From Leanne and Susie on The Nutrition Couch this episode:
- We take a look at plant based alternatives to dairy, and what you need to be mindful of if you ditch dairy;
- We reveal foods you should be eating for strong, silky hair;
- Our client case study is about gas: when is it abnormal and how to deal with it?
So sit back, relax and enjoy this week’s episode!
Tune in on Wednesday for your mid-week motivation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you drink milk or enjoy yogurt and cheese or
do you find that dairy simply does not agree with
you and instead of for plant based alternatives. Today on
the Nutrition Couch, we take a closer look at what
plant based alternatives are made of and what you need
to be mindful of nutritionally if you consume minimal dairy
in your diet.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I'm Susy Burrow and each week we bring you The
Nutrition Couch, the bi weekly podcast that keeps you up
to date on everything that you need to know in
the world nutrition as well as eating dairy free. Today
we're going to talk about what to eat if you
would like some super glossy and healthy hair and leanne.
Our listener question is something I just picked up from
(00:40):
our Instagram, which I think everyone off quite amusing, is
on gas and more specifically what you should change in
your partner's diet when they are on the nose. So
I was just thinking before we hopped on earlier and
what should our list of question be. And I just
quickly went to our instagram because we get a lot
of requests for questions and that was the first thing there.
(01:02):
And it's a Sunday and night. We're both pretty tired,
and I had a bit of a chuckle to myself.
So we've got to keep it a bit light, don't
we Absolutely? Absolutely, So we'll keep it as pleasant as
we can because a lot of you will be listening
to this on a Sunday morning, all right. But to
kick us off today, I thought I wanted to speak
about something that had been on my mind for a while, Leanne,
and when I really thought about it, we hadn't covered it,
(01:24):
I think for quite some time, and more specifically, in
the context I wanted to talk about it was that when,
for example, you and I have clients who don't eat dairy. Now,
I don't have set beliefs around what nutrition should be
for people. If people want to be or need to
be dairy free or vegetarian or vegan, I think it's
up to you what you eat. I consume dairy. I'm
(01:45):
a little bit lac toast and tolerant. I do have
to be a bit careful. I don't love yogat myself,
but I would have milk in my coffee most days,
and usually cheese, as anyone who follows me online would. No,
I'm a massive fan of the Marionetta goats cheese that
you find it willise and cloths. Who's actually a good
price point at the moment, considering that cheese is about
a luxury item at eight or ten dollars a serve
in supermarkets at the moment. But what I will say
(02:08):
is when we go to model diets and clients say
they don't or can't consume dairy, it is a little
bit of an issue. Nutritionally, it can be very very
tricky to get the amount of calcium in, particularly into
the diet. It came to mindlyand because a few people
who cross my path in life don't consume dairy. They
might be like just and tolerant. It just doesn't agree
(02:29):
with them, and so they're sort of plant based milk alternatives.
They might always have almond milk. But I always think
to myself with the girls, particularly when they're quite slim,
is I worry about their bones because we know that
osteoporosis is incredibly common in Australia, and particularly as we
go through our forties and fifties, the bones can become
brittle and be more likely to fracture and have breaks.
(02:51):
And we certainly see that you know, we'll hear about
women who will fall to fracture their wrists or their ankle,
particularly as they move through those ages, and it will
always something my mind is are they getting enough calcium,
particularly if there's plant based alternatives. And we have spoken
about this before on the body. Whilst some plant based
products can be fortified with really high amounts of calcium,
(03:12):
often they're not. Always you can't assume they are, and
if they are, they're not anywhere near the recommended amount.
So for example, some of the more boutique soy milk
or almond milk might have as little as sixty milligrams
of calcium perserve compared to three hundred milligrams which should
be in dairy milk. So hence the dietary recommendations to
consume three serves of dairy minimum to tick the box
(03:32):
on that eight hundred to a thousand milligrams of calcium
or even higher for postmenopause or women when they lose
that protective effect of estridren on their bones and hence
need to make sure they're getting plenty of calcium. So
I wanted to talk about it in terms of you
really need to check those plant based milks and how
much of them you're having, because I'll see many of
my busy women will have one coffee in the morning,
(03:53):
and if they're not dairy eaters, they then won't have
cheese or yogurt right through the day, and they're getting
nowhere near their daily recommended intakes of calcium. And it
came to my attension because more recently there's been some
plant based cheeses released, and they've always been plant based cheese,
but there's been a couple that have got quite a
lot of attention in the media. And when you look
at the nutritional profileiand there is no protein in those foods,
(04:16):
and there's certainly no calcium. So generally they're made with fat,
a blend of sort of sunflowl oil something to solidify it.
Coconut oil is a popular base. I did see that
the bigger variety had a father being component. Mind you,
I can't get the nutritionals on the bigger website or
coal's website whose stock it, so I can't have a
look at the nutritionals, but certainly, in general plant based cheese,
(04:37):
it's got nowhere near the protein cheese would have, and
certainly no calcium. And I find it challenging it's called
cheese because to me, it's not cheese. It's a formulated
product to look and taste like cheese without any of
those nutritional properties.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So I just thought it.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Worthy of a discussion for people who do eliminate food
groups for various reasons, whether it's because you're opting to
have more plant based food, or you don't like it,
or you can't top dairy just because it's called milk
or cheese or even seafood. If you go into the
plant based alternative section in supermarkets does not mean that
those foods have got any of the similar nutritional properties
(05:12):
that those original animal based foods do. And I'm not
saying animal based eating is better. I'm saying that there
are key nutrients that you do find in animal based foods,
including your particular your dairy, that it's very very hard
to replicate in the plant based alternatives. And as such, women,
particularly women in their late thirties, forties and fifties, need
to be very very mindful that they're getting enough protein,
(05:34):
they're getting enough calcium, they're getting enough magnesium, which are
all key nutrients that are super important for bone health
and are overall health in general, and you can go
for months, if not years without key amounts of those
nutrients that will impact your health long term. So you
can't just eliminate a whole food group like dairy and
think that you can replace it with a little bit
of leafy green veggies in a serve of nuts each day.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
One hundred percent. And it's a really important point. And
I guess it's the time a week in shout out
wonderful dietitian colleagues and say it is really a time
to see a dietitian if you have specifically cut out
a whole food group or a whole you know, like
you're not eating dairy or you don't like yogurt or
anything like that, just to ensure you really are getting
enough calcium through your diet. And that's just one of
the big items. If you'd gone, you know, from eating
(06:17):
meat to now vegetarian, you want to see a dietitian
to ensure you're getting enough iron and B twelve for example.
So it's not just calcium. There are keen nutrients that
are really important through different life stages that we absolutely
want to ensure we're getting in through a well balanced diet.
So a really big shout out to our dietitian colleagues
to just go on touch base with one even if
it's just a one off consult, to ensure that you
(06:37):
are getting the broad range of nutrients through your diet
and with dairy. I actually had to discuss them with
a client this week. Susie. She's got three little kids,
she had back to back pregnancies, breastfeeding all all of them,
and we talked about her not having anywhere near enough calcium.
She's got some teeth problems, and I said, look, we're
really at risk of bossioporosis long term. We need to
get you either eating more through diet or we need
(06:58):
to supplement. And I've got a couple of Susie who
are very very knowledgeable people. Back to back pregnancies, you
know they're either pregnant or breastfeeding. Pregnant or breastfeeding for
many years. They've got massive teeth problems. They need full
root canals. Because I think a lot of people don't
understand that if you're not getting enough calcium. I think
most people understand it impacts your bones long term, like
it leads to things like osteoporosis, but also if the
(07:20):
body is not able to get enough calcium in through diet.
It will take what it needs from the body, so
that's either from your bones or from your teeth, and
that's why a lot of people end up with a
lot of teeth problems due to lack of calcium. So
if you're seeing your dentists and you've got problems with
your teeth, you've got back to back pregnancies. And it's
not that pregnancy or breastfeeding actually increases your requirements. I
(07:42):
think for a lot of women, you and I included,
you just have that terrible morning sickness, like the first
kind of fifteen to twenty weeks at the first half
of your pregnancy, Like I couldn't even look at dairy,
couldn't even look at coffee, and that was like a
good one serve for me a day. I'd always have
some cheese and crackers that always have some yogurt. And
then after coming out of that like kind of horrible
nauseum worn sickness period from weeks twenty to forty, I
(08:02):
just wasn't I guess just didn't sort of craves that
like nice cold yogurt and berries like I normally did,
Like I wanted saber, I wanted salty. I wasn't snacking
as much as I was building more into main meal,
so I just wasn't getting in the normal amounts of calcium.
So it's not about pregnancy and breastfeeding having higher requirements.
You just seem to have a lot more kind of
food aversions and that sort of thing when you're going
(08:23):
through that. And also, like you're busy, if you've got
young kids like running around, often you're not snacking or
you're grabbing quick and easy things on the go, like
a musically bar a piece of fruit when you're out
at the park with the kids and you're not sitting
down to something like a nice tub of yogat or
even coffee. Is you know the amount of busy mums
who might have two SIPs of their morning coffee then
the rest of it goes cold. Where you used to
get a whole, you know, cup of milking through a
(08:44):
coffee two fifty three hundred milligrams of calcium, now you're
getting very minimal because you're only having a couple of
SIPs through your cup and then the rest has gone
cold because you're running after one of the kids or whatever.
It might be, so I really think busy mums are
ones to watch when it comes to the calcium, particularly
you know you've already got some teeth or some dental issues,
because that's like a big sign that you're probably not
(09:05):
getting enough. So some of my favorite ways to get
calcium and zuzi, if you like tofu calcium set tofu
is an awesome idea. Unhold tarhinia. I know we've talked
about it in the podcast before, whether you're throwing it
into some baking, whether you're putting it in some toasts
with a bit of honey and banana, whether you are
using it in some energy or bliss balls as well.
And then of course our sardines and tuna, and there's
(09:25):
a couple of different tins of tuna in the market
with really high calcium requirements. I personally can't do it.
It's the taste of they add the bones in. I
can't do it, Zuzi, but it has incredibly high amounts
of calcium in those specific tuna high calcium brands, So
there are another good option as well. And your nuts
and seeds are always going to be beneficial from a
health perspective, but also contain a little bit of plant
(09:46):
based calcium as well.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And don't forget your tin salmon because the bones with
a tin salmon give quite significant so so I think
it's more than three hundred milligrams if you mash them
in if you don't mind tin salmon, which can be
great on a toasted sandwich or one of those Alena
crackers we've spoken about as a protein rich if food,
particularly if you it's dairy specifically, but you still eat
animal food. That's one of the richest natural sources. So
(10:09):
some superfood's certainly worth paying attention to. And I didn't
even think of the dental and that's really expensive, very
good to pay attention to that. All right, Well, another
topic we actually haven't talked about, but I think will
be of the interest to many of our listeners leanne
hair and how to eat to have healthy shiny hair. Now,
for any female who's gone through menopause or pery or
(10:31):
pregnancy will know that your hair changes significantly. Certainly with
some of the hormonial conditions Land and I work with frequently,
including INSTA and resistance pcos and MTHFR mutations, hair can
absolutely take a beating. And I saw a headline just
last weekly and talking about one of the side effects
of ozen peak now, because oz and peak can support
relatively fast weight loss in some clients who dramatically reduce
(10:55):
their calorie intake in the same way that a VLCD
or miror placement program was slush gallery intake. Certainly, if
you lose large amounts of wait quickly I'm talking sort
of five six, ten kilos over just a few weeks,
which you can lose on some of those very strict
dietary regimes or starvation programs. In some examples, you can
experience hair loss because basically the body is freaking out
(11:16):
that you don't have the nutrients and the protein in
particular that you need. So there can be a number
of reasons. You might have noticed that your hair has
become thinner or more brittle, or breaking off or even
falling out, So some of the key nutrients with Leanne's
going to have a run through.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I certainly will, and I think it's really important to
understand that. First off, your hair is made up of protein.
So those protein or those molecules of your hair require
certain nutrients to grow and maintain healthy hair. So, like
you mentioned, you know, pregnancy and breastfeeding is a big one.
Two low calori diets, restrictive diet. I mean, I know
I'm still growing back my baby hair from mia, and
(11:49):
I'm pregnant again. It's got no hope. It's just like
tufts of hair everywhere. It's hideous. I went to the
hairdresser and she's like, there's no hope for your love,
just wait for it to grow out. I was looking
for like a miracle solution I can put on my hair,
which is like, you've just got to wait for it
to grow out. Love. So, pregnancy and breastfeeding is an
unfortunate side effect of poor hair, But there is a
lot we can do if you're not pregnant or breastfeeding
(12:12):
and eating enough calories, because certainly a diet that's lacking
in good quality nutrition or that's too low calorie can
actually lead to hair loss as well. So if we're
not getting in those essential nutrients and enough calories, your
hair may thin out, it may get quite brittle, it
may fall out, it may be quite prone to breakage
as well. So the link between I guess nutrition and
(12:33):
healthy strong hair is pretty straightforward. Because we have hair
follicles on our head or on other parts of our
body that require a steady supply of certain nutrients to
basically grow and maintain and continue to turn over. So
a really balanced nutrient rich diet is really key. So
essentially it's good balance, healthy eating. But let's go through
(12:55):
that again. So protein, of course is really important. It's
essential that we're consuming enough routine throughout the day and
making sure that we're getting that nice mix of essential
amino acids in terms of our protein supply as well.
Another big one is bioton, So that's also known as
vitoin h and it plays a really crucial role in
hair growth. Now you can get biten if you go
(13:15):
into any sort of chemist, you'll see some biton supplements
on the shelf. But like everybody knows, Susie and I
are big fans of food first, so we're not going
to encourage you to go and take some supplements. We're
going to encourage you to eat biiton through food. So
think of things like eggs, nuts and seeds and our
whole grains and there things that people probably aren't eating
enough of. I feel like there was a lot of
(13:36):
fear around eggs quite a few years ago, but eggs
have actually been shown that they don't have the sort
of a negative side effective increasing cholesterol. Like I think
a lot of us thought a couple of years ago.
Nuts and seas as well. People are quite fearful from
the high fat content there, and whole grains. I think
with the big kind of gluten free trend and gut
heal's trend at the moment, people are steering away from
(13:56):
whole grains as well, and too many carbs and too
much gluten. They really are best sources of biton. So
if you want healthy hair, you really want to include
regular sources of eggs, nutzieds, and whole grains in your diet. Now,
iron's one that we know, Susie, a lot of women
are deficient in, and it's very normalized. Oh you're a
chick or you're a female, you're low and iron. That's
(14:18):
just normal. And I had this discussion with a client
this morning and I said to her, like, you have
low iron. It's not normal. I want you to push
your GP. I know we're getting it enough through diet.
She didn't have overly heavy period, she wasn't actively you know,
like bleeding from anywhere. She didn't have dark tyro stools,
that sort of thing, and so I said, I want
you to go back, and I want you to push
because there's a medical reason that we have low iron.
(14:38):
So it's really something that we need to investigate and
push further with. But where the link comes with our
hair is because iron is essential for us to produce
healthy red blood cells that carry oxygen throughout the cells
of our body. Now, without this adequate iron and this oxygen,
your hair follicles can't actually grow properly. So of course,
I think a lot of us know that good sources
(14:59):
of iron like red meat, chicken, fish, and then plant
based sauces beans, legumes, nuts and seeds, and even spinach
as well, if we're adding a vitamin C sauce to
our plant based iron sauces to help with that absorption
as well. And then finally, I think one of the
important nutrients as well is vitamin C. So vitamin C
is really needed by the body for the production of collagen,
(15:22):
which is also a type of protein that helps to
strengthen our hair. So vitamin C, like I said, helps
to absorb iin, So it's really good, particular if you're
having a plant based source of iine to take it
with a source of vitamin C as well, and you're
doing the best thing you can for your hair. You
know your hair health as well. So vitamin C oranges, mandarines,
citrus types, fruits, strawberries, red capsi erms, kiwi fruits all
(15:44):
really good sources of vitamin C. Just using a bit
of lemon juice and a salad dressing as well can
be a great option. So there's some of the key
nutrients we want to think about when it comes to
strong hair and strong health. And we definitely want to
get as much as we can in through a good
quality dant and only really using supplements if we can't
nutritionally meet those amounts through our diet.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
And I'll just make a point about the vitamin C
because it's one of those nutrients I think people think
they get plenty of, but if you take a deep dive,
if your diet doesn't have a piece of citrus fruit
or kiwi each day, which let's be honestly, and a
lot of people don't, or if they're actively restricting carbohydrates
are cutting back onto and of course things like berries,
they're not inexpensive at the Moment's like five dollars for
(16:26):
a punnet like it's just not budget friendly for a
lot of us. So, you know, at this time of year,
things like mandarins or a single kiwifruit can go a
long way. Or if you get the opportunity to do
like a veggie juice, green type juices and make sure
at night. I used to say a red capskin a
day keeps the doctorate away, but they're too expensive to
do that now that certainly they're extremely rich. The green
(16:47):
veggies to making sure you're having at least one serve
if not too at the moment. It's also really important
for immune function. You know a lot of people are
battling COVID the second third time round. So super dosing
vitamin C from fresh food, fresh fruits and veggies, smart idea,
tomatoes also pretty rich, leafy greens, anything else I'm missing
that's really high. Those plums that used to do they're
(17:08):
not in season though.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Basically your red zen, your near orange type foods.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, so just be really mindful of superdosing the vitamin
C in general for immune system at this time of year.
All right, well, the end to wrap us up today,
a question about gas in the evening if you've got
a partner who's not processing their food very well, if
you tips along the way, you're here's more your area
than mine. You're more gut than I am.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, I can do this one.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
But the first thing I would say is that if
it's there's probably something setting it off. If someone's overly
gassy and particularly not you know, if you're just gassy
with it not being unpleasant, it's probably nothing to be
concerned about. It's probably the result of a higher fiber intake.
But if it is unpleasant, I'd be thinking, is it malabsorption?
Is there a degree of lactose intolerance or fodmat that
where you can proactively avoid certain foods like I know
(17:54):
myself particularly sensitive to brocoli. It just doesn't really agree
with me. It always that sets in my stomach. So,
you know, I'd be trying to track it a little
bit about if it's happening every night, is there something
having at dinner or lunchtime that's going into the diet
or is it just one too many coffees each day,
because that is the time it would be coming out
of the digestive system. By the time you get to
the evening.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I'll say, in my experience, husbands with extra gas. So
we have to differentiate what is normal and what is not.
Because farting is very normal. Having gas is very normal.
But when it becomes excessive or it's very very smelly,
it's like very sulfur type smelly, or where there's a
lot of kind of pain and you know, constipation associated
with the gas, we would say that's more abnormal. But
(18:36):
actually just passing wind multiple times a day is very
very normal. But if it is more that very smelly
type of you know gas, and it's putting people off
and the hubby's not feeling so married about it. The
biggest thing I see with most men is their protein
and takes too high. When you've got high protein, that's
where you get those stinky farts, so cut them back.
Most men are eating twice, if not three times the
(18:59):
amount of protein they actually need at night time, Like
a three hundred gram steak is enormous, Like you actually
can't process that amount of protein in one go anyway,
and it's so so expensive, So just cut back the
amount of protein. The next thing is look at the
kind of windy types of veggies like Susie mentioned, sometimes
some people are a bit more sensitive to broccolily, see
I'm cauliflower. I'm fine with broccoli with Suzi's probably fine
(19:21):
with couliflower because I know she loves the colie rice,
but not so much with broccoli. So it's very individualized.
Cabbage is another big windy type of veggie, and our
beans and our leg games. So they're all very healthy vegetables.
We don't want to cut them all out. We just
want to try and reduce them down and see how
we go. Carbonated drinks is another thing that causes a
lot of people a lot of gas and wind, so
beer and soft drinks as well, So really cutting back
(19:44):
on the bubbly types of drinks and really just seeing
the frequency of how often you have those bower movements
and if there's any straining. If Hubby is spending an
hour in the bathroom, that is not normal and they
are not regular enough, like you should be in and
out of the bathroom in five minutes. If you're sitting
on the bathroom straight for thirty to sixty minutes, you're
not regular enough, and you need to get your boughs
moving properly, up your fluid, up your fiber. You might
(20:06):
want to try something like a little bit of meta
musle or some beny fiber, just mix it into some water.
But definitely never increase your fiber without increasing your fluid intake,
because you're just going to make yourself a whole other
world of pain basically. So I always find that a
lot of the time, a lot of that gas and
wind is associated with constipation because things aren't moving through properly,
They're getting blocked up, and things just aren't flowing like
(20:28):
they should. So getting the boughs moving properly can often
actually be the number one solution to stop a lot
of the gas in the wind.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
And then just the same a couple of the foods
that can also be closely linked to sort of higher
amounts of gas. So of course the crucifer's vegetables, so
the broccoli, the cauliflower, the leg you miss things like
your beans and a mumo beans. So in some cases
people are just quite sensitive to that, and cutting back
on those more gasy edges as all you need to do.
I had a really interesting feedback on my Instagram about
(20:55):
package salads and reports that people found that when they're
had the packet salad, they usually are quite gassy and bloated,
and I lamed that or referred to often got cabbage
and things in it. But apparently there's a reaction that
happens with some of those salad bags that does increase
gas production. I don't know have you heard that before. No,
but they do often have cabbage. They have a lot
(21:17):
of mixed lettucees in there, and often it is cabbage Yuh.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Another one I would say actually is just eating too
quickly as well. If you're not chewing your food properly,
you're really skipping that vital first stage of digestion. So
a lot of people who end up quite bloated and
windy are just inhaling their food. So if Hubbies just
inhaling his food is not chewing properly, it's not eating mindfully.
That's another easy strategy I'd start with. It is just
slowing down, reducing your portion size, and chewing your food
a bit better.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And if they regularly, I would say, I they're big
milk drinkers, you could even try a lactose free and
see if there's a degree of lactose intolerance, and that
might significantly reduce it. Because sometimes people are ordering skim
coffees and the effects worse, and as soon as they
got a lactose free they have no issues. So there's
some things to consider, and there's certainly plenty of lactose
free products out there for people who are more sensitive,
all rightly, And that brings us to the end of
(22:00):
the Nutrition Couch for another Sunday. If you haven't done so,
please subscribe and tell your friends about us so we
can continue to grow and bring more evidence space nutrition
to those who are interested. We've got plenty of products
on our website, the nutritioncouch dot com, and we're about
to launch to brand new ebooks which I promise you
you are going to love. So watch this space for
those in the next week or so. Have a great week.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
How'd you next week?
Do you drink milk or enjoy yogurt and cheese or
do you find that dairy simply does not agree with
you and instead of for plant based alternatives. Today on
the Nutrition Couch, we take a closer look at what
plant based alternatives are made of and what you need
to be mindful of nutritionally if you consume minimal dairy
in your diet.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I'm Susy Burrow and each week we bring you The
Nutrition Couch, the bi weekly podcast that keeps you up
to date on everything that you need to know in
the world nutrition as well as eating dairy free. Today
we're going to talk about what to eat if you
would like some super glossy and healthy hair and leanne.
Our listener question is something I just picked up from
(00:40):
our Instagram, which I think everyone off quite amusing, is
on gas and more specifically what you should change in
your partner's diet when they are on the nose. So
I was just thinking before we hopped on earlier and
what should our list of question be. And I just
quickly went to our instagram because we get a lot
of requests for questions and that was the first thing there.
(01:02):
And it's a Sunday and night. We're both pretty tired,
and I had a bit of a chuckle to myself.
So we've got to keep it a bit light, don't
we Absolutely? Absolutely, So we'll keep it as pleasant as
we can because a lot of you will be listening
to this on a Sunday morning, all right. But to
kick us off today, I thought I wanted to speak
about something that had been on my mind for a while, Leanne,
and when I really thought about it, we hadn't covered it,
(01:24):
I think for quite some time, and more specifically, in
the context I wanted to talk about it was that when,
for example, you and I have clients who don't eat dairy. Now,
I don't have set beliefs around what nutrition should be
for people. If people want to be or need to
be dairy free or vegetarian or vegan, I think it's
up to you what you eat. I consume dairy. I'm
(01:45):
a little bit lac toast and tolerant. I do have
to be a bit careful. I don't love yogat myself,
but I would have milk in my coffee most days,
and usually cheese, as anyone who follows me online would. No,
I'm a massive fan of the Marionetta goats cheese that
you find it willise and cloths. Who's actually a good
price point at the moment, considering that cheese is about
a luxury item at eight or ten dollars a serve
in supermarkets at the moment. But what I will say
(02:08):
is when we go to model diets and clients say
they don't or can't consume dairy, it is a little
bit of an issue. Nutritionally, it can be very very
tricky to get the amount of calcium in, particularly into
the diet. It came to mindlyand because a few people
who cross my path in life don't consume dairy. They
might be like just and tolerant. It just doesn't agree
(02:29):
with them, and so they're sort of plant based milk alternatives.
They might always have almond milk. But I always think
to myself with the girls, particularly when they're quite slim,
is I worry about their bones because we know that
osteoporosis is incredibly common in Australia, and particularly as we
go through our forties and fifties, the bones can become
brittle and be more likely to fracture and have breaks.
(02:51):
And we certainly see that you know, we'll hear about
women who will fall to fracture their wrists or their ankle,
particularly as they move through those ages, and it will
always something my mind is are they getting enough calcium,
particularly if there's plant based alternatives. And we have spoken
about this before on the body. Whilst some plant based
products can be fortified with really high amounts of calcium,
(03:12):
often they're not. Always you can't assume they are, and
if they are, they're not anywhere near the recommended amount.
So for example, some of the more boutique soy milk
or almond milk might have as little as sixty milligrams
of calcium perserve compared to three hundred milligrams which should
be in dairy milk. So hence the dietary recommendations to
consume three serves of dairy minimum to tick the box
(03:32):
on that eight hundred to a thousand milligrams of calcium
or even higher for postmenopause or women when they lose
that protective effect of estridren on their bones and hence
need to make sure they're getting plenty of calcium. So
I wanted to talk about it in terms of you
really need to check those plant based milks and how
much of them you're having, because I'll see many of
my busy women will have one coffee in the morning,
(03:53):
and if they're not dairy eaters, they then won't have
cheese or yogurt right through the day, and they're getting
nowhere near their daily recommended intakes of calcium. And it
came to my attension because more recently there's been some
plant based cheeses released, and they've always been plant based cheese,
but there's been a couple that have got quite a
lot of attention in the media. And when you look
at the nutritional profileiand there is no protein in those foods,
(04:16):
and there's certainly no calcium. So generally they're made with fat,
a blend of sort of sunflowl oil something to solidify it.
Coconut oil is a popular base. I did see that
the bigger variety had a father being component. Mind you,
I can't get the nutritionals on the bigger website or
coal's website whose stock it, so I can't have a
look at the nutritionals, but certainly, in general plant based cheese,
(04:37):
it's got nowhere near the protein cheese would have, and
certainly no calcium. And I find it challenging it's called
cheese because to me, it's not cheese. It's a formulated
product to look and taste like cheese without any of
those nutritional properties.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So I just thought it.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Worthy of a discussion for people who do eliminate food
groups for various reasons, whether it's because you're opting to
have more plant based food, or you don't like it,
or you can't top dairy just because it's called milk
or cheese or even seafood. If you go into the
plant based alternative section in supermarkets does not mean that
those foods have got any of the similar nutritional properties
(05:12):
that those original animal based foods do. And I'm not
saying animal based eating is better. I'm saying that there
are key nutrients that you do find in animal based foods,
including your particular your dairy, that it's very very hard
to replicate in the plant based alternatives. And as such, women,
particularly women in their late thirties, forties and fifties, need
to be very very mindful that they're getting enough protein,
(05:34):
they're getting enough calcium, they're getting enough magnesium, which are
all key nutrients that are super important for bone health
and are overall health in general, and you can go
for months, if not years without key amounts of those
nutrients that will impact your health long term. So you
can't just eliminate a whole food group like dairy and
think that you can replace it with a little bit
of leafy green veggies in a serve of nuts each day.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
One hundred percent. And it's a really important point. And
I guess it's the time a week in shout out
wonderful dietitian colleagues and say it is really a time
to see a dietitian if you have specifically cut out
a whole food group or a whole you know, like
you're not eating dairy or you don't like yogurt or
anything like that, just to ensure you really are getting
enough calcium through your diet. And that's just one of
the big items. If you'd gone, you know, from eating
(06:17):
meat to now vegetarian, you want to see a dietitian
to ensure you're getting enough iron and B twelve for example.
So it's not just calcium. There are keen nutrients that
are really important through different life stages that we absolutely
want to ensure we're getting in through a well balanced diet.
So a really big shout out to our dietitian colleagues
to just go on touch base with one even if
it's just a one off consult, to ensure that you
(06:37):
are getting the broad range of nutrients through your diet
and with dairy. I actually had to discuss them with
a client this week. Susie. She's got three little kids,
she had back to back pregnancies, breastfeeding all all of them,
and we talked about her not having anywhere near enough calcium.
She's got some teeth problems, and I said, look, we're
really at risk of bossioporosis long term. We need to
get you either eating more through diet or we need
(06:58):
to supplement. And I've got a couple of Susie who
are very very knowledgeable people. Back to back pregnancies, you
know they're either pregnant or breastfeeding. Pregnant or breastfeeding for
many years. They've got massive teeth problems. They need full
root canals. Because I think a lot of people don't
understand that if you're not getting enough calcium. I think
most people understand it impacts your bones long term, like
it leads to things like osteoporosis, but also if the
(07:20):
body is not able to get enough calcium in through diet.
It will take what it needs from the body, so
that's either from your bones or from your teeth, and
that's why a lot of people end up with a
lot of teeth problems due to lack of calcium. So
if you're seeing your dentists and you've got problems with
your teeth, you've got back to back pregnancies. And it's
not that pregnancy or breastfeeding actually increases your requirements. I
(07:42):
think for a lot of women, you and I included,
you just have that terrible morning sickness, like the first
kind of fifteen to twenty weeks at the first half
of your pregnancy, Like I couldn't even look at dairy,
couldn't even look at coffee, and that was like a
good one serve for me a day. I'd always have
some cheese and crackers that always have some yogurt. And
then after coming out of that like kind of horrible
nauseum worn sickness period from weeks twenty to forty, I
(08:02):
just wasn't I guess just didn't sort of craves that
like nice cold yogurt and berries like I normally did,
Like I wanted saber, I wanted salty. I wasn't snacking
as much as I was building more into main meal,
so I just wasn't getting in the normal amounts of calcium.
So it's not about pregnancy and breastfeeding having higher requirements.
You just seem to have a lot more kind of
food aversions and that sort of thing when you're going
(08:23):
through that. And also, like you're busy, if you've got
young kids like running around, often you're not snacking or
you're grabbing quick and easy things on the go, like
a musically bar a piece of fruit when you're out
at the park with the kids and you're not sitting
down to something like a nice tub of yogat or
even coffee. Is you know the amount of busy mums
who might have two SIPs of their morning coffee then
the rest of it goes cold. Where you used to
get a whole, you know, cup of milking through a
(08:44):
coffee two fifty three hundred milligrams of calcium, now you're
getting very minimal because you're only having a couple of
SIPs through your cup and then the rest has gone
cold because you're running after one of the kids or whatever.
It might be, so I really think busy mums are
ones to watch when it comes to the calcium, particularly
you know you've already got some teeth or some dental issues,
because that's like a big sign that you're probably not
(09:05):
getting enough. So some of my favorite ways to get
calcium and zuzi, if you like tofu calcium set tofu
is an awesome idea. Unhold tarhinia. I know we've talked
about it in the podcast before, whether you're throwing it
into some baking, whether you're putting it in some toasts
with a bit of honey and banana, whether you are
using it in some energy or bliss balls as well.
And then of course our sardines and tuna, and there's
(09:25):
a couple of different tins of tuna in the market
with really high calcium requirements. I personally can't do it.
It's the taste of they add the bones in. I
can't do it, Zuzi, but it has incredibly high amounts
of calcium in those specific tuna high calcium brands, So
there are another good option as well. And your nuts
and seeds are always going to be beneficial from a
health perspective, but also contain a little bit of plant
(09:46):
based calcium as well.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And don't forget your tin salmon because the bones with
a tin salmon give quite significant so so I think
it's more than three hundred milligrams if you mash them
in if you don't mind tin salmon, which can be
great on a toasted sandwich or one of those Alena
crackers we've spoken about as a protein rich if food,
particularly if you it's dairy specifically, but you still eat
animal food. That's one of the richest natural sources. So
(10:09):
some superfood's certainly worth paying attention to. And I didn't
even think of the dental and that's really expensive, very
good to pay attention to that. All right, Well, another
topic we actually haven't talked about, but I think will
be of the interest to many of our listeners leanne
hair and how to eat to have healthy shiny hair. Now,
for any female who's gone through menopause or pery or
(10:31):
pregnancy will know that your hair changes significantly. Certainly with
some of the hormonial conditions Land and I work with frequently,
including INSTA and resistance pcos and MTHFR mutations, hair can
absolutely take a beating. And I saw a headline just
last weekly and talking about one of the side effects
of ozen peak now, because oz and peak can support
relatively fast weight loss in some clients who dramatically reduce
(10:55):
their calorie intake in the same way that a VLCD
or miror placement program was slush gallery intake. Certainly, if
you lose large amounts of wait quickly I'm talking sort
of five six, ten kilos over just a few weeks,
which you can lose on some of those very strict
dietary regimes or starvation programs. In some examples, you can
experience hair loss because basically the body is freaking out
(11:16):
that you don't have the nutrients and the protein in
particular that you need. So there can be a number
of reasons. You might have noticed that your hair has
become thinner or more brittle, or breaking off or even
falling out, So some of the key nutrients with Leanne's
going to have a run through.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I certainly will, and I think it's really important to
understand that. First off, your hair is made up of protein.
So those protein or those molecules of your hair require
certain nutrients to grow and maintain healthy hair. So, like
you mentioned, you know, pregnancy and breastfeeding is a big one.
Two low calori diets, restrictive diet. I mean, I know
I'm still growing back my baby hair from mia, and
(11:49):
I'm pregnant again. It's got no hope. It's just like
tufts of hair everywhere. It's hideous. I went to the
hairdresser and she's like, there's no hope for your love,
just wait for it to grow out. I was looking
for like a miracle solution I can put on my hair,
which is like, you've just got to wait for it
to grow out. Love. So, pregnancy and breastfeeding is an
unfortunate side effect of poor hair, But there is a
lot we can do if you're not pregnant or breastfeeding
(12:12):
and eating enough calories, because certainly a diet that's lacking
in good quality nutrition or that's too low calorie can
actually lead to hair loss as well. So if we're
not getting in those essential nutrients and enough calories, your
hair may thin out, it may get quite brittle, it
may fall out, it may be quite prone to breakage
as well. So the link between I guess nutrition and
(12:33):
healthy strong hair is pretty straightforward. Because we have hair
follicles on our head or on other parts of our
body that require a steady supply of certain nutrients to
basically grow and maintain and continue to turn over. So
a really balanced nutrient rich diet is really key. So
essentially it's good balance, healthy eating. But let's go through
(12:55):
that again. So protein, of course is really important. It's
essential that we're consuming enough routine throughout the day and
making sure that we're getting that nice mix of essential
amino acids in terms of our protein supply as well.
Another big one is bioton, So that's also known as
vitoin h and it plays a really crucial role in
hair growth. Now you can get biten if you go
(13:15):
into any sort of chemist, you'll see some biton supplements
on the shelf. But like everybody knows, Susie and I
are big fans of food first, so we're not going
to encourage you to go and take some supplements. We're
going to encourage you to eat biiton through food. So
think of things like eggs, nuts and seeds and our
whole grains and there things that people probably aren't eating
enough of. I feel like there was a lot of
(13:36):
fear around eggs quite a few years ago, but eggs
have actually been shown that they don't have the sort
of a negative side effective increasing cholesterol. Like I think
a lot of us thought a couple of years ago.
Nuts and seas as well. People are quite fearful from
the high fat content there, and whole grains. I think
with the big kind of gluten free trend and gut
heal's trend at the moment, people are steering away from
(13:56):
whole grains as well, and too many carbs and too
much gluten. They really are best sources of biton. So
if you want healthy hair, you really want to include
regular sources of eggs, nutzieds, and whole grains in your diet. Now,
iron's one that we know, Susie, a lot of women
are deficient in, and it's very normalized. Oh you're a
chick or you're a female, you're low and iron. That's
(14:18):
just normal. And I had this discussion with a client
this morning and I said to her, like, you have
low iron. It's not normal. I want you to push
your GP. I know we're getting it enough through diet.
She didn't have overly heavy period, she wasn't actively you know,
like bleeding from anywhere. She didn't have dark tyro stools,
that sort of thing, and so I said, I want
you to go back, and I want you to push
because there's a medical reason that we have low iron.
(14:38):
So it's really something that we need to investigate and
push further with. But where the link comes with our
hair is because iron is essential for us to produce
healthy red blood cells that carry oxygen throughout the cells
of our body. Now, without this adequate iron and this oxygen,
your hair follicles can't actually grow properly. So of course,
I think a lot of us know that good sources
(14:59):
of iron like red meat, chicken, fish, and then plant
based sauces beans, legumes, nuts and seeds, and even spinach
as well, if we're adding a vitamin C sauce to
our plant based iron sauces to help with that absorption
as well. And then finally, I think one of the
important nutrients as well is vitamin C. So vitamin C
is really needed by the body for the production of collagen,
(15:22):
which is also a type of protein that helps to
strengthen our hair. So vitamin C, like I said, helps
to absorb iin, So it's really good, particular if you're
having a plant based source of iine to take it
with a source of vitamin C as well, and you're
doing the best thing you can for your hair. You
know your hair health as well. So vitamin C oranges, mandarines,
citrus types, fruits, strawberries, red capsi erms, kiwi fruits all
(15:44):
really good sources of vitamin C. Just using a bit
of lemon juice and a salad dressing as well can
be a great option. So there's some of the key
nutrients we want to think about when it comes to
strong hair and strong health. And we definitely want to
get as much as we can in through a good
quality dant and only really using supplements if we can't
nutritionally meet those amounts through our diet.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
And I'll just make a point about the vitamin C
because it's one of those nutrients I think people think
they get plenty of, but if you take a deep dive,
if your diet doesn't have a piece of citrus fruit
or kiwi each day, which let's be honestly, and a
lot of people don't, or if they're actively restricting carbohydrates
are cutting back onto and of course things like berries,
they're not inexpensive at the Moment's like five dollars for
(16:26):
a punnet like it's just not budget friendly for a
lot of us. So, you know, at this time of year,
things like mandarins or a single kiwifruit can go a
long way. Or if you get the opportunity to do
like a veggie juice, green type juices and make sure
at night. I used to say a red capskin a
day keeps the doctorate away, but they're too expensive to
do that now that certainly they're extremely rich. The green
(16:47):
veggies to making sure you're having at least one serve
if not too at the moment. It's also really important
for immune function. You know a lot of people are
battling COVID the second third time round. So super dosing
vitamin C from fresh food, fresh fruits and veggies, smart idea,
tomatoes also pretty rich, leafy greens, anything else I'm missing
that's really high. Those plums that used to do they're
(17:08):
not in season though.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Basically your red zen, your near orange type foods.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, so just be really mindful of superdosing the vitamin
C in general for immune system at this time of year.
All right, well, the end to wrap us up today,
a question about gas in the evening if you've got
a partner who's not processing their food very well, if
you tips along the way, you're here's more your area
than mine. You're more gut than I am.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, I can do this one.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
But the first thing I would say is that if
it's there's probably something setting it off. If someone's overly
gassy and particularly not you know, if you're just gassy
with it not being unpleasant, it's probably nothing to be
concerned about. It's probably the result of a higher fiber intake.
But if it is unpleasant, I'd be thinking, is it malabsorption?
Is there a degree of lactose intolerance or fodmat that
where you can proactively avoid certain foods like I know
(17:54):
myself particularly sensitive to brocoli. It just doesn't really agree
with me. It always that sets in my stomach. So,
you know, I'd be trying to track it a little
bit about if it's happening every night, is there something
having at dinner or lunchtime that's going into the diet
or is it just one too many coffees each day,
because that is the time it would be coming out
of the digestive system. By the time you get to
the evening.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I'll say, in my experience, husbands with extra gas. So
we have to differentiate what is normal and what is not.
Because farting is very normal. Having gas is very normal.
But when it becomes excessive or it's very very smelly,
it's like very sulfur type smelly, or where there's a
lot of kind of pain and you know, constipation associated
with the gas, we would say that's more abnormal. But
(18:36):
actually just passing wind multiple times a day is very
very normal. But if it is more that very smelly
type of you know gas, and it's putting people off
and the hubby's not feeling so married about it. The
biggest thing I see with most men is their protein
and takes too high. When you've got high protein, that's
where you get those stinky farts, so cut them back.
Most men are eating twice, if not three times the
(18:59):
amount of protein they actually need at night time, Like
a three hundred gram steak is enormous, Like you actually
can't process that amount of protein in one go anyway,
and it's so so expensive, So just cut back the
amount of protein. The next thing is look at the
kind of windy types of veggies like Susie mentioned, sometimes
some people are a bit more sensitive to broccolily, see
I'm cauliflower. I'm fine with broccoli with Suzi's probably fine
(19:21):
with couliflower because I know she loves the colie rice,
but not so much with broccoli. So it's very individualized.
Cabbage is another big windy type of veggie, and our
beans and our leg games. So they're all very healthy vegetables.
We don't want to cut them all out. We just
want to try and reduce them down and see how
we go. Carbonated drinks is another thing that causes a
lot of people a lot of gas and wind, so
beer and soft drinks as well, So really cutting back
(19:44):
on the bubbly types of drinks and really just seeing
the frequency of how often you have those bower movements
and if there's any straining. If Hubby is spending an
hour in the bathroom, that is not normal and they
are not regular enough, like you should be in and
out of the bathroom in five minutes. If you're sitting
on the bathroom straight for thirty to sixty minutes, you're
not regular enough, and you need to get your boughs
moving properly, up your fluid, up your fiber. You might
(20:06):
want to try something like a little bit of meta
musle or some beny fiber, just mix it into some water.
But definitely never increase your fiber without increasing your fluid intake,
because you're just going to make yourself a whole other
world of pain basically. So I always find that a
lot of the time, a lot of that gas and
wind is associated with constipation because things aren't moving through properly,
They're getting blocked up, and things just aren't flowing like
(20:28):
they should. So getting the boughs moving properly can often
actually be the number one solution to stop a lot
of the gas in the wind.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
And then just the same a couple of the foods
that can also be closely linked to sort of higher
amounts of gas. So of course the crucifer's vegetables, so
the broccoli, the cauliflower, the leg you miss things like
your beans and a mumo beans. So in some cases
people are just quite sensitive to that, and cutting back
on those more gasy edges as all you need to do.
I had a really interesting feedback on my Instagram about
(20:55):
package salads and reports that people found that when they're
had the packet salad, they usually are quite gassy and bloated,
and I lamed that or referred to often got cabbage
and things in it. But apparently there's a reaction that
happens with some of those salad bags that does increase
gas production. I don't know have you heard that before. No,
but they do often have cabbage. They have a lot
(21:17):
of mixed lettucees in there, and often it is cabbage Yuh.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Another one I would say actually is just eating too
quickly as well. If you're not chewing your food properly,
you're really skipping that vital first stage of digestion. So
a lot of people who end up quite bloated and
windy are just inhaling their food. So if Hubbies just
inhaling his food is not chewing properly, it's not eating mindfully.
That's another easy strategy I'd start with. It is just
slowing down, reducing your portion size, and chewing your food
a bit better.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And if they regularly, I would say, I they're big
milk drinkers, you could even try a lactose free and
see if there's a degree of lactose intolerance, and that
might significantly reduce it. Because sometimes people are ordering skim
coffees and the effects worse, and as soon as they
got a lactose free they have no issues. So there's
some things to consider, and there's certainly plenty of lactose
free products out there for people who are more sensitive,
all rightly, And that brings us to the end of
(22:00):
the Nutrition Couch for another Sunday. If you haven't done so,
please subscribe and tell your friends about us so we
can continue to grow and bring more evidence space nutrition
to those who are interested. We've got plenty of products
on our website, the nutritioncouch dot com, and we're about
to launch to brand new ebooks which I promise you
you are going to love. So watch this space for
those in the next week or so. Have a great week.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
How'd you next week?
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