cheaper than frozen,
which tend to be cheaper than fresh. That's sort of
the hierarchy of products now. Particularly, let's be honest, without
(25:55):
being offensive to men, they do tend to be a
bit more on the lazier side the ball, so they're
probably more likely to skip a meal than actually get
up and make it. And tinned options, you know, might
mean that they've got minimum food prep. So I think
things like baked beans can be extremely extremely smart. I
think that the tinned fish, particularly things like tuna, are
budget and cost effective. I would say tin soup, but
(26:17):
I actually don't think young people are going to go
and just crack open a tin soup, to be honest,
I think they're more likely to do jaffles and stuff
like that. So hence tuna and cheese and tin beans
a smart option. And I think that just reminding them
that if they are going to be having the packet
noodles and the packet pasta, which are sort of meals
that you add water to the issue that they're missing
(26:39):
is the protein. So if you can get them to
add the tin beans or the tin tuna to it,
they're some of the better options. Because yeah, if you
think of frozen they're all carbi, aren't they. There's not
a lot of high protein options, Like the chicken is
sort of thirty fifty percent chicken. The pizzas, there's not
much protein in those. I think those coals, risottos and
nokies aren't too bad, but again they have to kind
(26:59):
of cook them and add something to it. I think
barbecue chicken can be a smart option because they're going
to get that, particularly if they buy it on sale. Well, lately,
I've been buying a lot more fresh chickens because you
can get a small chicken for as little as five
or six dollars and that's quite a good decent source
of protein that you could then add to those pasta
heating up options, but yeah, off the top of my head,
they're with the ones that I thought of were the best,
(27:21):
because when I looked at things like the pies and
sausage rolls, they were as little as eighteen percent meat.
The Coals sausage rolls, which are still quite high in
saturated fat, but they're actually forty five percent meat in
the fresh section, so you could heat those up and
get half decent amount of meat. I think those Coals
box meals they've got like a beef strogen off, they've
got tiaki chicken. They're quite good for twelve dollars, so
(27:44):
again they might come in under the budget as well.
But if they're really sort of scraping and it's low,
things like toast with tuna, toast with cheese, toast with
baked beans are all up there and certainly better than
just playing two minute noodles and very carby pre cooked
pastas that you add water to.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I'd be avoiding sausage rolls entirely because show me a
unique student age male who's going to be satisfied with
one sausage roll. They're going to need about three. So
like you, I'd be sticking to things like eggs in tuna,
baked beans, even Greek yogurt, like a really underrated higher
protein sauce, you know for breakfast, some cereal or some
Greek yogurt. Like you said, a rotisserie chicken. Like, yes,
they could go and buy a cooked chicken, but the
(28:22):
reality is that how many young males at UNI are
going to go and cook a chicken from scratch? I
mean I would have had a hard pressed time doing
that myself as well. I've only just learned to master
a pork roast in my late thirties, so I'm certainly
not making chicken from scratch in my twenties, or not
a roast chicken anyway, Maybe just some chicken breast or
some chicken thigh. It could be an easy er option.
If I had boys and I were sending them off
to UNI, I'd buy them a slow cooker, honestly, I
(28:43):
would as like a going away present, you know, when
they're studying, when they're off at lectures. They can put
stuff in a slow cooker. A lot of that, like
beef chuck. The casserole can be a lot more budget friendly,
and you can get quite a few serves out of that.
Add a few tins of chickpeas in do like a
I don't know, Moroccan lamb type of slow cook thing.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
You're massively overestimating the manly and are you joking? Bread?
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Oh god, a chicken you can put on a tray
and bake it a slow cooker like.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Easy.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But boys, you've got to understand lean like these are humans.
You literally have to say put your shoes on five times,
like I reckon. If I was buying an appliance, it
would be a toaster or a sandwich press, because all
they have to do is put that down.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, and tuna cheese melts, you know that can go
a long way to cheese melt. Yeah. But I think
if your kids aren't quite at the UNI age, and
you know you still got growing teens, get beans and
legumes into their diet now. Like I'm obsessed with putting
you know, beans and Mexican for the girls, I put
lentils in my spaghetti. If you can build those legumes
and beans in now and get them used to it
when they head off to UNU, they can buy some minster,
(29:50):
cook up a big cheap spaghetti and put some lentils
in there to bulk it out on a budget. But
you know, trying to get teenage boys to eat beans
and legumes and they've probably never eaten them before is
going to be a really, really different challenge. If you've
got young kids now, all teenagers now, try to show
them ways to introduce them into the diet now because
it's going to be a lot easier later on. And
teach them to cook, because, like you said, Suzie, I
(30:10):
get it, it's hard. But if they can cook. They
had ten legs up on anybody else at university because yeah,
I relied a lot on two minute noodles, frozen veggies,
tin tuna. Yeah, I think greck yogurt is massively underrated.
A roast chicken massively underrated. I believe in a slow cooker,
but I get it, it might just be a little
bit too hard.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
A really good girlfriend, I have to say that one
of my little boys is going through a cooking phase.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
He's only ten.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
But I'll buy the sizzle steak when it's on sale
in coals for the dog. And the other day I
came out and all my sizzle steak had been eaten.
Harry had just cooked up the tray for himself as
a snack and then he also I bought eggs to
cook with to shoot some recipes, and he cooked like
five eggs for himself for a little snack, and I
was like, things are not looking good for me. Let
me tell you, like the volume of food. But he
(30:56):
didn't do anything complicated. He just chucked the meat in
the pan and did the eggs and that was it.
So very simple, creatures, let me tell you very simple.
The protein crazies hit them young. Hey yeah, expensive, that's
for sure. We're going at costco very soon.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
All right.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Well, that brings us to the end of the nutition
catch for another week. Please keep telling your friends about
us so we can continue to grow. We're well over
five point five million downloads, so a lot of people
are listening to us, so thank you. And if you
need some evidence based supplements, please keep referring to our
designed by dietitians dot com for the latest when it
comes to collagen, protein, magnesium creating, and some delicious hot
(31:32):
chocolates for winter. We'll see the same time next week
for our regular episode. Drop have a great week.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Thanks for listening.
Have you tried AI in your life or work, maybe
for recipes or diet tips, or maybe you've even downloaded
a diet. On this week's episode of The Nutrition Couch,
we deep dive diet and AI and what you need
to be careful of. Hi, I'm City Burrow and I'm
Leanne Lord, and together we bring you The Nutrition Couch,
the weekly podcast that keeps you up to date with
everything you need to know in the world of nutrition
(00:24):
as well as all things AI. We have our annual
gluten free product review, we deep dive a well known
health brand, and our listener question is all about eating
well when you have just left home. So I'll give
you a little intro into this segment first of all,
because first of all, I'll share I think I've shared
before that Leann's in a relationship with AI. I think
her husband's feeling quite threatened. She spends a lot. How
(00:46):
many hours of daily and do you spend talking to
your AI boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
My husband hours a day? I will occasionally ask.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
You a question that's it occasional?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh, I don't know, I'd be pushing I think we
should get some time sheets done. But also assuming he's
a boy which is completely sexist, like it's probably a woman.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Who else could multitask like that? It has to be
a female.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
The reason that I brought this up was that anyone
who watches The Housewives of Beverly Hills, which I know
is lowbrow, don't judge me.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
We all have globsty pleasures.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
But in the finale recently Kathy Hilton, who lets be honest,
is a bit of a legend in terms of American celebrity,
she reported that she had been sold an ai diet.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
It's called the Jello diet.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I haven't seen it here in Australia, but basically it
was endorsed by people like Katie Perry, and she bought
it and got really unwell from it because it's some
sort of diet that you take biicarb soda with jello
and it's meant to see you lose weight very quickly.
Now straight away, if someone was promoting a yello diet
to me, which is like jelly of course with buy carb,
(01:52):
I'd be like you for real. But she basically got
quite unwell with it because it sort of made her
cream extremely bloated. But her rash was that it was
being sold by legit celebrities who she thought, Oh, well,
if it's good enough for Katy Perry, it's good enough
for me. And it just led me to think how
common it is out there to see celebrity and or
(02:12):
diet and the issue, of course now is a lot
of it's fake because it's generated by AI. And my
kids are much better at picking up AI content than
I am. I'll look and show them something funny and
they'll be like, oh, Mum, you're an idiot.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It's AI.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
But it just led me to discuss the pros and
cons of using AI because certainly I've had clients who've
said to me, when I've taken your meal plan, I
stuck it into AI and got a shopping list, and
I thought, oh.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
That's really smart.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I hadn't thought of that because I don't naturally think
of AI in that way because I'm older, but I thought,
that's actually incredibly smart. They just thought, I'll stick it
through and it'll collate the information in a really smart way.
And the way I can see it really working for
nutrition is, for example, if you wanted to have a
three hundred calorie breakfast with twenty grams of protein, put
(03:00):
that prompt in it should give you ten breakfasts that
had three hundred calories and twenty grams of protein. But
there are downsides to it, and we wanted to discuss
those today because whilst you can feed it what you
want it to give you, if you don't know whether
the data is right or not, it does spit out
incorrect information. And so for example, if I'm writing an
(03:23):
article now, I will put it through AI as a
bit of an edit, and it might spell check it
for me, but you have to go back and reread
it because it does make mistakes and change things that
aren't right, and you have to know when the information's
right or wrong. So the issue for a lay person
getting diet information is you don't know if it's right
or wrong. So I heard another journalist talking about it
(03:44):
and she'd put in some prompts to get it to
increase her protein consumption. So basically every three hours it
was prompting her to have thirty grams of protein. The
issue was that she's tiny, it was way too much
for her. So it doesn't give you that specificity for individuals.
So I'd say you can use it for general stuff
stuff like maybe some recipe ideas if you have three
ingredients in the pantry, what can I make from that?
(04:07):
But it's not going to tell you what are the
best ingredients that will lose or coals, because it's only
working off informations that's fed in. It's not coming from
an absolute point of this is the ideal that everyone
should be aiming for, And of course that's only based
on individuals anyway. It's not a one size fits or model,
So it's I think you can use it as a
rough guide, but it will never give you that specificity
(04:27):
for individuals preferences, specific food products and brands. And in
my experience with recipes, it's very American eyed, like you're
getting a lot of American type of popular foods and
we often don't have access to us there. So keep
in mind it's also based on where the data is
coming out of.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And it's also really based on population heals as well,
right like, are you somebody who is the average person
that generally AI will talk about as well? You know,
like are you that average? I think when they use
averages and population health, it's like a seventy kilo female,
you know, Like if you don't fall into that cat agree,
if you're fifty two kilos if you're one hundred and
twenty five kilos, like, it's probably not going to be
(05:04):
that specific for you either. And also it doesn't take
into account like different types of nutrients as well, Like
you might code it to put your exact calories and
protein in like that's all well and good, but did
you consider iron? Did you consider all your different types
of nutrients, your ide and your B twelve, your full laid,
your fiber intake. So it doesn't do what dietitians do.
You know, it hasn't been trained as a dietitian. It
(05:26):
doesn't have a dietetics degree which took four or five
years from university. It hasn't done one hundred plus hours
of training in supervision and all of that thing as well.
And the biggest thing is as well, what I find
the biggest thing my clients struggle with Susie is accountability.
Like AI is not going to give you accountability. You
might get it to print you out the perfect diet,
but if you're then off track all weekend and back
(05:46):
on the diet on Monday, it's not actually going to
work because you actually need to be held accountable regularly
throughout the week to ensure that you're actually getting to
your goals, not just use it to lose two kilos
by Friday and then you know, full off the wagon
on the weekend and restart on Monday. Is something to
be said about that regular accountability, because in my opinion,
that is one of the biggest things that people struggle with.
(06:07):
And AI is also generally a yes man. It will
always tell you yes. It will always be your hype
person and like often ahle say to it, actually that's incorrect. Oh, yes,
you're correct, that is incorrect. It's so don't forget that
AI is generally a yes man, and you should always
over on the side of caution when you're taking nutrition advice.
Like Susie said, it can be really helpful, like I've
(06:28):
got ex ingredient left in the pantry? What meal do
you suggest I make? But then I wouldn't go so
far as to get it to write an actual recipe
for me, because I think that it wouldn't be a
very good idea. I don't think it would come out
very well.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And I think one of the things I thought it
was great for the best way I've used it recently
was we were filming some smoothies for a design by dieticians,
and whenever you see smoothies on Instagram, they're like these
amazing colors.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
It's the same with soup.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
If I make a green soup, it looks like sludge
in the pan, But if you look at Nagi's, it's
like fluorescent green from a rainforest, and it's like, how
is that possible? How does hers look like that? Is
that just editing? But what we used it for was
we could say to it, what are the proportions of
berries or the proportions of greens to get it bright?
And that I've done that since because I'm shooting soups
(07:13):
at the moment, and I thought that was really novel,
because yeah, if you don't know the tricks, say of
proportions of zucchini to this to that, it makes it
a funny color. So I found it actually super helpful
when shooting recipes and how to make things look colorful.
So I think there's a lot that can be done
with recipe for that kind of stuff, because yeah, as
I said, whenever I make a green smoothie, mine looks
(07:33):
like murky green.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
How do you get it to that vivid?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
So I actually thought that was quite a novel way
of using it, So yeah, it's you have a bit
of fun with it. So but it's certainly not a
scientist or a clinician, so yeah, just be careful with
anything technical like that that you're using it for, all right,
Leanne gluten free. We get quite a lot of specific
requests for gluten free. Someone requested we do a whole
episode on gluten free eating, and so what we thought
(07:56):
we would do is strike at a happy medium. And
I remember a few years ago we did a bit
of a product review of some of our favorite gluten
free products because I do have quite a few gluten
free clients and so I'll sort of have some default
pantry staples that I'll go to. So I thought we
will take our listeners through the ones that we're liking
at the moment, because it's certainly tricky with finding gluten
free products which tastes good but also nutritionally are good options.
(08:19):
So I'm going to start off with a handful of mine.
When I'm talking to a client about gluten free, I
will generally say I like the Abbot's Bakery mixed seed
gluten free loaf, and the reason I go for that
is based on the macros and the carbload of that bread,
because inevitably gluten free products are often much more processed.
(08:41):
They've got a higher kind of starch ratio. It's often
coming from things like a rice flour, and it's super
hard to get seeded products and grains in there. So yeah,
my go to default bread is the Abbot's Bakery gluten
free mixed seed option, not taking away from how tricky
it can be to actually find that in the supermarket.
I'll mention I do love any corn based so in
(09:02):
general with my clients, I love the corn thins. I
eat them all the time, my kids love them. I
think cost effective, clean. I know you've got some thoughts
on that, so I'll definitely use a lot of corn thins.
The other cracker I'll go to is the All Grand
Buckwheat crispy bread. Now that brand or Grand has been
one of the biggest gluten free and food intolerance brands
(09:24):
operating in the Australian market for years, and the crackers,
the buck wheat cracker is like almost a right crusket
in consistency, and they're in the health food section along
the bottom. They've got a whole range of it similar
to Freedom Foods and offering foods catering for those with
food intolerance. But yeah, I don't mind those buckwheat crackers either,
(09:44):
but they're a lot more expensive. I think the corn
thins are the most cost effective gluten free product. The
other one I actually really like is there's a product
in Bullies called the Cauliflower Noki the Earth's Kitchen, and
it's a really good retails for ten dollars and when
you look at the ingredients, it's seventy five percent cauliflower,
(10:05):
a bit of cassava flour, potatoes, starch, and extra virgin
olive oil and salt. It's only got five ingredients, incredibly clean,
nutritionally good amount of carbohydrate thirty two grams per serve,
only two point four grams are naturally occurring sugars, eight
grams of dietary fiber. It's a great base if you're
doing pastas and looking for a gluten free alternative with
a bit more bulk. I'm a big fan of that.
(10:26):
It's not specifically a gluten free product, just by chance,
but it's a very good one.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And the other.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Products I use are the Peppercorn range of lean meat
beef patties and lean sausages. Not that we're saying sausages
are a great choice, but they don't contain nitrates, they're
a very high percentage of lean meat, they're less than
ten percent fat, and the burgers and the sausages are
all gluten free, so I am a fan of those.
And the other product if I'm looking in the freezer
(10:53):
section will be the Mister Chens pork and prawn dumplings,
which are gluten free, but they are higher in carbohydrate
and much more process I'd be using that as a
food you might have once a week or once a fortnight,
but they are gluten free and actually tastes not too bad,
mind you. I'll tell you a funny story about that
ad a little bit of humor. So I find my
(11:14):
husband eats everything that I buy. So sometimes if gumpings
are on sale, or stock up on mister Chen's dumplings,
and he ate the packet of the pork ones that
I had to eat, and actually no wrong, he ate
the prawn ones that I had, the normal prawl, not
the gluten free. And I went like baalistic, right, because
you know what it's like. You buy all the food
(11:34):
and everyone eats it. Like, I was furious at him.
So he goes out and he comes back. He replaces them,
but leanne he brought me the gluten free ones, and
I was like, if he goes they're the same thing,
what are you winging about?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Just have them?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And so I left them for him and I ate
the other ones. Anyway, he ate got the gluten free ones,
and he goes, what was wrong with those dumplings, And
I said, I told you they were the same that
you've got. It's not the same thing. And so he
never bought the gluten free ones again. So I'm certainly
not saying they're as good. They're certainly different, but nutritionally
they are too bad. So they're with the pork cargo
(12:11):
in the mister chens. So yeah, some of the staples
that I'll point people to as gluten free products to
stock up on as their carbohydrate staples when they're looking
for options.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
The reality is that gluten free products often do not
taste as good as their non gluten free counterparts. But
we do know that a gluten free, strict gluten free
dit is the only option for sally our clients diagnosed
with celiac disease. I do know that some people prefer
to eat gluten free, perhaps it's an intolerance. I personally,
myself do not believe that gluten free means it is healthier.
(12:45):
I do know that some people medically need to eat
that way, and some people choose that way to eat
as a preference because it makes them feel better, and
all of that is fine, But I personally don't believe
it is a healthier way of eating because a lot
of gluten free products are more highly processed, they do
lack a lot of the natural fiber and then offering
quite low in protein as well. So your best gluten
(13:06):
free products are, of course, your whole food varieties. You know,
we're talking about potatoes, soup, potatoes, rice, kinoa, buckwheat, you know,
natural fruit, legumes, all of that kind of thing. Because
it's less process it's naturally rich in fiber, it's going
to fill you up a lot better as well. But
as Zusi mentioned, of course, we know that we need
some of our gluten free staples for some of our
Celiac clients and those that need it. So, like you said,
(13:29):
the real food multigrain corn thins are one of my
absolute favorite I eat them, my kids eat them. They're
actually one of the standout products in the supermarket, and
it's awesome that they are gluten free as well. One
of my favorite cereals is the Freedom brand. You can
find it at Coals. They've got quite a few good
cereals with whole food bases as well. There's one of
them on the market. I think it might be the
(13:50):
maple granola. No, not that one. One of them has
about forty or fifty percent whole grains or something to
start with, I think, which is a really really great base.
So have a look at the Freedom cereals in Coals
and there's a couple of ones that are stand out
from there. I just can't remember which one. Oh, there
it is the cranberry and buckwheat one that's one of
my favorite ones is sixty five percent multi grain flakes
(14:12):
as the base, coming from buckwheat flour, rice flour, suga maize,
sober corn fiber, chickpea fiber, cilium, and it's got a
couple of different types of seeds. There's eleven percent seeds
of sunflowers and pepeters, six percent dried cranberries in there
as well, So that one. The Freedom crafted Lens cranberry
and buckwheat is one of my favorites. I also like
when we're talking about crackers, I like the Alinas. Alenas
(14:34):
do a gluten free range as well. They're sort of
our teasy and crackers are quite nice as a fig
and sunflower one in are. The Coals are definitely in
wool Worst they're quite good as well. In the frozen
food section. I haven't tried it. Some of my Ciliat
clients say, obviously it's not that great, but there is
a gluten free crumbed fish option. Seaalor does it. It
(14:54):
does say New Zealand Hoky on it, but it also
does say packed in Vietnam, so I'm not quite sure.
But there's not that many crumbfish varieties on the market,
but the Sealord one does do. One a staple that
I recommend for all of my clients, whether you're Celiac
or not, is the brown rice in Qinwa. Mixed Sunrise
does it, but there's also like the home brand varieties
like Coals and wool West do their own blend of
(15:15):
brown rice in Kinwa as well. It's generally that purple
packaging that's really really good. My mum is Malaysian and
she swears that the a Young brand of Asian sauces,
red Tie curry paste, that kind of thing are some
of the best on the market and tastes really authentic.
One of my favorite is the Red Tai curry paste.
It uses like kaffea lime leaf. It's really really good
(15:36):
as a staple as a curry paste. And that's certified
gluten free endorsed by the Celiac Society as well. And
I do also believe the Patax ranges, things like the
Corma paste and stuff are gluten free as well, so
they're quite good too. Oh. In breadwise, I like the
burg and gluten free loaf the soy Limb, but it
is very very hard to get, and I've had many
Celiac clients that tell me they just simply can't find
(15:57):
it in the supermarkets. It's really really hard to get get,
so that one is one of my favorite ones. But
if you can find it, good luck. But yeah, they're
probably some of my favorite to gluten free products in
supermarkets at the moment. Oh. In the Carmens, the original
roasted nut bar is a very very good one as well,
that's probably my favorite out of all of the Carmon spars.
The original in the brown packaging, that roasted nut bar
(16:19):
is very good as well.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
And their original Crispy De Luxe gluten free cereal is
always my go to as well. That's one of the
best gluten free options that's got a decent amount of
fiber and range of grains and seeds in it.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Actually a happy snack, a happy snack. Salt and vinego ones.
They're gluten free as well, aren't they.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, those little faber beans, and they're one of my
favorite ingredients to add into a salad just to give
it crunch, much healthier than croutons, add a bit of
extra dietary protein. So for example, if you're having a
tuna salad and you want a bit more protein. They're
just crunchy and tasty, and I think they come in
all different flavors as like pizza, salt and vinegar. So
they're a great snack that offers some protein.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, there's chickpeas and faber beans, and they're in the
generally the house food section, sort of towards the bottom shelves.
They're quite good and there's like some chocolate covered jickpea
options as well. I think as well if you're looking
for something a bit sweeter, so there are increasingly more
and more and more gluten free options available. I personally
find that Coals has a little bit better selection of
gluten free products in terms of processed foods than what
(17:13):
Wilways does. There's a little bit more haraety, but I
think that one of the biggest misconceptions is for people
who are newly diagnosed with select disease. I personally believe
one of the biggest mistakes is relying too heavily on
your specialty health foods and gluten free foods when you
can actually build very very balanced gluten free meals from
the regular whole food section, the fruits, the veggies, the proteins.
(17:35):
Just shopping the parameter of the supermarket is absolutely your
best option. A lot of the higher protein yogurts and
even some of the frozen potato products, can legumes, frozen berries,
all of those sorts of things are generally gluten free
if you read the label properly, and you're going to
save yourself a lot of money sticking to more of
the whole food options and looking for the expensive, more
specialty gluten free type ranges. I get that it is
(17:58):
nice to have some of these foods occasionally, but really,
like we would recommend someone without Celiac disease, we want
the bulk of our diet to come from whole food sources,
and luckily, the bulk of whole food sources are naturally
gluten free.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
True true, true true.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
All right, then I found you a health product to review,
and I think this might have popped up on my
Instagram and I thought, all that sounds nice.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
I sent out to you or you sent it to
to you, you know, I texted to you.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I sent it to me, and yeah, I want you
to deep dive the intritional I'm going to hand it
to you because my computer's gone low. And about your
I haven't got it in front of me, but this
is your segment, so take us through this brand, which
is talking about its health focus.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So I was in I was in Chemi's warehouse and
sent it to you. I was like, this looks nice,
and I didn't buy it because it's pistacia and my
little mea has a pistachio allergy, so I just don't
bring pistachio into the house despite how delicious it is.
But I was very intrigued because the packaging looked beautiful.
It was like white, it had gold. I just sent
it to Susi because obviously we run our own supplement
company designed by dietitians, and I really like the packaging.
I thought, Oh, this looks really appealing. It's beautiful, it's
(19:00):
it's clean. It just looks really nice. But I didn't
get a chance to buy it and have it. But
they didn't miss you like I think it was four
or five dollars at Chemis Warehouse. So it's a health
lab at Pistachio and rose protein super treat fifty five
grams and retails at Coals for four dollars fifty at
the moment. It is gluten free and it is vegan
friendly as well, and it's described as a luxe high
(19:23):
protein super treat. To elevate any snacking moment, discover a
smooth pistachio based infused with rose essence and chopped with
white chocolate layer and finished with a delectable edible rose petals.
I feel like someone's put that into AI and come
up with a beautifully market marketed way to describe the product.
The first ingredient is white chocolate, so it is one
(19:45):
of those products that is coated in chocolates. So when
the first ingredient is chocolate, you're going to have a
high fat product. So the first ingredient is white chocolate,
which consists of vegetable fat, sugar, trickery, root fiber, tapioca fiber,
coconut milk powder, sunflow, lethuce, and a mulsifier, natural flavors
and natural vegetable colors. Then it's followed by a tapiocre fiber,
(20:06):
rice protein, more tapiocre flour, dates, roasted peanuts, pistachio cream.
It's seven point five percent, and within that pistachio cream,
you've got twelve percent pistachios. So twelve percent pistachio in
a bar is actually more than I thought it would be.
I've seen something, you know, pistachio flavored things less than
five percent, so I'll give a slight credit where it's
(20:27):
honestly more that I thought it would be. And then
after the twelve percent pistachios, we've got more tapioca fibar,
coconut oil, sunflower leathers, and sea salt, natural colors, coconut cashew,
soy protein, coconut oil, sea salt, natural rose flavor, and
edible roast petals, so anybody with a nut allergy seal clear,
but it is it does say lovingly made in Australia
from imported and some locally ingredients, so a bit of
(20:50):
a mix of both, but yeah, gluten free and vegan,
which is good. And then when we look at the
nutritional information panel per serving, which is the whole fifty
five grand bar, one thousand killodules, ten grams of protein,
so at least this contains ten grams of protein, unlike
the product we reviewed on the last episode, which didn't.
Eleven point seven grams of fat, so twenty one percent
(21:10):
fat overall, twenty one point three percent fat, so definitely
not a low fat product, with six point six grams
of that being saturated fat, so twelve percent saturated fat
over all, which is high but makes sense because it's
covered in white chocolate. Right. It's also got basically seventeen
grams of carbohydrate in the bar, nine grams of sugar,
eight grams of dietary fiber, which is pretty good for
(21:31):
a small bar, and eighty seven milligrams of sodium, which
is basically insignificant. So it's an interesting product. What does
it taste like? I can't tell you, but a lot
of the times when we're using a lot of that
sort of tapiocre type fibers and flour that gives a
really nice mouth feel, like it's one of those how
do you describe the bars? Like they're those kind of
blended type they kind of melt in your mouth a
(21:53):
little bit, like I would imagine it would.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Taste pretty good, right, They taste good, But the question is,
like the calorie loads just enormous on it, you know,
And I think that whole brand Health lab it just
you think it's so healthy, and when you deep dive it,
sometimes they're more like chocolate bars than not. And I
just think be discerning with these kind of products. If
they taste like a chocolate bar and look like a
chocolate bar, they probably have those characters. You can't assume
(22:18):
that because it sells in a health food section or
even has the name health on its label, that they
would satisfy what we would define as healthy product. So
the calorie it's like a meal worth of calories, Like
it's you know, huge, and I think we feel all
virtuous and they sponsor events, and you think, but you've
got to deep dive the nutritionals and like I said,
if it tastes like a chocolate bar, it's probably closer
(22:38):
to that nutritionally. So yeah, I think, just buyer beware.
You know, generally speaking, protein bars do not taste amazing
because raw protein and high levels of it is quite
It's got that kind of sports bar density, you know,
so as soon as it's got chocolate and stuff like that,
it's probably more of a treat. As I said, I
talked about a protein cookie a couple of weeks ago. Again,
(22:59):
you know, the calories we're as many as a meal,
So just don't assume that just because it seems healthy.
It's like when you go to the cafe and there's
like those healthy paleo bars like a Snicker's, a Mars bar,
and everyone thinks, are they healthier?
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Not that much more.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
They might be, you know, slightly cleaner ingredients, but the
calorie load and often the fat load remains the same.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
So yeah, in my life, that's bad.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Well I don't know about you, but I don't need
to do fifty calories for a meal, like how many
now fifty two? Fifty it's not a meal, but it's
it's potentially higher than a snack if you were trying
to lose weight. But if you're someone who was super active,
it's fine. But again I think that the problem is
that it literally is called a protein super treat, So
this is a treat. But I think if you're eating
(23:44):
it every day thinking that you're being, you know, healthier
than anyone else, probably not. So it's kind of marketed
as a healthier option based on the name health lab
and then the protein in there. But ten grams of protein,
like you can have a tuba yoga than a limp
ball for probably less calories, right, that's true, and more protein, so,
don't you know, and for four dollars fifty as well.
(24:04):
It could be handy to have in your handbag if
you're traveling and that kind of thing. If for a
long car trip, that's fine, but it's certainly not what
I would call a healthy products. White chocolate is the
first ingredient. It's very high and saturated fat, twelve percent
saturated fat and nearly twenty two percent fat overall. And
the protein is not that high, let's be honest, Like
it's ten grams of protein I could go and buy
(24:24):
a medium, you know, skim martine and get nearly ten
grams of protein. So I think we're stuck in this
protein halo era where protein and everything just makes sense,
but actually it doesn't. Like I'd rather my clients go
get an apple and a late at the cafe and
you're probably gonna get ten grams of protein if that's
what you want, very similar calories. So I think these
things can be convenient. I think that they can suit
(24:46):
more active people, but at four dollars fifty a pop,
I certainly wouldn't be encouraging it because it's not actually
any healthier than I think the majority of things that
you can buy the supermarket is certainly an ultra process food,
and I don't love that a bar a chocolate as
the first ingredient. Like, to me, you've got to raise
the health of the label if you're starting with chocolate
as your first ingredient. That's probably my biggest pain point here.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Yeah, good summary, I agree fully. All right, Lynne.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
For all the mums out there who are sending teenage
boys off to university, I had a question. My son's
just moved out of home and he has very limited
food budget, what should I be advising he buys to
stay healthy? And I thought it was an interesting question
because certainly, what did a lot of young teenage boys
live off two minute noodles?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
And that you're with that is.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
That there's not much protein, So how do you eat
healthy but still have kind of budget and use a
friendly food? So I think that my recommendation would be
yet by far and away when it comes to cost
of food. Tinned options tend to be cheaper than frozen,
which tend to be cheaper than fresh. That's sort of
the hierarchy of products now. Particularly, let's be honest, without
(25:55):
being offensive to men, they do tend to be a
bit more on the lazier side the ball, so they're
probably more likely to skip a meal than actually get
up and make it. And tinned options, you know, might
mean that they've got minimum food prep. So I think
things like baked beans can be extremely extremely smart. I
think that the tinned fish, particularly things like tuna, are
budget and cost effective. I would say tin soup, but
(26:17):
I actually don't think young people are going to go
and just crack open a tin soup, to be honest,
I think they're more likely to do jaffles and stuff
like that. So hence tuna and cheese and tin beans
a smart option. And I think that just reminding them
that if they are going to be having the packet
noodles and the packet pasta, which are sort of meals
that you add water to the issue that they're missing
(26:39):
is the protein. So if you can get them to
add the tin beans or the tin tuna to it,
they're some of the better options. Because yeah, if you
think of frozen they're all carbi, aren't they. There's not
a lot of high protein options, Like the chicken is
sort of thirty fifty percent chicken. The pizzas, there's not
much protein in those. I think those coals, risottos and
nokies aren't too bad, but again they have to kind
(26:59):
of cook them and add something to it. I think
barbecue chicken can be a smart option because they're going
to get that, particularly if they buy it on sale. Well, lately,
I've been buying a lot more fresh chickens because you
can get a small chicken for as little as five
or six dollars and that's quite a good decent source
of protein that you could then add to those pasta
heating up options, but yeah, off the top of my head,
they're with the ones that I thought of were the best,
(27:21):
because when I looked at things like the pies and
sausage rolls, they were as little as eighteen percent meat.
The Coals sausage rolls, which are still quite high in
saturated fat, but they're actually forty five percent meat in
the fresh section, so you could heat those up and
get half decent amount of meat. I think those Coals
box meals they've got like a beef strogen off, they've
got tiaki chicken. They're quite good for twelve dollars, so
(27:44):
again they might come in under the budget as well.
But if they're really sort of scraping and it's low,
things like toast with tuna, toast with cheese, toast with
baked beans are all up there and certainly better than
just playing two minute noodles and very carby pre cooked
pastas that you add water to.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I'd be avoiding sausage rolls entirely because show me a
unique student age male who's going to be satisfied with
one sausage roll. They're going to need about three. So
like you, I'd be sticking to things like eggs in tuna,
baked beans, even Greek yogurt, like a really underrated higher
protein sauce, you know for breakfast, some cereal or some
Greek yogurt. Like you said, a rotisserie chicken. Like, yes,
they could go and buy a cooked chicken, but the
(28:22):
reality is that how many young males at UNI are
going to go and cook a chicken from scratch? I
mean I would have had a hard pressed time doing
that myself as well. I've only just learned to master
a pork roast in my late thirties, so I'm certainly
not making chicken from scratch in my twenties, or not
a roast chicken anyway, Maybe just some chicken breast or
some chicken thigh. It could be an easy er option.
If I had boys and I were sending them off
to UNI, I'd buy them a slow cooker, honestly, I
(28:43):
would as like a going away present, you know, when
they're studying, when they're off at lectures. They can put
stuff in a slow cooker. A lot of that, like
beef chuck. The casserole can be a lot more budget friendly,
and you can get quite a few serves out of that.
Add a few tins of chickpeas in do like a
I don't know, Moroccan lamb type of slow cook thing.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
You're massively overestimating the manly and are you joking? Bread?
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Oh god, a chicken you can put on a tray
and bake it a slow cooker like.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Easy.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But boys, you've got to understand lean like these are humans.
You literally have to say put your shoes on five times,
like I reckon. If I was buying an appliance, it
would be a toaster or a sandwich press, because all
they have to do is put that down.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, and tuna cheese melts, you know that can go
a long way to cheese melt. Yeah. But I think
if your kids aren't quite at the UNI age, and
you know you still got growing teens, get beans and
legumes into their diet now. Like I'm obsessed with putting
you know, beans and Mexican for the girls, I put
lentils in my spaghetti. If you can build those legumes
and beans in now and get them used to it
when they head off to UNU, they can buy some minster,
(29:50):
cook up a big cheap spaghetti and put some lentils
in there to bulk it out on a budget. But
you know, trying to get teenage boys to eat beans
and legumes and they've probably never eaten them before is
going to be a really, really different challenge. If you've
got young kids now, all teenagers now, try to show
them ways to introduce them into the diet now because
it's going to be a lot easier later on. And
teach them to cook, because, like you said, Suzie, I
(30:10):
get it, it's hard. But if they can cook. They
had ten legs up on anybody else at university because yeah,
I relied a lot on two minute noodles, frozen veggies,
tin tuna. Yeah, I think greck yogurt is massively underrated.
A roast chicken massively underrated. I believe in a slow cooker,
but I get it, it might just be a little
bit too hard.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
A really good girlfriend, I have to say that one
of my little boys is going through a cooking phase.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
He's only ten.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
But I'll buy the sizzle steak when it's on sale
in coals for the dog. And the other day I
came out and all my sizzle steak had been eaten.
Harry had just cooked up the tray for himself as
a snack and then he also I bought eggs to
cook with to shoot some recipes, and he cooked like
five eggs for himself for a little snack, and I
was like, things are not looking good for me. Let
me tell you, like the volume of food. But he
(30:56):
didn't do anything complicated. He just chucked the meat in
the pan and did the eggs and that was it.
So very simple, creatures, let me tell you very simple.
The protein crazies hit them young. Hey yeah, expensive, that's
for sure. We're going at costco very soon.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
All right.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Well, that brings us to the end of the nutition
catch for another week. Please keep telling your friends about
us so we can continue to grow. We're well over
five point five million downloads, so a lot of people
are listening to us, so thank you. And if you
need some evidence based supplements, please keep referring to our
designed by dietitians dot com for the latest when it
comes to collagen, protein, magnesium creating, and some delicious hot
(31:32):
chocolates for winter. We'll see the same time next week
for our regular episode. Drop have a great week.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Thanks for listening.
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