Struggling with winter cravings but don’t want to blow your health goals? Wondering if that expensive gut health supplement is even doing anything? In this week’s episode of The Nutrition Couch, dietitians Susie Burrell and Leanne Ward unpack the real nutrition strategies that actually work — no gimmicks, no fads.
On today’s show:
- Why some gut health supplements (yes, even probiotics and greens powders) may be a waste of money — and what’s actually worth it.
- Our no-guilt winter comfort food guide: practical tips to enjoy pies, pastas, lasagnas, and hearty meals without blowing your calorie budget.
- The frozen “protein pasta” supermarket trend: are products like FroPro Protein Pots a smart choice or just ultra-processed hype?
- Listener question: Are sugary kids’ cereals really that bad — and what do two dietitians actually feed their own children?
This is a warm, practical, no-nonsense episode packed with real-life food tips and evidence-based advice to help you stay on track all winter long.
Check out our scientifically formulated protein and creatine blends, designed by dietitians: designedbydietitians.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Whether you have managed to escape the Aussie winter for
some much needed sunlight. It is only a matter of
time before you too will find yourselves here in the
depths of winter with us. So in today's episode of
The Nutrition Couch, we chat all things healthy comfort eating,
so you can keep your diet goals on track whilst
still enjoying plenty of delicious food.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I am Susie Burrow and on Lean Wood, and.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Together we bring you The Nutrition Couch, the weekly podcast
that keeps you up to date on everything you need
to know in the world of nutrition as well as
comfort eating. We have a chat about the supplements that
you may be better off avoiding when it.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Comes to your gut health.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We have some thoughts on a high protein supermarket range,
and our listener question is all about kids breakfast cereals
so leanne. I don't know, I don't maybe I'm just
getting older, but this winter has certainly felt pretty brutal.
It certainly has felt pretty brutal, not going to Europe
like everyone I seem to know is going to, And
I know that the last thing many of us are
(00:56):
feeling like right now are salads and grill fish. It
really is just that time of year that you get
home after a long day, it's cold and wet and
rainy outside, and all you can think about is a
big bowl of pasta. So we one hundred percent get
that you're feeling like that. We certainly are too, So
I thought it was time to have a chat about
why comfort food or more indulgent foods doesn't have to
(01:20):
mean a complete calorie blowout in fact ly, and I
think that most meals I can think of, ranging from
casseroles to roasts, to pasta dishes to pies, can all
be made in a lot healthier ways without blowing out
the calorie budget. And I think the other key part
(01:41):
of this that plays is the psychological impact certain foods
have on us. Whereas I observe sometimes clients will be told, oh,
it's fine to have a bowl of pasta, and they'll
have this just massive bowl of pasta with cheese on top,
and actually they probably would have felt quite satisfied just having,
you know, less than a cup of pasta in total,
(02:02):
if they bolked it up and made it an actual
balance meal. So what you'll notice from our description of
some of our favorite comfort type foods is that they
always balanced as part of a meal, and that's the
key to success. So I'll start with a couple of
my favorites and handover to Leanna. I know she's been
cooking this amazing lasagna soup that looks pretty pretty spech.
(02:23):
But the one I like to do, I love a pie,
and I love like actual proper pastry because I could
get on here and say, now, oh, you can make
the top with mashed potato or mash sweet potato or
filo pastry, but let's be honestly, and it's not really
a pie, is it. So I really felt like a
chicken pie just this past week. So the first place
(02:44):
I started was just with all the aromatic veggies, things
like your onion, garlic, celery leak. I always try and
freeze them when I do buy them because they are expensive.
And then I got chicken tenderline. I will tend to
invest in not thigh. I know a lot of people
will prefer a pie based on thigh, but I always
will spend a bit more and get tenderlin your breast.
And I just marinated the chicken in the aromatics with
(03:04):
some chicken stock, and then I made the roo, which
was quite simple, just some flour, skim milk, and a
little bit of butter for the creamy sauce, and then
I just threw in like a truckload of green veggies
like spinach kale at the end so it didn't get
too water in gluggy, and then I just popped it
into a pie tray and just did one single sheet
(03:26):
of reduced fat puff pastry and it was absolutely delicious.
It was, yes, not a low calorie meal, but certainly
a lot lower in fat than a pie you'd buy
from the supermarket. And you know, after a quarter of it,
there was more than enough. I had it with salad.
It was absolutely delicious. So that's one of my favorite ones.
I love a pasta bake because I think if you're
(03:46):
craving pasta, you can literally throw one cup of cooked
pasta in a mix of lean mince or chicken breast,
loads of veggies, some grated parmesan on top, even with
a little crumb, and you don't notice that you're not
having three cups of pasta. It's still just as delicious.
So I think if you're craving pasta, you can certainly
do it in a very easy, portion controlled way. And
(04:08):
I know there are higher fiber and higher protein passes,
but to be honest, I don't even worry about that.
I just use smaller amounts of the regular thing, and
you'll find that after quite a small amount, you're very satisfied.
And probably my third go to is pizza. I find
that by the time you spend thirty dollars on a
commercial pizza and it's cold when it gets delivered, it's
almost as easy to make it at home. And I'll
(04:30):
get one of the Della Rossa higher protein bases or
woolies and colds both have them. Just some tomato pisada
on the bottom, roast veggies, so things like your pumpkins, uchini, eggplant,
all quite low carb. And then I'll just sprinkle the
top with a little bit of parmesan. I like the
aldi parmesan shaved it's beautiful. But then I'll do goats,
cheese or fetter, and I find that just completely makes
(04:51):
the pizza. When you sit down and eat it with
a knife and fork and a salad, it comes up
really well. And yeah, two or three pieces of that
with a big salad, there's absolutely nothing.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's slightly heavier than just to protein and veggie meal,
but it can certainly be a very feeling lunch or
dinner when you're feeling like something a bit more hardy.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, I agree, And I think a lot of these times,
like you said, people will eat these big comfort meals,
but the portions are just so big as well, and
I think we forget. And I always say to my clients,
like one spoon of something tastes the same as fifty
spoons of something. The taste is no different. But what
we tend to do is we shovel it all in
and we're distracted by watching TV, we're doing emails where
(05:29):
we're not paying attention to the food, we're not eating
it mindfully until we get to the very last spoon
of pasta in this enormous bowl, and then we go
in our brain, oh, it's a last spoon.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
I better enjoy that, and then we slow down and
enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
But if we did it from the very first spoon,
I think we'll find we'll eat so much less of
it and we feel so much about it because if
we're being honest, like a big bowl of creamy pasta is, yes,
it's delicious, but nobody ever feels great after eating that.
And if you were to half that amount and bulk
it out with some veggies. My favorite and winter is
always some broccolini. Just thought i'd bit of extra version olive,
(06:01):
or some a bit of onion and garlic, or even
just throwing in some mushrooms and zucchini with that. If
you bulk your pasta out with some veggies, it can
go a you know, a lot lot further. And I
kids really like ravioli at the moment. They call it
pillow pasta. My girls are ready little therety three or two,
so they're like, go pillow pasta, Mummy. And so I
always make sure that if I'm going to make ravioli
for the family, I get that you know, family pack,
(06:21):
and I think it's supposed to serve four, but I'll
easily get six meals out of it, or even seven
or ready if you count the kid portions as well,
because I bulk it out with so many veggies, and
then I also put a little bit of extra protein
in there, like some chicken breast or something as well.
And then often I'll serve a bit of sauteed broccolini
on the side. So I think we can get away
with these delicious, creamy pastas. But we don't have to
go overboard in terms of the portions, because, let's be honest,
(06:43):
a lot of us are moving a lot less in
winter as well. We're not getting up and doing our
big walks because let's be honest, it's so cold, like
even in Brisbane, this winter's been brutal. Like I got
up really early to catch a six am flight the
other day and I was going to Sydney and I
checked my phone and it said eight degrees in Brisbane
at ten degrees in Sydney. And I was like, when
it's not normal that Brisbane's colder than what Sydney is.
But it's been brutal this winter. It's been quite cool,
(07:04):
and so most of us aren't doing any winter as
much movement, and so we probably don't need as large
as meals as we often do when we're moving more
in summer. So I think just keeping an eye on
those portion sizes is a really key tip for winter.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
So I love the veggie loaded pastas.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I'm also a big fan of, like you said, SUSI
the pies, but I do love a good shepherd's pie
and I'll use normal potato. I'm not a huge soweat
potato person. I don't use it a lot, but I
love mince. I feel like mince is a real comfort food,
like tomato pisada. You can cook it off with a
bit of red whine. It mince always tastes so good.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
The next day.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
You could do a bit of a ragu stuffed potatoes
or another really really good one. Stuff then with some mince,
a bit of Greek yogurt and then a nice big
side salad on the side is really great.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Or I like a lot of noodle dishes as well.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Maybe it's the Malaysian background in me, but I love
a good pad thie, just with a bit less noodle. Also,
instead of making you know, the noodle serving four serfs,
I'll get six serves out of it. Stuff a ton
of veggies in there, and a bit more protein as
well that or like a veggie loaded lazada. I did
one the other day and everyone's like, oh, recipe, recipe,
And I don't have recipes, but I basically just start
with making the mints, and I put some tomato pisada in,
(08:08):
I put a tin of brown lentils in there. I
grate some carrot and zucchini and some onion and garlic,
and that's my mince mixture. And sometimes if it's looking
a little wet, I'll add a little bit of beef
stock into them. And then for my white sauce, I
literally just do whomeal flour, a little bit of butter
and some milk. I think about two cups of skim
milk and keep stirring that over the heat until it
starts to thicken. It. It's like a white sauce and
(08:28):
it looks a bit gluggy because of the whole meal flour,
but you literally couldn't taste it. And I prefer to
use a little bit of wholemeal flower then white flour.
That's my preference. And then I roast all of my veggies.
I do eggplant, I do pumpkin, I do red capsicum,
I do zucchini, and then when i'm laying it all up,
I do the layer of meat sauce, a little bit
of the white sauce on top, a layer of pasta.
Then I do two or three layers of my roasted veggie,
(08:49):
and then I basically repeat when I do lasagna. It's
such a to me, it's such a mission, like it
takes so long that I always make two because it
freezes so well, or I'll give a bit off to
like family members or something, or they can it's kind
of eate it a bit deconstructed. So I always make
the effort to make two big lasagnas, which doesn't take
that much longer than making one. I feel like, if
you're going to take the effort to make a lazagno,
it always takes a few hours because there's so many
(09:10):
different layers and steps to it that I always make too,
and that way I freeze, and I've got a few
portions of like a veggie loaded lasagne in the fridge
at the moment when the freezer at the moment, and
it's such a warming, comforting meal in winter. So they're
probably my big few. And like you said, that lasagnio
soup I've been making, which is on my Instagram if
anyone's after it. Leanne Ward nutrition is my handle, and
that's a really really good one as well. And you
(09:31):
boost the protein a little bit through that soup by
stirring in some cottage cheese which you can't even taste,
and if you're someone that doesn't like the texture of
cottage cheese, which a lot of my clients are really
turned off by cottag cheese because of the texture. You
don't notice it stir through a bit of lazagna soup.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
It's really good.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And you can get that curly sand remote as like
a curly lasagna pasta that works really really well within
the soup and you just kind of crunch it up
with your fingers, break it up a bit and stir
it through the soup and it's like next level. It's
so good, like comfort wise, it's absolutely delicious. A bit
of crack pepper and parmesan cheese on top. It's yeah,
ten out of ten in my books.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
How many lasagna sheets do you use? Do you alternate every.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Second or do you do less in a lasagno or
in the soup?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well either or how many sheets is in the soup?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I normally use a box of lazangni sheets across two lasagnas.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, because I just do.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I'll alternate with veggies, zucchini, pumpkin, eggplant, so sometimes the
lasagna because I'm like you, I'm only going to do
it if it's a big deal, because it's a big job.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Probably three.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
You can really cut down the number of sheets and
still get all the flavor of the pasta. But I
was just wondering in that bowl of that soup how
much because it didn't look like a massive amount of
pasta in there.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
No, I think I only used about two sheets crumbled up,
because I think I only made it potentially from memory
about four serves, so it wasn't a whole lot. Yeah,
and you can obviously adjust that based on your requirements.
If you're highly active, add more, if you're not that active,
add less. But yeah, it really does go a long way,
because if you crumble it up a little bit, you
don't want to leave the sheets hole in the soup.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
It would be weird. If you break them up with
your fingers, it's really really good.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
And the other thing I would say is that if
you're finding you're getting your home really hungry, you may
be better to have a more substantial meal in the
day that is really filling, and then you'll be more satisfied.
Whereas if you sort of feel that deprivation all day
and then get home and then you sort of don't
want to necessarily be having the heavier meal at night.
So don't forget these meals can all be really good
lunches as well to take the edge of your appetite
when you're feeling like you're just looking for comfort to
(11:21):
the end of a long day.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Yeah, absolutely, all right, Susie's our next section.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
You found a great little article this week and it's
a ardi so American dietitian who's written an article about
full supplements that you shouldn't take for gut health, which
is interesting because you always see so much written up
about gut health than what you should do, So this
one was quite interesting because it was talking about the
full supplements that she recommends that you shouldn't take. And
as someone who has a background in gut health and
(11:46):
specializes in gut health, I thought, what an interesting article.
So all guys through it because gut health is very trendy.
We know it's so important. Even if you don't actively
have gut symptoms, you should one thousand percent be nourishing
and taking care of your gut health because I always
say that good health starts and your gut. It affects
your immunity, it affects your mood, it affects your your digestion.
(12:06):
There's so many things that good gut health can do
for your body. Because a healthy gut microbiome is a
healthy body essentially, So there are so many supplements out
there that promise the world. They promised to heal your gut,
they promise to cure your gut symptoms, they promise to
do the world of things that we know that it's
really difficult to regulate that supplement industry, which is why
Susie and I were so passionate about starting our own
(12:28):
brand that actually use the top quality ingredients and evidence
based supplements in designed by dietitians, so you can wrestle
sure that we've got the best quality stuff in our supplements.
But in this article, which I found quite interesting, the
first thing she was saying that she doesn't recommend for
gut health is probotics. And I think this is sort
of a loaded one because she was saying that, you know,
(12:48):
most probotics to be effective, you need to take the
right dose and the right strain for the right condition.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
And I one hundred percent agree with that.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Just taking a random probotic off the shelf and sporadically
taking it in the wrong amount is really going to
do anything for many people.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
But the right probotic, the right.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Strain taking it, they're the most effective dose for the
right condition can absolutely be life changing for some people.
There have been some strains of probotics that have been
shown to be just as effective as actual, you know,
hardcore medication, and some different types of conditions, particularly those
gut conditions like some of those inflammatory bower diseases. So
probotics definitely have their time and place. But if you're
(13:25):
just taking it almost like a preventative, like I'm just
going to take this to improve my gut health or
to make sure my gut health isn't bad, you're probably
just wasting your money. So you do want to take
probotics are really really important, but I wouldn't just be
spending hundreds of dollars a month in probotics if you're
not really sure why you're taking it, what strain you're taking,
and what sort of.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
Dose you're taking as well.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
So I do agree with her there, but I wouldn't
say that I regularly recommend probotics for my clients, but
I do research the strain and the type in the amounts.
So that was sort of written as more of like
a negative thing for probotics, which I don't think probotics
are negative.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I think they have.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
They're obviously very important, but I think people just randomly
pick one off the shelf and take it hoping that
it will help their gut symptoms, and it simply isn't
the case. You really do need to understand what the
condition is you're taking it for, and what strain has
been shown to be effective in their research for that strain. Now,
the second one she talks about, I do agree, and
it's greens powders, And she's essentially saying that, you know,
(14:22):
greens powders, many of them claim to improve your gut health.
They have all of these extrame ingredients and if you
look at most of the standard greens powders on the market,
a lot of them have like upwards of thirty ingredients
in them.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
They're good quality ingredients.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
They're not you know, full of junk or additives, Like
a lot of them are just different types of fruits
and veggies and antioxidants and fibers.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
So they're good ingredients.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
But you are going to get so much better value
and bang for your buck just from eating your vegetables.
And I know so many people just say, you know,
almost like a multivi item, and they take it just
in case, or they take it to make themselves healthier,
but there's no research to prove that greens powders actually
does much nutritionally to the body or to the gut
all makes you any healthier. So hands and I agree
with that one. I would one hundred times over rather
(15:04):
than my clients eat their vegetables. And I do have
some people that say, look, I'm really fussy, I don't
like veggies. But to me, veggies are one of those
things you need to suck it up and do. And
this is where I take a pretty firm line on vegetables. Like,
we're adults. We have to do things we don't like
to do. We have to pay taxes, we don't like
doing that. We get in a car, we wear our seat,
but we don't.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Like doing that.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Like some of these things are annoying, but we have
to do them because we're adults, and vegetables sit into
that category. Like even if you fussy, even if you
don't like them, you gotta suck it up and do
it because it's actually really important for your health's long
term and it prevents so many different types of diseases
long terms.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
So don't waste your money in a greens powder.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
There's a reason we haven't made a greens powder in
designed by dietisians. You need to eat more of the real,
good quality foods because you're getting so many different types
of antioxidants and prebiotics and polyphenols and that sort of
thing when you're eating real types of fruits and vegetables. Now,
the next one she goes through is digestive enzymes. She
doesn't recommend digestive enzymes, and that one I also agree with,
(16:02):
and I think it would probably shock a lot of
people because the body actually makes like it naturally produces
digestive enzymes that help us break down our food. So
the majority of people don't actually need to supplement with
digestive enzymes. If you have bloating, if you have diarrhea,
if you have a lot of constipation, you should definitely
go and see a dietician that specializes in gut issues
(16:22):
because there's so much you can do from a nutrition
and a lifestyle perspective. But like most supplements, people just
want to pop a pill and try and fix everything.
But the majority of digestive enzymes on the market are
basically just a marketing scam. They're not really going to
help you. There are some that are quite effective though.
Lactase enzymes are one of them, where if you do
have a lactose intolerance, taking a lactase enzyme or having
(16:43):
a product with lactase enzymes in it, such as lactose
free milk, is going to be very effective. And the
other one is bean enzymes. I use a lot of
my sensitive clients who want to eat more beans and
legumes in their diet because they're really good for them.
It's really healthy, but you know, they get terrible bloating
and gas each time they have them. So there's a
few brands that utilize being enzymes essentially that have been
shown to be very effective in the research and can
(17:05):
definitely help. But those broad spectrum digestive enzymes that you
see added a lot to different types of supplements or
as a standalone supplement generally aren't going to help most
people with their their reflux, their gas or they're bloating
and speaking of reflux. The fourth one and the last
one on her list was over the counter antacids or PPIs.
(17:25):
So PPIs are proton pump inhibitors. You may have heard
people taking things like nexim or as a prom Oh,
how do you pronounce it? The it's not diazepan because
I think that's like anti. I think that's like anti. No,
it's not. I think it's like a maz a pram
It basically if you've got reflux, essentially it keeps the
acid back down in your stomach where it should be.
(17:46):
So she's basically saying that you shouldn't just be randomly
taking PPIs over the counter because it can actually significantly
change the makeup of the gut microbiome long term, and
she's not wrong. It definitely can. And also long term
use of PPIs have been shown in the research to
actually cause some nutrient deficiencies as well. So it is
a good idea if you are taking a long term
PPI such as nexium, just to keep an eye on
(18:09):
some of your levels and definitely get a six to
twelve monthly blood test with your doctor. But I'm sort
of on the fence about this one, Like I wouldn't
randomly just say if someone had some reflux, I'll just
go and take a proton pump inhibitor. But I think
for some people it is really really important to do
because if you have reflux long term Essentially what's happening
is that acid is coming up into places where it
(18:29):
shouldn't be, and at a cellular level, that acid can
actually cause cellular changes over time, which can lead to things,
you know, worst case scenario things like baros esophagus or
even a sophagy or cancer. So if somebody needs a
PPI due to you know, quite bad reflux that is
long term and ongoing, I absolutely don't have a problem
with that. So I'm sort of on the fence about
(18:49):
that one. I don't think we should just be popping
it for argument's sake or for kicks, but I really
do feel like if somebody does have long term reflux
and issues, that the damage that's done at a cellular
level to something like eurosophagus could actually, you know, be
quite harmful. So I have a lot of clients that
need long term PPI uses and it's not an issue,
but you will have to closely monitor some of the
nutrients because it can inhibit the absorption of some of
(19:11):
those different types of nutrients in the body.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
So as an interesting article, I do.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Tend to agree on the majority of things that she's saying,
and it just goes to show that you can't just
randomly grab some supplements of the shelf, even if they're
marketed at doing a certain thing. The way that things
are sort of legislated, particularly if it's like an overseas supplement.
We have quite tight regulations in Australia, but the supplement
industry is very different to the food industry, and the
supplement industry isn't anywhere near or as regulated as our
(19:37):
food industry is. And then if you're taking a supplement
that's from overseas or it's been imported or something, that's
basically next to none regulation with that, and so I
think it's really really important to understand what you're taking,
understand where it's come from, understand the dose, and understand
if you're actually wasting your money or there's going to
be a clinical benefit from the thing that you're taking,
and not just what's written in the packet, actually doing
(19:59):
some research yourself to find that the literature and the
science that actually backs up these claims, because so many
times you'll see in a supplement, oh, it contains, for example,
five grams of this amazing ingredient that's been shown to
do xyz. But then if you go back to the
research study. It did show to do xyzt, but the
amount that the people in the research study took was
like one hundred grams of it, not five grams of it.
(20:21):
So it's really important that you take the right type
of thing that they're talking about and the research as well.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Okay, very thorough Thanks Leanne for your digestive health expertise.
Our product of the week is an interesting one because
we get a lot of our product requests from our Instagram,
so we strongly encourage you to follow us at the
Nutrition Couch and send through your DMS. And this product
range is by far and away the most common products
(20:49):
we get asked about, and I have mixed feelings on it.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So we're going to.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Review today one of the new froux Pro protein pots.
Now you've seen these in the supermarket land, Yeah, yeah,
And there's this growing range of fro Pro products. I
think a while ago we reviewed a pizza or a burrito,
and these protein pots I've noticed a front and center
(21:15):
in the supermarket and certainly they're not a food I
would have chosen, but due to a huge demanded interest
in them, I thought we did need to have a
look at them. So I'm trying to be as neutral
as I can here. So I've chosen Leanne the frou
Pro protein pot cheeseburger pasta.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Now, the very idea of having a.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Pasta called cheeseburger pasta as a dietitian just elicits a
lot of emotion, really, but obviously what I feel has happened.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Leanne is the current.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Buyer for frozen foods in Woolwors in particular, which I
think they stock more in Woolies. Is interested in foods
that have protein, because that's how it works. Basically, a
buyer will direct it. Food company and frou Prov started
with some pizzas and woollies. Buyers said these are going really, well,
what else have you got? And they're just coming up
with every kind of quick and easy fast food option
(22:10):
under the guys that it's got protein in it. So
let's have a look at the nutritionnoles. I just randomly
chose the cheeseburger.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Past It looked so unappealing. Can I say that looks disgusting?
You couldn't pay met.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
It with that, Kaylie?
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And just we're going to control ourselves. We're not going
to be emotionally. Let's be objective.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Objectively, tell me what you think that photo looks like. Objectively?
Does that look like an appealing meal?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
To good? Idea of cheeseburger pasta goes against the grain
on so many levels because I feel cheeseburgers should not
be mixed with pasta. I feel there's a cheeseburger and
then there's pasta. They shouldn't go together.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So that's just me.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
We don't double down all our pubs, we don't double
out of our fast food choices, all right. So it's
currently on sale, willis the time of recording, nine dollars
ninety five. They're usually eleven ninety five, so I guess
they're reasonably inexpensive meal three hundred and fifty grams per serving,
twenty one hundred and sixty kilodels, so that is about
five hundred and fifty calories per serve, so medium, forty
(23:08):
one point six grams of protein. There is ten grams
of zero point eight ten point eight grams of total fat,
and it is a low saturated fat product with one
point three grams per hundred grams, which nutritionally is good,
fifty eight point one grams of carbohydrates and eleven point
two grams of sugars, which is it's okay again for
that kind of portion, and one thousand milligrams of sodium,
(23:28):
which is about half your recommended daily intake of sodium.
So pretty salty, we would say, but I guess that
you'd expect that, lamb when you're having cheeseburgers in a pasta.
So let's have a look at the ingredient list. So
the first ingredient is beef mints at seventeen percent. Now
as a reference point, a high a good quality lasagna
in supermarket will have about twenty five percent meat, so
(23:51):
it's not overly high in the meat seventeen percent, followed
by water, onion, pickle, ketchup, sweetener, mustard, cream, cheese, with
a lot of kind of processed additives in those individual ingredients,
so you know, some stabilizers and colors, then modified starch, salt, spices, protein.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Pasta is the greatest kind of percentage, which actually, why
is that not?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, that's weird story. For first, I would say that
label's inaccurate myself. Yeah, I agree, because they're obviously saying
because the cheeseburger is first, that's seventeen percent.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
But I would have normally listed protein pasta as the
first ingredient.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
It's thirty three percent.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, yeah, So it's this.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
This just sums up what's going on in food industry,
for better or for worse. We've got a situation where
food companies can heavily engineer ingredients to create a protein
pot cheeseburger pasta that looks and sounds hell. But when
we look at the ingredient list, this is certainly not
(25:03):
how we would make a cheeseburger or a pasta. So
do I like it?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
No?
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I don't. I don't like it because I don't like it.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I think primarily because it's got no vegetables.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
For a start, it was a tiny bit of onion
and a tiny bit of pickle, but that doesn't count.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
That is not.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
The fiber content's not listed, which makes me think there's none. Oh,
it's just so heavily engineered, like it's Are we saying
it's ultra processed.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
It's ultra processed yea?
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Or is it not?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
It is ult No, they don't list fiber on the ingredient,
on the on the actual product either.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
The stabilizers, qua gums, modified starches, past.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
I don't it's to me.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
It's ultra process so heavily formulated food that parades as healthy.
But I would a million times prefer my clients to
go and get pasta with cheese on it and a
bit of pisada or a cheeseburger than ever to eat
something like this.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
It's high and salt.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I just this is the healthy masquerade, and this brand,
unfortunately does It is probably one of the number one
brands that are doing it as masquerading as healthy on
the base of protein when it's ultra processed food made
to look healthy and.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Made to fit people's macros as well. Like they're manipulating
the macros to give consumers what they want. But like,
have you tried those protein pizzas though I bought one
because it was on tough like eight bucks, and I
was like, I'm just going to see what all this
hype is about.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
I threw it. It tastes like cardboard.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
I can't I don't normally say bad things about food companies,
but it was not nice, Like it is so heavily
modified to meet the consumer demand. But I just think
a pizza can be protein, like pasta can be high protein.
All this is is pasta with mince, a bit of
pickles and onions and ketchup. You can make that yourself,
make four times the amount for roughly the same price,
(27:11):
like twelve bucks for one serving.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
You know what I mean. That's expensive.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Like you just get a packet of normal home brand
pasta a dollar, some beef mince, even three star cook
off the vat, pour it out.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Ketch up pickles.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
You can add a bit more beggies in, grate some
zucchini and grate some carrot and will go a long way.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
I know that there's no greater zucchini and carrot in
a cheeseburger. I get that.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Or you can put some salad on the side and
you can actually make that and you get like four
portions out of it instead of just one.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
So oh yeah, I'm like you, I can't.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I can't.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
It's not okay.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
And it gives four star health ratings, and it's like
that's compared to the health rating is based on what
it's like in that field of what the products you're written,
So is it compared to other types of frozen pastas?
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Is that what they can? Is that the category?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
It's you know, I guess it must be like so
compared to other types of maybe frozen meals. It comes
out at four like it's four stars. So yeah, I
don't know, No, I'm not. I would never recommend it.
I would never write it in a meal plan. It
looks so on appealing like that photo. Oh my god, yuck. No,
it looks so on appealing.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I saw. There's so many of these.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
There's different brands coming right at the fish and chips
to go and all these box foods, and there's microwave
chips I saw the other way, like literally frozen chips
you put in the microwave.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
I'm like, wow, Like how like how lazy have we become?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
You want pasta, have pasta. If you want chooberag, you
have cheeseburger. I don't see the idea of combining them.
So I feel like the market is a young gym
going market who want something that's maybe perceived as healthier
than a fast food option. Maybe, but yeah, I wouldn't
be recommending it. And as I said, if my clients
wanted pastor, I'd give them past her, and if they
(28:50):
wanted a cheeseburger, I'd give a cheeseburger. But yeah, these
ultra process foods that are masquerading is a healthier version.
I think the buyers really need to have a closer
look and consider than younutritional implications of encouraging more of
these foods in the food supply. I don't think the
ideal and I think it comes back again leand to
the health star rating needs a complete review. You can't
(29:11):
have ultra processed foods with a four style health rating,
like come on?
Speaker 3 (29:14):
And I also think like is it better than a
fast food though? Like is it better than going a
maxazine getting a cheeseberg? That's probably the thing that people
are thinking, right like is it Well?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I don't know if it is, because I guess the
issue with fast food right, Well, it's a little bit
lower in calories, like a fast food meal will be
about eight hundred one thousand cows, So it's lowering calories
and certainly lowering fat and sat It's a lot lower
in saturated fat and higher enprotein. But it does lack
the vegetable component that fast food also lacks.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
So it's probably on par or maybe slightly better than
fast food.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Would you say it's slightly better, but you're paying for
it like eleven bucks? Like you get a fast food
meal for what five six bucks you're paying.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Top dollars it's eleven ninety five.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, you're paying double for their privilege. So yeah, I
think it's an interesting space. But unfortunately, what I would
say to our nutrition couch listeners is in life, if
it seems too good to be true, it usually is.
So the fact we're going to say that the cheeseburger
pastor is a good choice is probably a little bit
taking it a bit too far. So make your own burritos,
(30:20):
make your own pizza. They'll be healthier and you save
some money. And yeah, don't kid yourself to think that
it's healthier. All right, cereally, and let's talk about what
cereals we stop for our kids at home.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
There's no question my kids really like sugar cereals. Are
they really that bad for them? So we're talking about
the sugar cereals bad.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
As someone who finds themselves buying neutragrain for their children, now,
never would I have imagine doing it, But yes.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I have to be honest, I do it time.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
My kids don't need a lot of cereal. They mustn't
mean I think it's because I don't need a lot
of cereals.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
So I don't.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
I give my kids cereal as a snack, and I
think that's kind of a weird thing to do. But
when I was growing up, who we went and we
saw my family in Malaysia, they eat cereal as a
snack and they have really well balances meals, offer a
hot meal or some conjie or something at breakfast, and
they eat cereal as a snack over there. And I
don't know if it's like I've just remembered that, but
I've never been a big cereal person because I don't
find it really fills me up, and so I don't
(31:11):
tend to give it to my kids. Like my kids
tend to eat avocado on toast. We might have Dippy
Soldier eggs or something, or we might do some overnight oats,
or I'll do an oat bake and the I'll have
that with a bitty yogurt. So we don't eat a
lot of cereals. But again, my kid's a little like
I can't tell you that that'll still be the same
in three years time, So we don't buy a lot
of cereal. I do like the cheerios, the.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Low sugar ones.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
I do have a little bit of the Milo cereal
in my page, I will admit, but again, I use
it as like a snack. If I need to like
buy my kids, or we're going on a walk and
I need the little one to sit in a pram
or something, I'll give you a little bit of cereal
once a snack. If we go to the gym, we
go quite early, and so sometimes I'll just put a
little bit of that in a yogurt pouch and they
eat that.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Then we come home and we have our proper breakfast afterwards,
so we don't need a lot of cereal.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
But I do think that if it's something that your
kids do eat regularly, I do think that sugar cereous
about it for the children. And if you're asking my opinion,
that's my opinion. I don't think it's great, But I
think it depends on what else your kids are having
it they're having that seven days a week for breakfast
every single day, or is a special thing on the
weekend where they might have a bit of their you know,
Coco pops once or twice a week on a Saturday
(32:11):
or a Sunday. I don't really think that's much of
an issue. But if they're having that before school every
single day. I see that as an issue from like
an attention point of view, from a satiation point of view,
they're not going to have that long lasting energy that
a better type of cereal with some foot cream milk
might provide. So I think this is something that we
could be a little bit more firm on. But again
it probably depends on the overall quality of someone's diet
(32:34):
as well.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
If you'd have asked me this question before I had children,
I would have said, absolutely not. They would never be
eating sugar cereal, don't be ridiculous. And when my kids
are nine turning ten. When they were little, I was
very strict on the food. They only ever had bellamies,
organic oats, snow sugar, and like you, I would do
more sort of whole grain toast or eggs in the morning.
They didn't really eat cereal. I don't eat cereal, so
(32:58):
I didn't have it. But as my boys have got older,
they have been asking me more for the more sugary cereals.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And I'm like you, I like the.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Cheerios, the lower sugar cheerios, but they do ask me
for neutra grain. They do ask me for coca pops
and I have to be honest, I have bought it occasionally,
but in saying that, my kids are very very active,
they eat very very well. We don't have a lot
of other snack food. You know, they might have it
once or twice a week, So I think much to
(33:27):
your point. First of all, I think for kids under five,
i'd be a hard no. I think that kids under
five don't eat a whole lot, so I certainly wouldn't
want to be filling them up on a ball at
Coco Pops hundred percent. I think certainly when you get
to the teenage years. You know, I just had a
consult with one hundred and ninety one centimeter teenage boy,
which just me I'm not going to say no, we
can't eat nutra grain, you know, like they just need
(33:47):
the calories. Now younger boys, and I say boys because
they do have higher requirements than girls.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Probably, if I'm honest with you, I probably.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Would be a bit different if I had girls, because
I'm aware that their growth patterns are different to boys.
Whereas my boys are in that stage where I literally
can't get enough food in and if occasionally they want
to boil Coco Pop's not going to say to my
fussy eater, you can't have it. So I think it
basically comes down to the individual families and parents, the
rule that you want to have, and if they are
(34:17):
good eaters in general, and that's the one thing they
have and they like and it means they have a
good serve of milk each day, I don't have a
problem with it. But if I've got poor eaters and
they're eating a lot of sugar already, I wouldn't be
that keen. So I think it's about that relative perspective.
But there are better options. Like you said, the Milo
is better. The cheerios, though sugar is better than say,
(34:38):
Coca pots nutra grain one hundred percent. What I do
find very helpful is they're very expensive. They're like ten
dollars a box, so I tend to only buy them
when they're on sale, and that naturally limits supply and
demand a little bit as well. So I think that
the reality of parenting children it's different. There's not one
size fits all rule. There are slightly better options, but
(34:58):
like anything, if they're overall, diet is good and a
bit of sort of cereal.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Is not the end of the world. Mightn't have a
problem with it.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
The one thing I say, my kid's eat, or my
big one, Mia eats, is those wheat bigs fruity, but
she loves the berry one, so we soak them with
milk and chiliat that. And I think if there's got
some fiber in it, and it does also have some
added sugar in it, I think that's far better than
being a lower fiber sugary cereal as well. At least
they're getting that fiber, it sort of slows down the
digestion of the sugar, keeps them that little bit fuller
as longer as well. Or you can mix it, like
(35:26):
if I want some mix it with something that's a
little bit better quality or a little bit lower sugar
as well.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Like I know that was a rule for.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Us as kids growing up, if Mum bought something special
like something like that. I don't think I remember Sophie
ever buying Coco pops. I must say she's very healthy,
but if she did buy something with a little bit
more sugar or something in it, we always had to
mix it with like a wheatbix or a Vita Brits
or something. So I think if you can mix it
with a higher fiber or lower sugar cereal as well,
So they're consuming half of what they normally would in
a bowl. That's probably going to go a long way
(35:54):
as well if you do have really fussy eaters as well.
But there's no one size fits or we can't be
hard yes or hard no, because we don't know families,
we don't know their circumstances. But I do think, as
you mentioned, for smaller children, I think we need to
be that little bit stricter because you're really laying the
habits and the foundations of what their eating patterns are
going to be like later on, particularly when they're quite small.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
True true, true.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
All right, Well, on that note, that brings us to
the end of the Nutrition Couch for another week. Please
keep sending us your request for product reviews and we
won't be talking about faux pro in the near future.
You'd say this is it if you know your diet
needs a bit more protein or could benefit from the
growing range of evidence space facts around creating. Check out
our scientifically formulated protein range it design by dietitians and
(36:35):
we'll see you next Wednesday for our regular episode drop.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Thanks for listening, Catch you next week.
Whether you have managed to escape the Aussie winter for
some much needed sunlight. It is only a matter of
time before you too will find yourselves here in the
depths of winter with us. So in today's episode of
The Nutrition Couch, we chat all things healthy comfort eating,
so you can keep your diet goals on track whilst
still enjoying plenty of delicious food.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I am Susie Burrow and on Lean Wood, and.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Together we bring you The Nutrition Couch, the weekly podcast
that keeps you up to date on everything you need
to know in the world of nutrition as well as
comfort eating. We have a chat about the supplements that
you may be better off avoiding when it.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Comes to your gut health.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We have some thoughts on a high protein supermarket range,
and our listener question is all about kids breakfast cereals
so leanne. I don't know, I don't maybe I'm just
getting older, but this winter has certainly felt pretty brutal.
It certainly has felt pretty brutal, not going to Europe
like everyone I seem to know is going to, And
I know that the last thing many of us are
(00:56):
feeling like right now are salads and grill fish. It
really is just that time of year that you get
home after a long day, it's cold and wet and
rainy outside, and all you can think about is a
big bowl of pasta. So we one hundred percent get
that you're feeling like that. We certainly are too, So
I thought it was time to have a chat about
why comfort food or more indulgent foods doesn't have to
(01:20):
mean a complete calorie blowout in fact ly, and I
think that most meals I can think of, ranging from
casseroles to roasts, to pasta dishes to pies, can all
be made in a lot healthier ways without blowing out
the calorie budget. And I think the other key part
(01:41):
of this that plays is the psychological impact certain foods
have on us. Whereas I observe sometimes clients will be told, oh,
it's fine to have a bowl of pasta, and they'll
have this just massive bowl of pasta with cheese on top,
and actually they probably would have felt quite satisfied just having,
you know, less than a cup of pasta in total,
(02:02):
if they bolked it up and made it an actual
balance meal. So what you'll notice from our description of
some of our favorite comfort type foods is that they
always balanced as part of a meal, and that's the
key to success. So I'll start with a couple of
my favorites and handover to Leanna. I know she's been
cooking this amazing lasagna soup that looks pretty pretty spech.
(02:23):
But the one I like to do, I love a pie,
and I love like actual proper pastry because I could
get on here and say, now, oh, you can make
the top with mashed potato or mash sweet potato or
filo pastry, but let's be honestly, and it's not really
a pie, is it. So I really felt like a
chicken pie just this past week. So the first place
(02:44):
I started was just with all the aromatic veggies, things
like your onion, garlic, celery leak. I always try and
freeze them when I do buy them because they are expensive.
And then I got chicken tenderline. I will tend to
invest in not thigh. I know a lot of people
will prefer a pie based on thigh, but I always
will spend a bit more and get tenderlin your breast.
And I just marinated the chicken in the aromatics with
(03:04):
some chicken stock, and then I made the roo, which
was quite simple, just some flour, skim milk, and a
little bit of butter for the creamy sauce, and then
I just threw in like a truckload of green veggies
like spinach kale at the end so it didn't get
too water in gluggy, and then I just popped it
into a pie tray and just did one single sheet
(03:26):
of reduced fat puff pastry and it was absolutely delicious.
It was, yes, not a low calorie meal, but certainly
a lot lower in fat than a pie you'd buy
from the supermarket. And you know, after a quarter of it,
there was more than enough. I had it with salad.
It was absolutely delicious. So that's one of my favorite ones.
I love a pasta bake because I think if you're
(03:46):
craving pasta, you can literally throw one cup of cooked
pasta in a mix of lean mince or chicken breast,
loads of veggies, some grated parmesan on top, even with
a little crumb, and you don't notice that you're not
having three cups of pasta. It's still just as delicious.
So I think if you're craving pasta, you can certainly
do it in a very easy, portion controlled way. And
(04:08):
I know there are higher fiber and higher protein passes,
but to be honest, I don't even worry about that.
I just use smaller amounts of the regular thing, and
you'll find that after quite a small amount, you're very satisfied.
And probably my third go to is pizza. I find
that by the time you spend thirty dollars on a
commercial pizza and it's cold when it gets delivered, it's
almost as easy to make it at home. And I'll
(04:30):
get one of the Della Rossa higher protein bases or
woolies and colds both have them. Just some tomato pisada
on the bottom, roast veggies, so things like your pumpkins, uchini, eggplant,
all quite low carb. And then I'll just sprinkle the
top with a little bit of parmesan. I like the
aldi parmesan shaved it's beautiful. But then I'll do goats,
cheese or fetter, and I find that just completely makes
(04:51):
the pizza. When you sit down and eat it with
a knife and fork and a salad, it comes up
really well. And yeah, two or three pieces of that
with a big salad, there's absolutely nothing.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's slightly heavier than just to protein and veggie meal,
but it can certainly be a very feeling lunch or
dinner when you're feeling like something a bit more hardy.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, I agree, And I think a lot of these times,
like you said, people will eat these big comfort meals,
but the portions are just so big as well, and
I think we forget. And I always say to my clients,
like one spoon of something tastes the same as fifty
spoons of something. The taste is no different. But what
we tend to do is we shovel it all in
and we're distracted by watching TV, we're doing emails where
(05:29):
we're not paying attention to the food, we're not eating
it mindfully until we get to the very last spoon
of pasta in this enormous bowl, and then we go
in our brain, oh, it's a last spoon.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
I better enjoy that, and then we slow down and
enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
But if we did it from the very first spoon,
I think we'll find we'll eat so much less of
it and we feel so much about it because if
we're being honest, like a big bowl of creamy pasta is, yes,
it's delicious, but nobody ever feels great after eating that.
And if you were to half that amount and bulk
it out with some veggies. My favorite and winter is
always some broccolini. Just thought i'd bit of extra version olive,
(06:01):
or some a bit of onion and garlic, or even
just throwing in some mushrooms and zucchini with that. If
you bulk your pasta out with some veggies, it can
go a you know, a lot lot further. And I
kids really like ravioli at the moment. They call it
pillow pasta. My girls are ready little therety three or two,
so they're like, go pillow pasta, Mummy. And so I
always make sure that if I'm going to make ravioli
for the family, I get that you know, family pack,
(06:21):
and I think it's supposed to serve four, but I'll
easily get six meals out of it, or even seven
or ready if you count the kid portions as well,
because I bulk it out with so many veggies, and
then I also put a little bit of extra protein
in there, like some chicken breast or something as well.
And then often I'll serve a bit of sauteed broccolini
on the side. So I think we can get away
with these delicious, creamy pastas. But we don't have to
go overboard in terms of the portions, because, let's be honest,
(06:43):
a lot of us are moving a lot less in
winter as well. We're not getting up and doing our
big walks because let's be honest, it's so cold, like
even in Brisbane, this winter's been brutal. Like I got
up really early to catch a six am flight the
other day and I was going to Sydney and I
checked my phone and it said eight degrees in Brisbane
at ten degrees in Sydney. And I was like, when
it's not normal that Brisbane's colder than what Sydney is.
But it's been brutal this winter. It's been quite cool,
(07:04):
and so most of us aren't doing any winter as
much movement, and so we probably don't need as large
as meals as we often do when we're moving more
in summer. So I think just keeping an eye on
those portion sizes is a really key tip for winter.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
So I love the veggie loaded pastas.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I'm also a big fan of, like you said, SUSI
the pies, but I do love a good shepherd's pie
and I'll use normal potato. I'm not a huge soweat
potato person. I don't use it a lot, but I
love mince. I feel like mince is a real comfort food,
like tomato pisada. You can cook it off with a
bit of red whine. It mince always tastes so good.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
The next day.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
You could do a bit of a ragu stuffed potatoes
or another really really good one. Stuff then with some mince,
a bit of Greek yogurt and then a nice big
side salad on the side is really great.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Or I like a lot of noodle dishes as well.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Maybe it's the Malaysian background in me, but I love
a good pad thie, just with a bit less noodle. Also,
instead of making you know, the noodle serving four serfs,
I'll get six serves out of it. Stuff a ton
of veggies in there, and a bit more protein as
well that or like a veggie loaded lazada. I did
one the other day and everyone's like, oh, recipe, recipe,
And I don't have recipes, but I basically just start
with making the mints, and I put some tomato pisada in,
(08:08):
I put a tin of brown lentils in there. I
grate some carrot and zucchini and some onion and garlic,
and that's my mince mixture. And sometimes if it's looking
a little wet, I'll add a little bit of beef
stock into them. And then for my white sauce, I
literally just do whomeal flour, a little bit of butter
and some milk. I think about two cups of skim
milk and keep stirring that over the heat until it
starts to thicken. It. It's like a white sauce and
(08:28):
it looks a bit gluggy because of the whole meal flour,
but you literally couldn't taste it. And I prefer to
use a little bit of wholemeal flower then white flour.
That's my preference. And then I roast all of my veggies.
I do eggplant, I do pumpkin, I do red capsicum,
I do zucchini, and then when i'm laying it all up,
I do the layer of meat sauce, a little bit
of the white sauce on top, a layer of pasta.
Then I do two or three layers of my roasted veggie,
(08:49):
and then I basically repeat when I do lasagna. It's
such a to me, it's such a mission, like it
takes so long that I always make two because it
freezes so well, or I'll give a bit off to
like family members or something, or they can it's kind
of eate it a bit deconstructed. So I always make
the effort to make two big lasagnas, which doesn't take
that much longer than making one. I feel like, if
you're going to take the effort to make a lazagno,
it always takes a few hours because there's so many
(09:10):
different layers and steps to it that I always make too,
and that way I freeze, and I've got a few
portions of like a veggie loaded lasagne in the fridge
at the moment when the freezer at the moment, and
it's such a warming, comforting meal in winter. So they're
probably my big few. And like you said, that lasagnio
soup I've been making, which is on my Instagram if
anyone's after it. Leanne Ward nutrition is my handle, and
that's a really really good one as well. And you
(09:31):
boost the protein a little bit through that soup by
stirring in some cottage cheese which you can't even taste,
and if you're someone that doesn't like the texture of
cottage cheese, which a lot of my clients are really
turned off by cottag cheese because of the texture. You
don't notice it stir through a bit of lazagna soup.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
It's really good.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And you can get that curly sand remote as like
a curly lasagna pasta that works really really well within
the soup and you just kind of crunch it up
with your fingers, break it up a bit and stir
it through the soup and it's like next level. It's
so good, like comfort wise, it's absolutely delicious. A bit
of crack pepper and parmesan cheese on top. It's yeah,
ten out of ten in my books.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
How many lasagna sheets do you use? Do you alternate every.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Second or do you do less in a lasagno or
in the soup?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well either or how many sheets is in the soup?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I normally use a box of lazangni sheets across two lasagnas.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, because I just do.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I'll alternate with veggies, zucchini, pumpkin, eggplant, so sometimes the
lasagna because I'm like you, I'm only going to do
it if it's a big deal, because it's a big job.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Probably three.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
You can really cut down the number of sheets and
still get all the flavor of the pasta. But I
was just wondering in that bowl of that soup how
much because it didn't look like a massive amount of
pasta in there.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
No, I think I only used about two sheets crumbled up,
because I think I only made it potentially from memory
about four serves, so it wasn't a whole lot. Yeah,
and you can obviously adjust that based on your requirements.
If you're highly active, add more, if you're not that active,
add less. But yeah, it really does go a long way,
because if you crumble it up a little bit, you
don't want to leave the sheets hole in the soup.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
It would be weird. If you break them up with
your fingers, it's really really good.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
And the other thing I would say is that if
you're finding you're getting your home really hungry, you may
be better to have a more substantial meal in the
day that is really filling, and then you'll be more satisfied.
Whereas if you sort of feel that deprivation all day
and then get home and then you sort of don't
want to necessarily be having the heavier meal at night.
So don't forget these meals can all be really good
lunches as well to take the edge of your appetite
when you're feeling like you're just looking for comfort to
(11:21):
the end of a long day.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Yeah, absolutely, all right, Susie's our next section.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
You found a great little article this week and it's
a ardi so American dietitian who's written an article about
full supplements that you shouldn't take for gut health, which
is interesting because you always see so much written up
about gut health than what you should do, So this
one was quite interesting because it was talking about the
full supplements that she recommends that you shouldn't take. And
as someone who has a background in gut health and
(11:46):
specializes in gut health, I thought, what an interesting article.
So all guys through it because gut health is very trendy.
We know it's so important. Even if you don't actively
have gut symptoms, you should one thousand percent be nourishing
and taking care of your gut health because I always
say that good health starts and your gut. It affects
your immunity, it affects your mood, it affects your your digestion.
(12:06):
There's so many things that good gut health can do
for your body. Because a healthy gut microbiome is a
healthy body essentially, So there are so many supplements out
there that promise the world. They promised to heal your gut,
they promise to cure your gut symptoms, they promise to
do the world of things that we know that it's
really difficult to regulate that supplement industry, which is why
Susie and I were so passionate about starting our own
(12:28):
brand that actually use the top quality ingredients and evidence
based supplements in designed by dietitians, so you can wrestle
sure that we've got the best quality stuff in our supplements.
But in this article, which I found quite interesting, the
first thing she was saying that she doesn't recommend for
gut health is probotics. And I think this is sort
of a loaded one because she was saying that, you know,
(12:48):
most probotics to be effective, you need to take the
right dose and the right strain for the right condition.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
And I one hundred percent agree with that.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Just taking a random probotic off the shelf and sporadically
taking it in the wrong amount is really going to
do anything for many people.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
But the right probotic, the right.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Strain taking it, they're the most effective dose for the
right condition can absolutely be life changing for some people.
There have been some strains of probotics that have been
shown to be just as effective as actual, you know,
hardcore medication, and some different types of conditions, particularly those
gut conditions like some of those inflammatory bower diseases. So
probotics definitely have their time and place. But if you're
(13:25):
just taking it almost like a preventative, like I'm just
going to take this to improve my gut health or
to make sure my gut health isn't bad, you're probably
just wasting your money. So you do want to take
probotics are really really important, but I wouldn't just be
spending hundreds of dollars a month in probotics if you're
not really sure why you're taking it, what strain you're taking,
and what sort of.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
Dose you're taking as well.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
So I do agree with her there, but I wouldn't
say that I regularly recommend probotics for my clients, but
I do research the strain and the type in the amounts.
So that was sort of written as more of like
a negative thing for probotics, which I don't think probotics
are negative.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I think they have.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
They're obviously very important, but I think people just randomly
pick one off the shelf and take it hoping that
it will help their gut symptoms, and it simply isn't
the case. You really do need to understand what the
condition is you're taking it for, and what strain has
been shown to be effective in their research for that strain. Now,
the second one she talks about, I do agree, and
it's greens powders, And she's essentially saying that, you know,
(14:22):
greens powders, many of them claim to improve your gut health.
They have all of these extrame ingredients and if you
look at most of the standard greens powders on the market,
a lot of them have like upwards of thirty ingredients
in them.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
They're good quality ingredients.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
They're not you know, full of junk or additives, Like
a lot of them are just different types of fruits
and veggies and antioxidants and fibers.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
So they're good ingredients.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
But you are going to get so much better value
and bang for your buck just from eating your vegetables.
And I know so many people just say, you know,
almost like a multivi item, and they take it just
in case, or they take it to make themselves healthier,
but there's no research to prove that greens powders actually
does much nutritionally to the body or to the gut
all makes you any healthier. So hands and I agree
with that one. I would one hundred times over rather
(15:04):
than my clients eat their vegetables. And I do have
some people that say, look, I'm really fussy, I don't
like veggies. But to me, veggies are one of those
things you need to suck it up and do. And
this is where I take a pretty firm line on vegetables. Like,
we're adults. We have to do things we don't like
to do. We have to pay taxes, we don't like
doing that. We get in a car, we wear our seat,
but we don't.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Like doing that.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Like some of these things are annoying, but we have
to do them because we're adults, and vegetables sit into
that category. Like even if you fussy, even if you
don't like them, you gotta suck it up and do
it because it's actually really important for your health's long
term and it prevents so many different types of diseases
long terms.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
So don't waste your money in a greens powder.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
There's a reason we haven't made a greens powder in
designed by dietisians. You need to eat more of the real,
good quality foods because you're getting so many different types
of antioxidants and prebiotics and polyphenols and that sort of
thing when you're eating real types of fruits and vegetables. Now,
the next one she goes through is digestive enzymes. She
doesn't recommend digestive enzymes, and that one I also agree with,
(16:02):
and I think it would probably shock a lot of
people because the body actually makes like it naturally produces
digestive enzymes that help us break down our food. So
the majority of people don't actually need to supplement with
digestive enzymes. If you have bloating, if you have diarrhea,
if you have a lot of constipation, you should definitely
go and see a dietician that specializes in gut issues
(16:22):
because there's so much you can do from a nutrition
and a lifestyle perspective. But like most supplements, people just
want to pop a pill and try and fix everything.
But the majority of digestive enzymes on the market are
basically just a marketing scam. They're not really going to
help you. There are some that are quite effective though.
Lactase enzymes are one of them, where if you do
have a lactose intolerance, taking a lactase enzyme or having
(16:43):
a product with lactase enzymes in it, such as lactose
free milk, is going to be very effective. And the
other one is bean enzymes. I use a lot of
my sensitive clients who want to eat more beans and
legumes in their diet because they're really good for them.
It's really healthy, but you know, they get terrible bloating
and gas each time they have them. So there's a
few brands that utilize being enzymes essentially that have been
shown to be very effective in the research and can
(17:05):
definitely help. But those broad spectrum digestive enzymes that you
see added a lot to different types of supplements or
as a standalone supplement generally aren't going to help most
people with their their reflux, their gas or they're bloating
and speaking of reflux. The fourth one and the last
one on her list was over the counter antacids or PPIs.
(17:25):
So PPIs are proton pump inhibitors. You may have heard
people taking things like nexim or as a prom Oh,
how do you pronounce it? The it's not diazepan because
I think that's like anti. I think that's like anti. No,
it's not. I think it's like a maz a pram
It basically if you've got reflux, essentially it keeps the
acid back down in your stomach where it should be.
(17:46):
So she's basically saying that you shouldn't just be randomly
taking PPIs over the counter because it can actually significantly
change the makeup of the gut microbiome long term, and
she's not wrong. It definitely can. And also long term
use of PPIs have been shown in the research to
actually cause some nutrient deficiencies as well. So it is
a good idea if you are taking a long term
PPI such as nexium, just to keep an eye on
(18:09):
some of your levels and definitely get a six to
twelve monthly blood test with your doctor. But I'm sort
of on the fence about this one, Like I wouldn't
randomly just say if someone had some reflux, I'll just
go and take a proton pump inhibitor. But I think
for some people it is really really important to do
because if you have reflux long term Essentially what's happening
is that acid is coming up into places where it
(18:29):
shouldn't be, and at a cellular level, that acid can
actually cause cellular changes over time, which can lead to things,
you know, worst case scenario things like baros esophagus or
even a sophagy or cancer. So if somebody needs a
PPI due to you know, quite bad reflux that is
long term and ongoing, I absolutely don't have a problem
with that. So I'm sort of on the fence about
(18:49):
that one. I don't think we should just be popping
it for argument's sake or for kicks, but I really
do feel like if somebody does have long term reflux
and issues, that the damage that's done at a cellular
level to something like eurosophagus could actually, you know, be
quite harmful. So I have a lot of clients that
need long term PPI uses and it's not an issue,
but you will have to closely monitor some of the
nutrients because it can inhibit the absorption of some of
(19:11):
those different types of nutrients in the body.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
So as an interesting article, I do.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Tend to agree on the majority of things that she's saying,
and it just goes to show that you can't just
randomly grab some supplements of the shelf, even if they're
marketed at doing a certain thing. The way that things
are sort of legislated, particularly if it's like an overseas supplement.
We have quite tight regulations in Australia, but the supplement
industry is very different to the food industry, and the
supplement industry isn't anywhere near or as regulated as our
(19:37):
food industry is. And then if you're taking a supplement
that's from overseas or it's been imported or something, that's
basically next to none regulation with that, and so I
think it's really really important to understand what you're taking,
understand where it's come from, understand the dose, and understand
if you're actually wasting your money or there's going to
be a clinical benefit from the thing that you're taking,
and not just what's written in the packet, actually doing
(19:59):
some research yourself to find that the literature and the
science that actually backs up these claims, because so many
times you'll see in a supplement, oh, it contains, for example,
five grams of this amazing ingredient that's been shown to
do xyz. But then if you go back to the
research study. It did show to do xyzt, but the
amount that the people in the research study took was
like one hundred grams of it, not five grams of it.
(20:21):
So it's really important that you take the right type
of thing that they're talking about and the research as well.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Okay, very thorough Thanks Leanne for your digestive health expertise.
Our product of the week is an interesting one because
we get a lot of our product requests from our Instagram,
so we strongly encourage you to follow us at the
Nutrition Couch and send through your DMS. And this product
range is by far and away the most common products
(20:49):
we get asked about, and I have mixed feelings on it.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So we're going to.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Review today one of the new froux Pro protein pots.
Now you've seen these in the supermarket land, Yeah, yeah,
And there's this growing range of fro Pro products. I
think a while ago we reviewed a pizza or a burrito,
and these protein pots I've noticed a front and center
(21:15):
in the supermarket and certainly they're not a food I
would have chosen, but due to a huge demanded interest
in them, I thought we did need to have a
look at them. So I'm trying to be as neutral
as I can here. So I've chosen Leanne the frou
Pro protein pot cheeseburger pasta.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Now, the very idea of having a.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Pasta called cheeseburger pasta as a dietitian just elicits a
lot of emotion, really, but obviously what I feel has happened.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Leanne is the current.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Buyer for frozen foods in Woolwors in particular, which I
think they stock more in Woolies. Is interested in foods
that have protein, because that's how it works. Basically, a
buyer will direct it. Food company and frou Prov started
with some pizzas and woollies. Buyers said these are going really, well,
what else have you got? And they're just coming up
with every kind of quick and easy fast food option
(22:10):
under the guys that it's got protein in it. So
let's have a look at the nutritionnoles. I just randomly
chose the cheeseburger.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Past It looked so unappealing. Can I say that looks disgusting?
You couldn't pay met.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
It with that, Kaylie?
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And just we're going to control ourselves. We're not going
to be emotionally. Let's be objective.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Objectively, tell me what you think that photo looks like. Objectively?
Does that look like an appealing meal?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
To good? Idea of cheeseburger pasta goes against the grain
on so many levels because I feel cheeseburgers should not
be mixed with pasta. I feel there's a cheeseburger and
then there's pasta. They shouldn't go together.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So that's just me.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
We don't double down all our pubs, we don't double
out of our fast food choices, all right. So it's
currently on sale, willis the time of recording, nine dollars
ninety five. They're usually eleven ninety five, so I guess
they're reasonably inexpensive meal three hundred and fifty grams per serving,
twenty one hundred and sixty kilodels, so that is about
five hundred and fifty calories per serve, so medium, forty
(23:08):
one point six grams of protein. There is ten grams
of zero point eight ten point eight grams of total fat,
and it is a low saturated fat product with one
point three grams per hundred grams, which nutritionally is good,
fifty eight point one grams of carbohydrates and eleven point
two grams of sugars, which is it's okay again for
that kind of portion, and one thousand milligrams of sodium,
(23:28):
which is about half your recommended daily intake of sodium.
So pretty salty, we would say, but I guess that
you'd expect that, lamb when you're having cheeseburgers in a pasta.
So let's have a look at the ingredient list. So
the first ingredient is beef mints at seventeen percent. Now
as a reference point, a high a good quality lasagna
in supermarket will have about twenty five percent meat, so
(23:51):
it's not overly high in the meat seventeen percent, followed
by water, onion, pickle, ketchup, sweetener, mustard, cream, cheese, with
a lot of kind of processed additives in those individual ingredients,
so you know, some stabilizers and colors, then modified starch, salt, spices, protein.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Pasta is the greatest kind of percentage, which actually, why
is that not?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, that's weird story. For first, I would say that
label's inaccurate myself. Yeah, I agree, because they're obviously saying
because the cheeseburger is first, that's seventeen percent.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
But I would have normally listed protein pasta as the
first ingredient.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
It's thirty three percent.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, yeah, So it's this.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
This just sums up what's going on in food industry,
for better or for worse. We've got a situation where
food companies can heavily engineer ingredients to create a protein
pot cheeseburger pasta that looks and sounds hell. But when
we look at the ingredient list, this is certainly not
(25:03):
how we would make a cheeseburger or a pasta. So
do I like it?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
No?
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I don't. I don't like it because I don't like it.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I think primarily because it's got no vegetables.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
For a start, it was a tiny bit of onion
and a tiny bit of pickle, but that doesn't count.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
That is not.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
The fiber content's not listed, which makes me think there's none. Oh,
it's just so heavily engineered, like it's Are we saying
it's ultra processed.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
It's ultra processed yea?
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Or is it not?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
It is ult No, they don't list fiber on the ingredient,
on the on the actual product either.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
The stabilizers, qua gums, modified starches, past.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
I don't it's to me.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
It's ultra process so heavily formulated food that parades as healthy.
But I would a million times prefer my clients to
go and get pasta with cheese on it and a
bit of pisada or a cheeseburger than ever to eat
something like this.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
It's high and salt.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I just this is the healthy masquerade, and this brand,
unfortunately does It is probably one of the number one
brands that are doing it as masquerading as healthy on
the base of protein when it's ultra processed food made
to look healthy and.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Made to fit people's macros as well. Like they're manipulating
the macros to give consumers what they want. But like,
have you tried those protein pizzas though I bought one
because it was on tough like eight bucks, and I
was like, I'm just going to see what all this
hype is about.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
I threw it. It tastes like cardboard.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
I can't I don't normally say bad things about food companies,
but it was not nice, Like it is so heavily
modified to meet the consumer demand. But I just think
a pizza can be protein, like pasta can be high protein.
All this is is pasta with mince, a bit of
pickles and onions and ketchup. You can make that yourself,
make four times the amount for roughly the same price,
(27:11):
like twelve bucks for one serving.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
You know what I mean. That's expensive.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Like you just get a packet of normal home brand
pasta a dollar, some beef mince, even three star cook
off the vat, pour it out.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Ketch up pickles.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
You can add a bit more beggies in, grate some
zucchini and grate some carrot and will go a long way.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
I know that there's no greater zucchini and carrot in
a cheeseburger. I get that.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Or you can put some salad on the side and
you can actually make that and you get like four
portions out of it instead of just one.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
So oh yeah, I'm like you, I can't.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I can't.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
It's not okay.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
And it gives four star health ratings, and it's like
that's compared to the health rating is based on what
it's like in that field of what the products you're written,
So is it compared to other types of frozen pastas?
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Is that what they can? Is that the category?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
It's you know, I guess it must be like so
compared to other types of maybe frozen meals. It comes
out at four like it's four stars. So yeah, I
don't know, No, I'm not. I would never recommend it.
I would never write it in a meal plan. It
looks so on appealing like that photo. Oh my god, yuck. No,
it looks so on appealing.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I saw. There's so many of these.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
There's different brands coming right at the fish and chips
to go and all these box foods, and there's microwave
chips I saw the other way, like literally frozen chips
you put in the microwave.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
I'm like, wow, Like how like how lazy have we become?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
You want pasta, have pasta. If you want chooberag, you
have cheeseburger. I don't see the idea of combining them.
So I feel like the market is a young gym
going market who want something that's maybe perceived as healthier
than a fast food option. Maybe, but yeah, I wouldn't
be recommending it. And as I said, if my clients
wanted pastor, I'd give them past her, and if they
(28:50):
wanted a cheeseburger, I'd give a cheeseburger. But yeah, these
ultra process foods that are masquerading is a healthier version.
I think the buyers really need to have a closer
look and consider than younutritional implications of encouraging more of
these foods in the food supply. I don't think the
ideal and I think it comes back again leand to
the health star rating needs a complete review. You can't
(29:11):
have ultra processed foods with a four style health rating,
like come on?
Speaker 3 (29:14):
And I also think like is it better than a
fast food though? Like is it better than going a
maxazine getting a cheeseberg? That's probably the thing that people
are thinking, right like is it Well?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I don't know if it is, because I guess the
issue with fast food right, Well, it's a little bit
lower in calories, like a fast food meal will be
about eight hundred one thousand cows, So it's lowering calories
and certainly lowering fat and sat It's a lot lower
in saturated fat and higher enprotein. But it does lack
the vegetable component that fast food also lacks.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
So it's probably on par or maybe slightly better than
fast food.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Would you say it's slightly better, but you're paying for
it like eleven bucks? Like you get a fast food
meal for what five six bucks you're paying.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Top dollars it's eleven ninety five.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, you're paying double for their privilege. So yeah, I
think it's an interesting space. But unfortunately, what I would
say to our nutrition couch listeners is in life, if
it seems too good to be true, it usually is.
So the fact we're going to say that the cheeseburger
pastor is a good choice is probably a little bit
taking it a bit too far. So make your own burritos,
(30:20):
make your own pizza. They'll be healthier and you save
some money. And yeah, don't kid yourself to think that
it's healthier. All right, cereally, and let's talk about what
cereals we stop for our kids at home.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
There's no question my kids really like sugar cereals. Are
they really that bad for them? So we're talking about
the sugar cereals bad.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
As someone who finds themselves buying neutragrain for their children, now,
never would I have imagine doing it, But yes.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I have to be honest, I do it time.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
My kids don't need a lot of cereal. They mustn't
mean I think it's because I don't need a lot
of cereals.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
So I don't.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
I give my kids cereal as a snack, and I
think that's kind of a weird thing to do. But
when I was growing up, who we went and we
saw my family in Malaysia, they eat cereal as a
snack and they have really well balances meals, offer a
hot meal or some conjie or something at breakfast, and
they eat cereal as a snack over there. And I
don't know if it's like I've just remembered that, but
I've never been a big cereal person because I don't
find it really fills me up, and so I don't
(31:11):
tend to give it to my kids. Like my kids
tend to eat avocado on toast. We might have Dippy
Soldier eggs or something, or we might do some overnight oats,
or I'll do an oat bake and the I'll have
that with a bitty yogurt. So we don't eat a
lot of cereals. But again, my kid's a little like
I can't tell you that that'll still be the same
in three years time, So we don't buy a lot
of cereal. I do like the cheerios, the.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Low sugar ones.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
I do have a little bit of the Milo cereal
in my page, I will admit, but again, I use
it as like a snack. If I need to like
buy my kids, or we're going on a walk and
I need the little one to sit in a pram
or something, I'll give you a little bit of cereal
once a snack. If we go to the gym, we
go quite early, and so sometimes I'll just put a
little bit of that in a yogurt pouch and they
eat that.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Then we come home and we have our proper breakfast afterwards,
so we don't need a lot of cereal.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
But I do think that if it's something that your
kids do eat regularly, I do think that sugar cereous
about it for the children. And if you're asking my opinion,
that's my opinion. I don't think it's great, But I
think it depends on what else your kids are having
it they're having that seven days a week for breakfast
every single day, or is a special thing on the
weekend where they might have a bit of their you know,
Coco pops once or twice a week on a Saturday
(32:11):
or a Sunday. I don't really think that's much of
an issue. But if they're having that before school every
single day. I see that as an issue from like
an attention point of view, from a satiation point of view,
they're not going to have that long lasting energy that
a better type of cereal with some foot cream milk
might provide. So I think this is something that we
could be a little bit more firm on. But again
it probably depends on the overall quality of someone's diet
(32:34):
as well.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
If you'd have asked me this question before I had children,
I would have said, absolutely not. They would never be
eating sugar cereal, don't be ridiculous. And when my kids
are nine turning ten. When they were little, I was
very strict on the food. They only ever had bellamies,
organic oats, snow sugar, and like you, I would do
more sort of whole grain toast or eggs in the morning.
They didn't really eat cereal. I don't eat cereal, so
(32:58):
I didn't have it. But as my boys have got older,
they have been asking me more for the more sugary cereals.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And I'm like you, I like the.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Cheerios, the lower sugar cheerios, but they do ask me
for neutra grain. They do ask me for coca pops
and I have to be honest, I have bought it occasionally,
but in saying that, my kids are very very active,
they eat very very well. We don't have a lot
of other snack food. You know, they might have it
once or twice a week, So I think much to
(33:27):
your point. First of all, I think for kids under five,
i'd be a hard no. I think that kids under
five don't eat a whole lot, so I certainly wouldn't
want to be filling them up on a ball at
Coco Pops hundred percent. I think certainly when you get
to the teenage years. You know, I just had a
consult with one hundred and ninety one centimeter teenage boy,
which just me I'm not going to say no, we
can't eat nutra grain, you know, like they just need
(33:47):
the calories. Now younger boys, and I say boys because
they do have higher requirements than girls.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Probably, if I'm honest with you, I probably.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Would be a bit different if I had girls, because
I'm aware that their growth patterns are different to boys.
Whereas my boys are in that stage where I literally
can't get enough food in and if occasionally they want
to boil Coco Pop's not going to say to my
fussy eater, you can't have it. So I think it
basically comes down to the individual families and parents, the
rule that you want to have, and if they are
(34:17):
good eaters in general, and that's the one thing they
have and they like and it means they have a
good serve of milk each day, I don't have a
problem with it. But if I've got poor eaters and
they're eating a lot of sugar already, I wouldn't be
that keen. So I think it's about that relative perspective.
But there are better options. Like you said, the Milo
is better. The cheerios, though sugar is better than say,
(34:38):
Coca pots nutra grain one hundred percent. What I do
find very helpful is they're very expensive. They're like ten
dollars a box, so I tend to only buy them
when they're on sale, and that naturally limits supply and
demand a little bit as well. So I think that
the reality of parenting children it's different. There's not one
size fits all rule. There are slightly better options, but
(34:58):
like anything, if they're overall, diet is good and a
bit of sort of cereal.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Is not the end of the world. Mightn't have a
problem with it.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
The one thing I say, my kid's eat, or my
big one, Mia eats, is those wheat bigs fruity, but
she loves the berry one, so we soak them with
milk and chiliat that. And I think if there's got
some fiber in it, and it does also have some
added sugar in it, I think that's far better than
being a lower fiber sugary cereal as well. At least
they're getting that fiber, it sort of slows down the
digestion of the sugar, keeps them that little bit fuller
as longer as well. Or you can mix it, like
(35:26):
if I want some mix it with something that's a
little bit better quality or a little bit lower sugar
as well.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Like I know that was a rule for.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Us as kids growing up, if Mum bought something special
like something like that. I don't think I remember Sophie
ever buying Coco pops. I must say she's very healthy,
but if she did buy something with a little bit
more sugar or something in it, we always had to
mix it with like a wheatbix or a Vita Brits
or something. So I think if you can mix it
with a higher fiber or lower sugar cereal as well,
So they're consuming half of what they normally would in
a bowl. That's probably going to go a long way
(35:54):
as well if you do have really fussy eaters as well.
But there's no one size fits or we can't be
hard yes or hard no, because we don't know families,
we don't know their circumstances. But I do think, as
you mentioned, for smaller children, I think we need to
be that little bit stricter because you're really laying the
habits and the foundations of what their eating patterns are
going to be like later on, particularly when they're quite small.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
True true, true.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
All right, Well, on that note, that brings us to
the end of the Nutrition Couch for another week. Please
keep sending us your request for product reviews and we
won't be talking about faux pro in the near future.
You'd say this is it if you know your diet
needs a bit more protein or could benefit from the
growing range of evidence space facts around creating. Check out
our scientifically formulated protein range it design by dietitians and
(36:35):
we'll see you next Wednesday for our regular episode drop.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Thanks for listening, Catch you next week.
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