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Speaker 1: Oh yes, it is healthy Ish time. You are listening

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Speaker 1: into the body and Soul podcast called Healthish. Of course,

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Speaker 1: I am Felicity Harley. So how does a practicing GP

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Speaker 1: approach nutrition. I don't think we've had a guest on

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Speaker 1: before who has discussed this from a medical perspective. I

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Speaker 1: am joined today by doctor Priya Alexander. She has a

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Speaker 1: new book out called Full Plate. It is a cookbook,

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Speaker 1: and today she's sharing her healthy eating principles and how

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Speaker 1: she approaches cooking in an overwhelmed, overstuffed life. If you

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Speaker 1: do like what you hear from doctor Preyer listening to

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Speaker 1: extra healthy Ish, where she answers some of the most

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Speaker 1: common questions you might have when it comes to your

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Speaker 1: health and wellbeing. Priya, nice to have you back on healthy.

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Speaker 2: Ish, Thanks for having me, and.

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Speaker 1: Well done on your book full of beautiful recipes. Can't

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Speaker 1: wait to get in the kitchen.

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Speaker 2: And cook them. I hope your kids love it.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure they will, and also me and my husband.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, correct, everybody. It's for everyone. Now.

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Speaker 1: You're a doctor obviously, but you tackle nutrition and cooking

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Speaker 1: and it's quite rare to see this. I mean, we're

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Speaker 1: seeing it more, but it's I actually personally love it.

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Speaker 1: Why don't more gps do this?

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Speaker 2: Look, I think that a lot of people think that

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Speaker 2: talking about nutrition and food perhaps isn't in our wheelhouse,

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Speaker 2: and it really is. Like in my consulting room, Felicity,

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Speaker 2: I'm talking about sleep, physical activity, nutrition all the time.

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Speaker 2: It's just not possible for every single one of my

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Speaker 2: patients to go and see a dietitian. As much as

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Speaker 2: I'd love that to be the gold standard, because seeing

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Speaker 2: a dietitian is phenomenal and these are really amazing experts

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Speaker 2: in that field, it's just not possible. There's not enough

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Speaker 2: dietitians out there. It's really costly, so by the time

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Speaker 2: someone comes and sees me, they can't afford to go

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Speaker 2: and see a die tian as well. So I have

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Speaker 2: really upskilled in the area to try and give my

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Speaker 2: patients and practical tip bits in the consulting room. When

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Speaker 2: it comes to heart disease risk management, managing high blood

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Speaker 2: pressure through diet, reducing risk of chronic disease cholesterol, I've

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Speaker 2: just upskilled. And so I love cooking and I'm very

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Speaker 2: aware of the impact that diet can have on health,

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Speaker 2: and so I think you know, I'm surprised that it

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Speaker 2: resonates so much with people because my cooking is simple

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Speaker 2: in the cookbook, it's really basic, simple, doable cooking. But

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Speaker 2: like I think it's yummy and everyone can enjoy it

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Speaker 2: and actually whip it up. So I think that's why

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Speaker 2: it resonates with people.

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Speaker 1: It's really interesting you say upskill, because you're right, it's

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Speaker 1: about upskilling yourself around that. But when you think about

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Speaker 1: the fundamentals of food, I mean, I just go back

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Speaker 1: to that saying food is medicine, isn't it. So it's

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Speaker 1: almost it's hard to wrap your head around. Why hasn't

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Speaker 1: this been anyway? You know, more doctors like you talking

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Speaker 1: about nutrition.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think they probably are in consulting rooms. I

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Speaker 2: think lots of us are in the consulting room. I

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Speaker 2: think that though, because I'm a public facing GP with

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Speaker 2: the social media profile, I bring the consulting room out

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Speaker 2: into the real world. And this is also a passion

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Speaker 2: of mine, So preventative health, food, physical activity, that lifestyle

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Speaker 2: aspect is a huge passion of mine. So I think

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Speaker 2: I bring it all to life on social media. But

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Speaker 2: I do think it's happening in consulting rooms. And I

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Speaker 2: think now, certainly in our medical news, there's more and

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Speaker 2: more talk of the impact of diet on things like CADS,

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Speaker 2: a risk on disease prevention, gart health, Like there's so

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Speaker 2: much in our medical news because it's such a hot topic.

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Speaker 2: Like we're learning more and more that actually some diet

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Speaker 2: choices like ultra processed foods, like a diet high in salt,

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Speaker 2: can actually impact your mood. We're starting to learn, you know,

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Speaker 2: an adolescence, there's a higher risk of depression with a

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Speaker 2: diet high insult and processed foods. So I think as

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Speaker 2: more evidence comes to light, as we talk about it more,

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Speaker 2: I think more of us are doing it in the

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Speaker 2: consulting room, or I hope.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, no, you're right. What is What are

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Speaker 1: your key healthy eating principles? What are the ones that

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Speaker 1: you live by in your life.

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Speaker 2: I say yes to everything, but I say yes to

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Speaker 2: more of the stuff that reduces my family's risk and

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Speaker 2: my risk of cancer and chronic diseases like type two diabetes,

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Speaker 2: fatty liver, And I say yes to the sometimes stuff,

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Speaker 2: but just not as often. So things like processed meat, salami,

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Speaker 2: which I bloody love, you know, saturated fats, I still

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Speaker 2: eat it all. My principle is, really everything is okay.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of diet culture BS that is packaged

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Speaker 2: in health messaging, you know, good and bad foods, and

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Speaker 2: clean and unclean, even these terms healthy unhealthy. Actually everything's

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Speaker 2: okay unless you've got an allergy or an intolerance. You

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Speaker 2: can eat everything. And if you look at the Eat

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Speaker 2: for Health will, everything's on there, including in the discretionary

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Speaker 2: foods you've got, you know, twiggy sticks my favorite, and

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Speaker 2: ice cream and pizza and all these things. It's just

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Speaker 2: ideally not for three meals a day every day, because

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Speaker 2: it might impact your heart disease risk and your bower

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Speaker 2: cats are risk and you Type two diabetes risk. But

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Speaker 2: my principle is really loads of rainbows, fruit and veggies

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Speaker 2: and whole grains and less of the sometimes stuff. But

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Speaker 2: I really don't say no to anything.

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Speaker 1: That's a refreshing answer. I like that it's okay to

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Speaker 1: have your pepper and pizza.

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Speaker 3: Go for it, mate, Yes.

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Speaker 2: It's absolutely okay, and to actually enjoy it. And to

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Speaker 2: acknowledge that diet culture, particularly for my generation and probably

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Speaker 2: like our generations, has really caused some problematic thoughts for

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Speaker 2: us around food and body and actually nothing's bad. Pizza

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Speaker 2: is not bad. And the minute you assigned that labeled

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Speaker 2: pizza and call it bad, you feel guilty when you

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Speaker 2: eat it and you lose control when you eat it.

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Speaker 2: But just enjoy the bloody pepperoni pizza because it's awesome.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Some of your recipes in particular, I mean what got

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Speaker 1: me about this book is you know, and I saw

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Speaker 1: in my email line gut friendly recipes and meals.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we're all so obsessed with gut health right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what are some well, what does a gut friendly

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Speaker 1: meal actually look like?

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Speaker 2: So gut health is a really interesting evolving area. So

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Speaker 2: there is so much emerging research in this field. As

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Speaker 2: a GP it's like a field day, Like you could

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Speaker 2: read and read and read for days on this. But

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Speaker 2: let's go back to basics. Because gut health is basically

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Speaker 2: that zoo in the gut that trillions of bugs, the bacteria,

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Speaker 2: the fungi, the viruses, all of them. They're all good.

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Speaker 2: We want to nurture them. Lots of research now that

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Speaker 2: actually nurturing the gut zoo can help with weight management

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Speaker 2: and can also impact mood, impact the immune system. Like

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Speaker 2: we're actually learning that that gut zoo is critical for

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Speaker 2: lots of different stuff, so you want to nurture it.

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Speaker 2: And so there's really a couple of fundamental principles when

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Speaker 2: it comes to nurturing the gut zoo. And I talk

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Speaker 2: about this all the time in the consulting room. It's

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Speaker 2: basically eating loads of rainbows, loads of fruit and veggies,

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Speaker 2: eating a varied range. So when I say eat the rainbow,

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Speaker 2: you want the purple eggplant, the red tomato, the yellow corn,

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Speaker 2: the orange, the yeah, you want it all. And the

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Speaker 2: gut zu wants a broad range of colors. You want

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Speaker 2: to eat the rainbow. You want to avoid artificial sweetness

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Speaker 2: because they can negatively impact your gut zoo. And the

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Speaker 2: other one is plenty of fiber and whole grains in

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Speaker 2: your diet. So you know, when you say a gut

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Speaker 2: friendly meal, it's really I think sometimes things get really

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Speaker 2: tricky flicity. People are going how much salt and how

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Speaker 2: much this, and what about balcantser risks and what about

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Speaker 2: So I just say, lots of rainbows and whole grains

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Speaker 2: and less salt and process stuff. If you just live

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Speaker 2: by that alone, keep it really simple and sneak in

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Speaker 2: rainbows wherever you can. You're nailing it.

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Speaker 1: The other thing that comes through, you know, across your

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Speaker 1: socials and also in your book, is about being healthy

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Speaker 1: and nutritious in a crazy busy world. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: can be hard to be healthy. It's hard to take

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Speaker 1: time to cut the carrots that you want the kids

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Speaker 1: to eat in the afternoon because you're rushing out the

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Speaker 1: door to whatever, or even for yourself, like when you're

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Speaker 1: going in the morning to take those healthy snacks takes

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Speaker 1: extra time. How can we stay healthy and nutritious without

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Speaker 1: the stress of it all?

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Speaker 2: So the cost of living, I think is a real

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Speaker 2: problem at the minute, and lots of my patients saying prayer,

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Speaker 2: I just can't afford the stuff that I used to eat.

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Speaker 2: I cannot feel my trolley for the same amount. Therefore

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Speaker 2: it's the rainbows that tend to go. So I think

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Speaker 2: if you want to stay you know, nurturing your physical

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Speaker 2: and mental health through diet, one is to eat seasonally.

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Speaker 2: Like there's no point buying capscums now they're bloody eleven

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Speaker 2: dollars a kilo. It's like, that's just ridiculous. So eating seasonally,

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Speaker 2: going for really easy stuff. Frozen and can veggies count

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Speaker 2: in your intake just the same as the fresh stuff.

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Speaker 2: And often the frozen stuff is better nutritionally than the

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Speaker 2: old corn cop you've got lying in your crystal, because

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Speaker 2: the frozen stuff is snap frozen once it's picked. Yes,

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Speaker 2: and so go for budget friendly options. Get the canned

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Speaker 2: baby corn rinse it. That's a snack. Number three is

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Speaker 2: to prepare a head. I always think if you can

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Speaker 2: prep ahead and cut the carrot sticks flicity on a

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Speaker 2: Sunday night with your kids around the bench, get them involved.

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Speaker 2: You've got a rainbow box for the week. That's what

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Speaker 2: I tend to do, and then I shove it into

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Speaker 2: lunch boxes and on rainbow plates for afternoon tea. And

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Speaker 2: I say, forget the rules. So when I am making

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Speaker 2: whatever I'm making, like last night I made a Moroccan

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Speaker 2: chicken bake, I'm putting butter beans in there because they

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Speaker 2: count in our veggie intake. Chopped as a KEII because

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Speaker 2: I had it. Who gives a crap about the rules,

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Speaker 2: Like a chicken katchu tory in my cook book looks

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Speaker 2: really different to a traditional one, but it's got plenty

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Speaker 2: of rainbows. So improvise. Just think of rainbows constantly.

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Speaker 3: I like it.

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Speaker 1: Rainbows and the zoo. Priya, thank you, thanks for coming

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Speaker 1: on healthy.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Well, if you do want to some of Priya's rainbow food,

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Speaker 1: her book is called Full Plate and it is out now.

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Speaker 1: If you did enjoy this chat, oh we would love

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Speaker 1: it if you could jump on and rate and review it,

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Speaker 1: or of course subscribe to this podcast anything else. Follow

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Speaker 1: us on bodyansoul dot com dot you on socials. Our

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Speaker 1: online address is a bodyansol dot com dot you and

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Speaker 1: you can grab our print edition which is out in

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Speaker 1: your local Sunday paper and until tomorrow. Well eat the

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Speaker 1: rainbow and stay healthy ish