Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Francisco Budkin and I'm Louise Arii and welcome
Speaker 1: to the first episode of season six of our New
Speaker 1: Zealand Here podcast, The Little Thing's Good to have you
Speaker 1: with us. It is good to be back season six
Speaker 1: exciting goodness me and this podcast.
Speaker 2: We talk to experts.
Speaker 1: We find out all the little things you need to
Speaker 1: know to improve different areas of your life. We can't
Speaker 1: throw all the confusion and overload of the information out
Speaker 1: there to kind of help simplify life and hopefully have
Speaker 1: a little bit of fun while we're.
Speaker 3: Doing exactly So, how was your summer alone?
Speaker 2: Nice and simple?
Speaker 1: You know it wasn't gosh.
Speaker 2: You keep me very.
Speaker 3: Entertained over the summer as we followed you and your
Speaker 3: car and your caravan as you tour it around the
Speaker 3: South Island.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's a life hack. Okay, okay, just listen up.
Speaker 1: Do not toe a caravan or boat behind a fully
Speaker 1: electric vehicle. Not yet anyway. Maybe I don't know, Maybe
Speaker 1: infrastructure will be there entire years to come.
Speaker 3: I say this lovingly, but is it that you know
Speaker 3: caravan's put a toll on evs and you just naturally
Speaker 3: find yourself kind of running out of battery and then
Speaker 3: have to ditch a caravan and drive off to the
Speaker 3: nearest town.
Speaker 2: Or did you guys not really manage it? No, we
Speaker 2: did it.
Speaker 1: My husband apparently did an awful lot of research. It
Speaker 1: was pretty confident. Yeah, just didn't work out that way. Look,
Speaker 1: it's all fine. We got to our destinations. We have
Speaker 1: seen the absolute best of this country. We have not
Speaker 1: done a roady like that in such a long time.
Speaker 1: The fairy was great. Everything about it was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: So I do the upsiders. I would encourage anybody to,
Speaker 1: if they haven't done a roady for a while, to
Speaker 1: just go out and look at the absolute beauty that
Speaker 1: we have outside of our main centers.
Speaker 3: And twenty twenty six started well for you and the
Speaker 3: family sure did.
Speaker 1: Yep, just back from a beautiful family wedding. It's all
Speaker 1: been very kind of surreal and lovely. What about you, well.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty six marks a little bit of a change
Speaker 3: in our household. So I am no longer the parent
Speaker 3: of school children. That's right, which is I know some
Speaker 3: people feel a little emotional and quite sad that that
Speaker 3: phase of their life might be over, But it's been
Speaker 3: nineteen years and I've loved it and made the most
Speaker 3: of it, but I am very ready to move on.
Speaker 3: So that's very exciting. So ones at university and Auckland,
Speaker 3: ones at University in Canterbury, and our youngest also just
Speaker 3: got their driver's license, so now they are independent. You know,
Speaker 3: you're no longer driving them to dance classes and various
Speaker 3: other things. So it's quite exciting. But there's so much
Speaker 3: time in the day. I am a little bit taken
Speaker 3: back at how much time there is in the day
Speaker 3: which I can now work and be productive and do things, which.
Speaker 2: Is a good thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but also I'm not quite match fit to make
Speaker 3: the most of it. But I am very much looking
Speaker 3: forward to having more time time to do more things,
Speaker 3: to learning new things or doing things with my partner
Speaker 3: or you know, just.
Speaker 2: Been able to put yourself first a little.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: I know, as we all know, the kids don't stop
Speaker 1: needing you and we don't stop providing for them. But
Speaker 1: it's not the same time crunch, is it. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you're doing things for them, mostly giving them money to
Speaker 1: be having long anguish conversations with the mother phone about something,
Speaker 1: but it's not the day to day stuff. But take
Speaker 1: ups and the drop offs and they.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I also think as parents we should actually
Speaker 3: give ourselves a few more pats on the back more
Speaker 3: often when you hit milestones like this, because educating a
Speaker 3: child does not always straightforward. It can be a roller
Speaker 3: coaster of a ride. There can be issues, academic issues,
Speaker 3: environmental issues, social issues, all sorts of things. And you
Speaker 3: have supported and nurtured that child through that process for
Speaker 3: actually a substantial period of time, thirteen years each. You've
Speaker 3: got three kids like you you're doing it for.
Speaker 2: You're just going on and on and on.
Speaker 3: And actually, I think while it is wonderful to see
Speaker 3: them moving on to their next stage of their lives
Speaker 3: and being independent and taking steps forward as well, sometimes
Speaker 3: I think as parents we don't stop and kind of
Speaker 3: give ourselves a little bit of a pad on the back,
Speaker 3: a little bit of credit. We're going, Actually, we did that,
Speaker 3: we got through. You know, sometimes it is worth just
Speaker 3: stopping for a moment and kind of going, yeah.
Speaker 1: Look, I've just been an absolutely amazing weekend with my
Speaker 1: or my nephews and nieces and they're all adults, and
Speaker 1: they're all beautiful, and they've all come through, and yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I think we you know that is credit to the
Speaker 1: appearance and the extended family support and all of that
Speaker 1: kind of thing.
Speaker 3: But a change out this can also be a bit
Speaker 3: difficult on a relationship. Right, Like you had kids, You've
Speaker 3: had busy lives. Your kids are part of your day
Speaker 3: to day life, and all of a sudden as they
Speaker 3: sort of start to leave, well they do become more independent.
Speaker 3: Relationship kind of changes as well. You find yourself sort
Speaker 3: of sitting on the couch up at your partner going, oh,
Speaker 3: it's just you and I home tonight.
Speaker 2: You know, we're just just us.
Speaker 1: So one thing we are going to talk about this
Speaker 1: season is how our relationship adjusts to the empty nest
Speaker 1: and how we you know, move on in a new
Speaker 1: sort of stage and phase in a relationship, which and
Speaker 1: I'm quite looking forward to talking about that.
Speaker 2: We'll do that this season.
Speaker 1: It's definitely not just picking up where you left off
Speaker 1: before your children. It's a completely different setting it even
Speaker 1: ones in different places, aren't they. And we've all learn
Speaker 1: learnt so much and been through so much.
Speaker 2: What are you what else are you keen to talk
Speaker 2: about this season?
Speaker 1: Well, I've had a few people approach me about talking
Speaker 1: about becoming a widow or a widow were we have
Speaker 1: talked about separation and divorce, but that is not a
Speaker 1: subject we've touched on before. And I actually think that's
Speaker 1: really important. My own father found himself a widower at
Speaker 1: in his mid forties with five children. My goodness, my
Speaker 1: brother also found himself for whatever, and I have friends
Speaker 1: who are widows, and I just think it is something
Speaker 1: we we ought to address because we're going to know
Speaker 1: somebody or it's going to happen to us or whatever.
Speaker 1: I just think it's another area that we should touch on,
Speaker 1: not in a super doomy, gloomy way. You know, there's
Speaker 1: some there's some recovery and joy and the process. I'm
Speaker 1: also keen to talk about some less serious topics, like
Speaker 1: what the heck's going on with everybody going skinny? That's
Speaker 1: a bit weird.
Speaker 3: Oh did you watch any of the awards ceremonies at
Speaker 3: the beginning of the year.
Speaker 1: And the globes just freaking me out.
Speaker 2: I couldn't actually want people.
Speaker 3: Who were small are now tiny. It's and it's I
Speaker 3: find it's so upsetting and so frustrating. I mean, we're
Speaker 3: both officially still got teenage daughters, and I thought we
Speaker 3: were through this. I thought we had sort of passed
Speaker 3: that period of time.
Speaker 2: What was it?
Speaker 3: The cape Moss said, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,
Speaker 3: and I thought we were through this and that, you know,
Speaker 3: we were all a little bit more bodify, I know, and.
Speaker 1: It has been in my mind. I've seen that as well,
Speaker 1: something else that we were both really keen to talk about.
Speaker 1: This season, we always do an episode of nutrition, So
Speaker 1: we're going to kick off the season by talking about
Speaker 1: ultra process foods because I don't know if you noticed,
Speaker 1: but there seems to be endless headlines over summer about
Speaker 1: ultra process foods, what you should and shouldn't be eating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, neither of us are into dieting, and we
Speaker 1: believe your diet can't be perfect all the time, but
Speaker 1: we are interested in having a clearer picture of how
Speaker 1: to eat for our health and what we should be
Speaker 1: more mindful of consuming. So you know, when it comes
Speaker 1: to process and ultra process food, what's okay and what
Speaker 1: should we actively avoid.
Speaker 3: So today, Professor Sarah Berry is with us. Sarah is
Speaker 3: a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King's College, London,
Speaker 3: and she is the chief scientist at ZOE. You may
Speaker 3: be familiar with ZOE. They work to dispel nutrition myths
Speaker 3: and misinformation, and we've been really lucky enough to speak
Speaker 3: with founder Tim Spector and US medical director Will Bolschwitz
Speaker 3: in previous episodes. Definitely with the listen. Sarah is at
Speaker 3: the forefront of developments and personal nutrition and has been
Speaker 3: in charge of some of the world's largest human nutrition studies.
Speaker 3: Her work explores how foods impact metabolism, fat storage, and
Speaker 3: long term health. And doctor Sarah Berry is with us.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Welcome pleasure, Thank you for having me. We're in totally
Speaker 4: different time zones here. It's my Friday evening, and I'm
Speaker 4: looking forward to a nice glass of wine after this.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm looking forward to a last cup of coffee
Speaker 1: after this.
Speaker 3: I know I'm sorry that we're holding you back from
Speaker 3: that glass of wine for just a little bit longer,
Speaker 3: but we really do appreciate your time. Wondering if we
Speaker 3: can start with quite a broad question, could you just
Speaker 3: explain to us what our processed and ultra processed foods.
Speaker 4: I kind of think that's a million dollar question, because
Speaker 4: if I'm to go into a supermarket and identify is
Speaker 4: that an ultra process food? Even though I've been a
Speaker 4: nutitional scientist for twenty five yearsly struggle, So I think
Speaker 4: let's strip it back to the basics. A process food
Speaker 4: is basically any kind of food that has gone through
Speaker 4: some sort of processing. So it could be the fact
Speaker 4: that you've just cooked your carrots. You know that's a
Speaker 4: form of processing because you've cooked them. But in the
Speaker 4: current food landscape that we live in, we are actually
Speaker 4: used the term very differently, and we typically use it
Speaker 4: in the context of a classification system called the NOVA
Speaker 4: classification system, which allocates a classifier according to whether it's unprocessed,
Speaker 4: minimally processed. A processed culinary ingredient like a sort of
Speaker 4: spice or something, or oil or something that's called an
Speaker 4: ultra processed food, And an ultra processed food is a
Speaker 4: classification system from this system called NOVA. It's a NOVA
Speaker 4: for food. But it's a term that's really taken off
Speaker 4: because it's been used in a lot of nutrition research
Speaker 4: in order to class apply foods that have been heavily processed.
Speaker 4: But I think what's really really important to remember in
Speaker 4: the whole discussion of ultra process food. And when we
Speaker 4: look at the evidence and we look at these scary
Speaker 4: headlines that are often out there about food processing, is
Speaker 4: the term ultraprocessed food is specific to this classification system,
Speaker 4: and this classification system is based on the extent and
Speaker 4: the purpose of processing is a system that was never
Speaker 4: designed to look at how processing might impact our health.
Speaker 4: And so we see, for example, in the UK, the US,
Speaker 4: Australia is becoming quite similar in New Zealand as well,
Speaker 4: that about sixty percent of our food comes from this
Speaker 4: ultra process food. But it's such a huge category, and
Speaker 4: you have within this category of or classification of ultra
Speaker 4: process food some that, yes, are really bad, but some
Speaker 4: that aren't so bad. So I think we kind of
Speaker 4: need to take a step back and think, really, what
Speaker 4: is set about food processing that's bad in order for
Speaker 4: us to identify what we should be avoiding and what
Speaker 4: we shouldn't be avoiding.
Speaker 1: You made a really good point there by saying it's
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily that, like you say, all processed foods
Speaker 1: has been. It's what which ones in what type of
Speaker 1: processing is having an inpect on our health, right because originally,
Speaker 1: you know, we evolved into processing foods for storage and
Speaker 1: and to feed a growing population and all that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, didn't we How has it evolved from there?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely, And I think that's a really important point,
Speaker 4: Lou that you make, is that processing came about for
Speaker 4: the good. It's enabled us to produce enough food for
Speaker 4: our growing population. It's enabled us to produce food that
Speaker 4: is shelf stable and that is safe for us to consume.
Speaker 4: It's also enables us to really maximize the the food
Speaker 4: from the crops that are out there and so forth,
Speaker 4: and also enables us to produce food that is a
Speaker 4: lot cheaper. And there's some fantastic research that was recently
Speaker 4: published showing that if you look at all of the
Speaker 4: food that are in US supermarkets, what you see is
Speaker 4: an ultra processed or heavily processed version versus a minimally
Speaker 4: processed version has about a fifty percent price differential, meaning,
Speaker 4: for example, if you take a bread that a minimally processed,
Speaker 4: more kind of Artisian style bread is actually about fifty
Speaker 4: percent more expensive than one of the mass produced breads
Speaker 4: that would be classed as ultra process And they saw
Speaker 4: this across all of the different food groups, whether it
Speaker 4: was yogurts, whether it's pastries, whether it's meat based products, etc.
Speaker 4: So we do need to be mindful that again in
Speaker 4: this kind of demonization of ultra process food, in this
Speaker 4: scare mongering that you see out there, that processing does
Speaker 4: have a really important purpose and it does enable us
Speaker 4: to also consume food that is more affordable for many people.
Speaker 4: So what we need to do is work on identifying
Speaker 4: which of those foods are particularly bad for us, because
Speaker 4: our research that we've done at Zoe actually shows that
Speaker 4: it's probably only about twenty percent of our energy that's
Speaker 4: coming from processed foods that we know are particularly unfavorable
Speaker 4: for our health.
Speaker 2: So which ones are they?
Speaker 4: Well, we do have a Zoe app that allows people
Speaker 4: to have look and unfortunately it's not available yet in
Speaker 4: New Zealand, but it's very much dependent on the brand
Speaker 4: of the food and so and the kind of brands
Speaker 4: that you have in the US. In New Zealand, sorry,
Speaker 4: it will be very different to the kind of brands
Speaker 4: we have or we have in the US. So I
Speaker 4: think the important thing is being able to help people
Speaker 4: identify what is it about food in the way it's
Speaker 4: processed that makes it unhealthy. But it's really really difficult,
Speaker 4: and it's really difficult because processing impacts the healthfulness of food,
Speaker 4: not just through the additives and emulsifiers that everyone's talking about,
Speaker 4: but actually through lots of other mechanisms. So we know
Speaker 4: that when you process food, and there's lots of different
Speaker 4: ways we can process food, whether it's through heat processes,
Speaker 4: whether it's through physical disruption of the food structure, whether
Speaker 4: it's through predigesting the food. You know, there's so many
Speaker 4: different ways that you can process the food. But what
Speaker 4: we know is that impacts certain features that are related
Speaker 4: to health. Firstly, we know that typically heavily processed foods
Speaker 4: tends to have less nutritious nutrients or less healthy nutrients.
Speaker 4: By this, it tends to have less fiber, it tends
Speaker 4: to have more unhealthy nutrients, so it tends to have
Speaker 4: more salt, more saturated fat, more sugar. It also tends
Speaker 4: to have less bioactives. And these are chemicals that are
Speaker 4: found in foods that we know have really magical properties
Speaker 4: in improving our health. So you might have heard a
Speaker 4: polyph phenols for example, it comes from dark figmented pigmented berries,
Speaker 4: you know, and these have really fantastic properties in terms
Speaker 4: of you know, acting on anti inflammatory pathways and so forth.
Speaker 4: So processed foods tend to have less of those bioactives
Speaker 4: as well, they tend to have less nutritious nutrients. Then
Speaker 4: they do tend to have lots of additives, lots of emulsifiers.
Speaker 4: So yes, you can look at the back of pack
Speaker 4: and you can look at two foods and you could say, whoa,
Speaker 4: hold on, here's a peanut butter. Here's one that just
Speaker 4: literally has peanuts, maybe a pinch of salt and a
Speaker 4: pinch of sugar. And then here's a peanut butter like
Speaker 4: in the America, for example, as Reese's peanut butter, which
Speaker 4: unfortunately my kids love. You know, yes, it's got about
Speaker 4: thirty ingredients. It's got loads of E numbers, which are
Speaker 4: basically numbers that are allocated to emulsifiers and additives. So
Speaker 4: that gives you a good hint that hold on, maybe
Speaker 4: that's not so healthy. But in my opinion, that's only
Speaker 4: part of the picture, and that we need to look
Speaker 4: at other features. One of those features is hyperpalatability, which
Speaker 4: is basically how tasty that food is. And another feature
Speaker 4: is the food structure, the food matrix, which is destroyed
Speaker 4: in processing, which impacts how fast you eat that food,
Speaker 4: where the nutrients are absorbed, how much of the nutrients
Speaker 4: you're absorbed in.
Speaker 1: So much more have our palets changed, though, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about that phrase hyperpalatability, because have we been
Speaker 1: somehow you know, so exposed for so long to processed
Speaker 1: foods and added salt, metatugar and things like that that
Speaker 1: we've you know, that would have to remove ourselves completely
Speaker 1: to sort of reset our palets.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question, and I
Speaker 4: think it's it's true that, you know, the food that
Speaker 4: we're now exposed to you is not the food that
Speaker 4: we have physiologically been evolved to handle. The rate at
Speaker 4: which the food is changing, you know, it is so
Speaker 4: fast we cannot evolve at the same rate that the
Speaker 4: food landscape is changing that the processing techniques are changing.
Speaker 4: And there's many many foods now that are designed by
Speaker 4: the food industry to have a mix of nutrients that
Speaker 4: we know bypass our natural physiological, neurological responses. So these
Speaker 4: are foods that will be particularly high in maybe salt
Speaker 4: and sugar, or salt and fat, or fat and sugar
Speaker 4: that you wouldn't typically find in nature. So let's take
Speaker 4: crisps for example. Crisps have a reasonable amount of fat
Speaker 4: and they have a reasonable amount of salt. Now, you
Speaker 4: wouldn't typically find that same amount of salt and that
Speaker 4: same amount of fat in a natural product that's not
Speaker 4: naturally in the potatoes. But by putting them together, it's
Speaker 4: almost kind of like bypasses our natural sensory system that
Speaker 4: tells us, well, hold on, you've eaten enough, you don't
Speaker 4: need anymore. Instead, what it's doing is activating the reward
Speaker 4: system in our brain, a bit like giving us some
Speaker 4: kind of mini dopamine hits and saying, oh my god,
Speaker 4: this is so tasty. Keep eating, keep eating, keep eating,
Speaker 4: so that you tend to over eat hyper palatable foods.
Speaker 4: And there's quite a bit of evidence showing that, yes,
Speaker 4: you tend to overeat them, and people that have more
Speaker 4: of these hyper palatable foods put on more weight. And
Speaker 4: so I think that's one really interesting area where you know,
Speaker 4: we're now so accustomed to having these foods that what
Speaker 4: do we do, How do we go back to experiencing
Speaker 4: pleasure from that potato, for example, without all of that salt?
Speaker 4: And there are studies showing that yes, you can retrain
Speaker 4: your taste fuds, et cetera. But what's difficult is when
Speaker 4: you go into your supermarket, when you go to your
Speaker 4: corner shop or your high street and everything there or
Speaker 4: what we know in the UK and the US, for example,
Speaker 4: is about sixty percent and I don't know in that
Speaker 4: their stats in New Zealand, but sixty percent of the
Speaker 4: food is probably hyper palatable. And so when you're faced
Speaker 4: with all of this, it's really difficult to make those
Speaker 4: healthy choices and think, oh my gosh, I know that's tasty,
Speaker 4: but hey, let me try and find something that's less tasty,
Speaker 4: because I know it's for healthy. I can't be that good.
Speaker 4: I tell you what, when I have my wine after this,
Speaker 4: I'll be some nice salt and vinegar crisps with it.
Speaker 2: I just love that expression. Palatable.
Speaker 3: I'm going to get you know, ex time someone got
Speaker 3: to be meal our God, this is hyper palatable.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Hey, we should probably talk about about why we're actually
Speaker 3: even talking about ultra process foods in the first place,
Speaker 3: and the impact that they have on our health and
Speaker 3: our metabolism. I mean, what do we know about the
Speaker 3: impact that they're having on us.
Speaker 4: So you'll probably see every day in the newspaper there's
Speaker 4: a different headline saying ultra process foods they're killing us.
Speaker 4: They're causing everything from as i'monster cancer to heart disease,
Speaker 4: to diabetes, everything you name it, it's linked with. Yes,
Speaker 4: we know the ultra process food are unhealthy for us. Yes,
Speaker 4: there's lots of evidence showing their link to increase risk
Speaker 4: of all of these different chronic diseases. But I think
Speaker 4: what we need to be mindful of is the evidence
Speaker 4: is typically coming from either these longitudinal studies or cross
Speaker 4: sexual studies where you take large populations, you follow them
Speaker 4: over a period of time, you look at what their
Speaker 4: diet is at you know, maybe five ten year intervals,
Speaker 4: and then you look who goes on to get what
Speaker 4: type of disease. Now, that's a really important way that
Speaker 4: we get a first hint of what's going on in
Speaker 4: terms of diet and in terms of disease. But for
Speaker 4: that kind of research, we typically use food frequency questionnaires,
Speaker 4: which asks quite crude questions. So it would ask, for example,
Speaker 4: do you have peanut butter or not. It wouldn't say
Speaker 4: do you have recess peanut butter or this healthy peanut butter.
Speaker 4: It can't differentiate between brands. So yes, there is data
Speaker 4: to show the old process food at linked with health.
Speaker 4: But what we now know is that not all ultra
Speaker 4: processed foods are linked in the same way and to
Speaker 4: the same degree. And so there is some research that's
Speaker 4: broken down quite crude categories that you can still do
Speaker 4: through food frequency questionnaires that show that if you look
Speaker 4: at the link between old processed food intaken an individual
Speaker 4: and their risk of all course mortality basically meaning death,
Speaker 4: that yes, as your old process foodn't take increases, so
Speaker 4: does your risk of death. And it's largely attributable if
Speaker 4: you look at the different food groups to an increase
Speaker 4: in red process meat and in sugar sweetened and artificially
Speaker 4: sweetened beverages. What you see, conversely, is that cereal products.
Speaker 4: Now I know, seal products are really a big range.
Speaker 4: They could be everything from your terrible sugary you know,
Speaker 4: kid cereals that you see in supermarket right through to
Speaker 4: a healthy whole grain, but they're actually associated with a
Speaker 4: reduced risk of all course mortality even if they're classified
Speaker 4: a sultra process. So I think we need to be
Speaker 4: a bit careful demonizing everything because yes, overall it shows
Speaker 4: there's a problem, but actually not all ultra processed food
Speaker 4: is created equally. And then within each of those food
Speaker 4: groups I've mentioned earlier, even within those groups, whether it's cereals,
Speaker 4: whether it's you know, even process red meat, we know
Speaker 4: that there's a huge variability. You know, if you look
Speaker 4: at the food group of cereals, you've got everything from
Speaker 4: those awful sugary cereals that again unfortunately my kids love
Speaker 4: right through to some very healthy cereals, but would still
Speaker 4: be classed as ultra process And so this, I think
Speaker 4: is what makes it challenging, and this is why I
Speaker 4: think we have to be a little bit careful getting
Speaker 4: too scared by the stats that you see that say,
Speaker 4: you know, our diet sixty percent ultra process. You know,
Speaker 4: what are we going to do? We cannot change our
Speaker 4: diet that radically in the food landscape that we live
Speaker 4: in if we are that average person getting sixty percent
Speaker 4: of our energy from ultra processed food. And that's why
Speaker 4: again we've really got to focus on which ones are
Speaker 4: really bad for us and which ones aren't. And I'm
Speaker 4: sorry that I'm not giving you a list of rand
Speaker 4: level foods in New Zealand that are the really bad ones.
Speaker 1: We do have an excellent peanut butter range, I think
Speaker 1: in New Zealand, don't we fix and fog.
Speaker 2: Fix and fog or picks. Yeah, they're all very very good.
Speaker 4: You don't.
Speaker 3: I am going to go home and cheat the labels.
Speaker 3: And actually the labeling is really interesting because of course
Speaker 3: our ability to make good decisions is reliant on the
Speaker 3: hope that our food producers giving us legible labels to
Speaker 3: read and understand.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, absolutely, And I think to me, this is
Speaker 4: where it gets really interesting and where my many years
Speaker 4: of research I think really comes into play. That the
Speaker 4: food labeling, yes, gives you that first hint. So the
Speaker 4: example I used with peanut butter, Yes, Lisa's peanut butter.
Speaker 4: You can look at the back and you can see,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, it's got so many different ingredients. It's
Speaker 4: got all of these additives and a master piers and
Speaker 4: then you've got, for example, in the UK, I don't
Speaker 4: know if you have it, there a peanut butter called
Speaker 4: pipper nut. That's just a very unprocess. It's just nuts,
Speaker 4: ground nuts and salt so yes that gives you an indication,
Speaker 4: But what that doesn't tell us is the hyperpalatability that
Speaker 4: I mentioned. But it also doesn't tell us what I
Speaker 4: think is one of the most important features alongside the
Speaker 4: nutritional composition, of why processing can impact our health, and
Speaker 4: that's the food structure. That when you process a food
Speaker 4: in many instances, you change the food structure or what
Speaker 4: we in science call the food matrix, and that has
Speaker 4: a big impact in terms of how it impacts our health,
Speaker 4: how it impacts our metabolism, and so much more. And
Speaker 4: that's why it's really challenging, I think, because you cannot
Speaker 4: on the back of pack label say this is a
Speaker 4: good food structure, that's a bad food structure. Yes, we
Speaker 4: can help people identify has the structure been changed such
Speaker 4: way it may negatively impact our health. And there's really
Speaker 4: simple ways. Does that food look like the food from
Speaker 4: which it originally came or does it not resemble that
Speaker 4: original food? And there's simple examples that I often use
Speaker 4: when I teach about this from my own research, an
Speaker 4: old research as well, and there's this lovely study that
Speaker 4: was carried out many years ago, actually even before processing
Speaker 4: was the big issue that it is now, and This
Speaker 4: was a study in nineteen seventy seven where they fed
Speaker 4: people whole apples, or they literally puraid those apples. So
Speaker 4: imagine just making it into a smoothie so it had
Speaker 4: exactly the same ingredients. All you had done was change
Speaker 4: the structure. You just mushed it up basically. And then
Speaker 4: they fed people apple juice where they'd actually taken out
Speaker 4: some of the fiber. But the important comparison is the
Speaker 4: apples and the apple pure, because the backuppack labeling would
Speaker 4: show that they're identical. If they were in a supermarket
Speaker 4: and they fed these individuals apple pure and apples, they
Speaker 4: had fifty grams of available carbohydrate, they're identical. What they
Speaker 4: found was there was a massive difference, about tenfold difference
Speaker 4: in terms of how quickly people eat them. You could
Speaker 4: eat the pure so much more quickly. And what they
Speaker 4: found was even when the invited individuals back and said, okay,
Speaker 4: I want you to actually eat it at the same time,
Speaker 4: so we remove this problem of the fact that you're
Speaker 4: eating the pure faster, they found that there was a
Speaker 4: big difference in terms of how full they felt after.
Speaker 4: So after the apples they felt about fifty percent more
Speaker 4: full compared to the apple pure, but it was the
Speaker 4: same food, just change the texture and the structure. Then
Speaker 4: they looked at the post pant or glucose response, which
Speaker 4: is basically the post meal increase in circulating blood glucose
Speaker 4: from the sugar from the carbohydrate in the apples and
Speaker 4: the pure, and what they found was a big difference
Speaker 4: in terms of about two to four hours after consuming
Speaker 4: the pure, people had a big dip in their glucose
Speaker 4: below baseline compared to the apples. And what this means
Speaker 4: is when you have a dip, it drives your body
Speaker 4: to want to quickly eat food because your body is thinking,
Speaker 4: oh my god, I'm going into a hypergodallysimic shock, which
Speaker 4: you're not. It's just a dip in your glucose. And
Speaker 4: what we've seen from our own Zoe predict research is
Speaker 4: this dip is associated with people then going on to
Speaker 4: consume three hundred and twenty calories more over a day
Speaker 4: compared to if they don't have a dip. So what
Speaker 4: you've got happening here is you've got this apple, you've
Speaker 4: got the pure A backupack labelings are same, no difference
Speaker 4: in emulsifiers, additives, nutrients, etc. But you're eating, they're at
Speaker 4: a very different rate, You're having a very different fullness response,
Speaker 4: You're having a very different glucose metabolic response that's causing
Speaker 4: this dip that we believe will therefore cause you to overeat.
Speaker 4: And this study is lovely because we've since done many
Speaker 4: studies that have really replicated this, and you know, lots
Speaker 4: of other foods, except that just show how important that
Speaker 4: structural integrity is, whereas the texture of a food is.
Speaker 3: From the research that I've done Sarah personally into ultra
Speaker 3: process food, you know, talking about that bag of crisps
Speaker 3: and things, I think we all know that they don't
Speaker 3: meet our society society needs. We don't get full if
Speaker 3: we eat them. We all know that we kind of
Speaker 3: eat more than we really need. So is that the
Speaker 3: explanation for that that dip that we have, or is
Speaker 3: it because they taste really good as well that we
Speaker 3: tend to eat more of than we need.
Speaker 4: So we tend to eat more for a number of reasons.
Speaker 4: One because they're so tasty, so they bypass our natural
Speaker 4: kind of brains sort of breaking system saying well, you
Speaker 4: know you've had enough. Secondly, because we tend to eat
Speaker 4: them faster if they're processed as well, and by eating
Speaker 4: them faster, you don't allow your body time to register
Speaker 4: that it's full. Many processed foods are also processed in
Speaker 4: such a way that by breaking up the structure, they're
Speaker 4: absorbed a lot more quickly, so you have this bigger
Speaker 4: peek and then this dip in glucose, and this dip
Speaker 4: in glucose causes this feeling of hunger, but also it
Speaker 4: changes where you absorb them as well, in your gut.
Speaker 4: And so what we know is that food that tends
Speaker 4: to have the matrix more preserved tends to be absorbed
Speaker 4: lower down the gastrointestinal tract. And what's relevant here is
Speaker 4: lower down your gastro intestinal tract you have more fullness receptors,
Speaker 4: so more GLP one receptors. You probably all heard of
Speaker 4: GLP one. You know, this is the the you know,
Speaker 4: the different drugs that are out there, like a zenpic
Speaker 4: will go v And so if you're absorbing these very
Speaker 4: mushed up foods because of how they've been processed higher
Speaker 4: up the gastro intestinal tracked, they don't have quite so
Speaker 4: many GLP receptors, so you're not feeling it's so full
Speaker 4: yet if it's absorbed more slowly because the matrix the
Speaker 4: structure of food is slowing it down, then you're also
Speaker 4: going to feel more full because of that.
Speaker 1: What I was going to say is it's really FaceTime
Speaker 1: because our brain might forget our natural process, but our
Speaker 1: body doesn't, is what you're saying. If it's been processed
Speaker 1: differently in our gut, no matter what our brain's saying
Speaker 1: about the tastiness and bypassing all the things that are
Speaker 1: actually bitter for us, the body still takes the score.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so you've got kind of double hits going
Speaker 4: on that your brain's saying, wow, I want more. It's
Speaker 4: so tasty. It's already or almost like many processed foods
Speaker 4: I guess you could say, almost predigested. And so they're
Speaker 4: absorbed so quickly, so they're not making you so full.
Speaker 4: They're causing these big metabolic responses. So then as well,
Speaker 4: you're not getting your natural fullness that you would get
Speaker 4: from a food that's being absorbed more slowly. And I
Speaker 4: think you know a really key factor here that we
Speaker 4: don't talk enough about is eating rate. And I think
Speaker 4: this is really important because this is something that everyone
Speaker 4: can control. And so what we know is that most
Speaker 4: processed food, where you have changed the texture such that
Speaker 4: it's softer, is eaten more quickly. And there's research showing
Speaker 4: that ultra processed food, although I'm not so keen on
Speaker 4: that term as you might have gathered, but food that's
Speaker 4: classified as ultra processed according to the Noble Classification System
Speaker 4: versus minimally processed equivalents, even if it's nutritionally matched so
Speaker 4: same nutrients, is eaten fifty percent more quickly. So you're
Speaker 4: eating food that's been processed to change the texture so
Speaker 4: softer texture fifty percent more quickly. And this is really
Speaker 4: relevant because, like I said, it causes you to overeat.
Speaker 4: And there's some fantastic research coming out of Care and
Speaker 4: Forwards Group in the Netherlands that shows that if you
Speaker 4: eat more quickly, you consume more calories. And if you
Speaker 4: are just to slow down the rate at which you
Speaker 4: eat your food by twenty scent, for example, you would actually,
Speaker 4: subconsciously without realizing it, reduce the amount of calories you're
Speaker 4: consuming by about fifteen percent. And the reason I love
Speaker 4: this is because firstly it's related to food processing, but
Speaker 4: also we can all do something about this. We all know,
Speaker 4: I think who are fast eaters? I don't know about you, ladies,
Speaker 4: but when I sit at my dining table, my husband
Speaker 4: wolves stands food, my daughter wills down this food. My
Speaker 4: son and I eat obviously perfectly, you know, but we
Speaker 4: eat slowly. And you know, I mean most of us
Speaker 4: know if we're fast eater liked be curious. No, you
Speaker 4: do you think you're fast or self?
Speaker 3: I became a fast eater when I heard children, when
Speaker 3: I heard babies, because it just seemed to be something.
Speaker 2: It was just it was an efficiency.
Speaker 1: Thing you were, you know, you were always feeding them
Speaker 1: and things, and then you'd shovel a bit of food
Speaker 1: and really quickly. And I noticed that my habit's changed them.
Speaker 1: But interestingly, you say that because you know, we we
Speaker 1: try to sit at the dinner table as often as
Speaker 1: we can, especially when you know, my son comes home
Speaker 1: from university and things, and he takes for either to
Speaker 1: eat Zera and the.
Speaker 3: Rest of us, the other three of us are saddenly going,
Speaker 3: ah ha, this is really lovely for me dinner.
Speaker 2: But can you hurry up?
Speaker 3: We've got things, you know, We've got places to be,
Speaker 3: things to do, and now I'm going to use him
Speaker 3: as my cue. I'm going to finish my dinner with him. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because I just shovel it in. I'm a big pain
Speaker 3: in the ass in my family. I'm always the one
Speaker 3: that says, can we can you just slow down?
Speaker 1: Can you? It frustrates me knowing, And I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: I learned it on Zoe actually about the slowing down
Speaker 1: and the eating. But the funny thing I was thinking
Speaker 1: about was I'm sure it was a Timspektter thing that
Speaker 1: came up to my Instagram once about I'm preparing some
Speaker 1: beautiful breakfast and he was like, this is how quick
Speaker 1: and easy it is to prepare a beautiful bowl of
Speaker 1: you know, really good cereal with some berries and yogan
Speaker 1: and so forth. That's great, thanks Tim. It took ages
Speaker 1: to eat it because it.
Speaker 4: Was, you know, really great.
Speaker 2: I know, but you know it's in the morning.
Speaker 1: You're like, great that it took That's the point though,
Speaker 1: right we're rushing and in the morning in particular, you
Speaker 1: know you're wolf down a piece of toastless some butter
Speaker 1: and peanut butter or something on it and out the door.
Speaker 1: But actually it's every meal we need to sort of
Speaker 1: think about that, not just sitting, you know, not just
Speaker 1: at dinner time.
Speaker 3: But I now have this wonderful I now have this
Speaker 3: wonderful image that sort of Sarah has given us as
Speaker 3: to why to do it. It was just something my
Speaker 3: grandmother always told me to do. Slow down, put your
Speaker 3: knife and fall down in between mouthfuls.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It was kind of and it just says like an
Speaker 3: eater kitch thing. But now I have sort of this
Speaker 3: clearer idea of what's potentially going on in my gap,
Speaker 3: and I kind of I like that that makes it
Speaker 3: a bit more easier to get my head around.
Speaker 1: I personally get a little bit of fender, because if
Speaker 1: I've cooked a really really lovely meal, I get a
Speaker 1: bit annoyed that people eat it like it's like it's
Speaker 1: a big mat.
Speaker 4: That might just be I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 4: there's just more and more evidence coming out showing the
Speaker 4: importance is slowing down how fast you eat your food
Speaker 4: and the impact it has not just on the amount
Speaker 4: of calories but also your metabolic wealth. And there's ways
Speaker 4: that we can consciously do it. But where it becomes
Speaker 4: difficult is that many of the foods, not all of them,
Speaker 4: but many of the foods that have been processed, have
Speaker 4: the texture changed, And it's the texture actually that's critical
Speaker 4: rather than the processing per se. There's this really fascinating
Speaker 4: study that kimin forded where he fed people in a
Speaker 4: randomized order. On one occasion either a burger that was
Speaker 4: quite soft texture, so kind of a soft bun, soggy lettuce,
Speaker 4: and quite soft meat patty. Then on the other occasion,
Speaker 4: the same individuals came in and they had exactly the
Speaker 4: same burger, but the gun was slightly crispy, the lettuce
Speaker 4: was slightly crispy, and the patty was slightly crispy, And
Speaker 4: he gave a huge portion to people and said, right,
Speaker 4: eat as much as you want to eat. They eate
Speaker 4: the soggy or the soft bun, the soft burger lots
Speaker 4: more quickly, and they eate more of it compared to
Speaker 4: eating exactly the same but just crisping it up. And
Speaker 4: he's coined this lovely expression, put your crunch back into
Speaker 4: your lunch. And I think that's lovely because it empowers
Speaker 4: us firstly to consciously slow down how fast we eat.
Speaker 4: So fantastical you're going to go and copy your son
Speaker 4: when he's next home. But also I think we can
Speaker 4: do this subconsciously without thinking about it, just by changing
Speaker 4: the texture of that food as well.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the little things.
Speaker 3: And our guest on the podcast today is chief scientist
Speaker 3: at ZOE, doctor Sarah Berry, helping us navigate the world
Speaker 3: of processed foods. Back after the break, Sirah, I was
Speaker 3: just wondering, you know, we've talked about the fact that
Speaker 3: processing can happen in so many different ways. I mean,
Speaker 3: frozen food is a frozen vegetable is processed to a
Speaker 3: certain you know as processed food. So we've talked about
Speaker 3: what to look for on the labels and things. Can
Speaker 3: anything good come out of processing food?
Speaker 4: Absolutely well, you know, like I said at the beginning,
Speaker 4: processing improves the stability of the food, so the shelf
Speaker 4: life of the food. It improves the cost of the food,
Speaker 4: it improves the safety of the food. And you know,
Speaker 4: frozen vegetables is a perfect example, or canned vegetables, canned
Speaker 4: fruit for example, assuming there's not lots of added sugar,
Speaker 4: for example, of a really cheap way to have food
Speaker 4: where also the nutrients are well preserved. So if you
Speaker 4: take frozen peas, then because of the way that they
Speaker 4: are processed at that time and snap frozen typically at
Speaker 4: the point of harvest and put in our freezers. All
Speaker 4: the vitamin C is preserved and you've got a really
Speaker 4: cheap food and a very healthy food. And so I
Speaker 4: think that we need to be really careful and I'll
Speaker 4: use an English expression here not to throw the baby
Speaker 4: out with the bath water. That yes, there are clearly
Speaker 4: processed foods that are bad. There are clearly processing that's bad.
Speaker 4: But it's a double edged sword. And we've done some
Speaker 4: research at King's College, London where I've done randomized control
Speaker 4: trials where I feed people whole almands versus ground almonds.
Speaker 4: So again these would be foods that have identical pack
Speaker 4: ofpack labeling, you just change through processing the structure. And
Speaker 4: what we find is if you feed people whole almonds,
Speaker 4: you actually excreet about thirty percent of the calories. So
Speaker 4: what it means is if you are someone that's wanting
Speaker 4: to have a low energy food compared compared to what's
Speaker 4: on the back of pack labeling, consuming those almonds, it's
Speaker 4: a whole almond, actually thirty percent of the calories are
Speaker 4: just coming out the other end if you grind it.
Speaker 4: And we've done this study at our university where literally
Speaker 4: you grind it down, so you break all the cells,
Speaker 4: you absorb all of the calories. Now, why is this
Speaker 4: the double edged sword? So for some people who are
Speaker 4: trying to lose weight, you obviously want to consume the
Speaker 4: whole almonds because lots of the calories are coming out
Speaker 4: at the other end. But there are people in our
Speaker 4: population that don't need to lose weight, that might need
Speaker 4: to put weight on, in which case, processing it to
Speaker 4: break up the food structure means they access access all
Speaker 4: the calories. It means they access more of the other nutrients,
Speaker 4: the vitamin E for example, you'll absorb loads more, for example,
Speaker 4: from the ground almonds than from the whole almonds. And
Speaker 4: then we can also use processing to improve the health
Speaker 4: illness of the food through stealth. And this is another
Speaker 4: great way that we can actually use and harness the
Speaker 4: power processing to improve the healthfulness of the food.
Speaker 3: So, Sarah, it would it be fair to say that
Speaker 3: if we have a pretty good diaroet, a good whole
Speaker 3: food diet, is there any harm and having the occasional
Speaker 3: bit of ultra processed food like you going and having
Speaker 3: your crisps after this podcast.
Speaker 4: Absolutely not, and I think that we need to be
Speaker 4: careful not to be too puristic about this. We need
Speaker 4: to be really practical. We need to be practical for
Speaker 4: whom people can't necessarily afford to rely on food that
Speaker 4: is all minimally processed. We need to be practical from
Speaker 4: that shelf life stability point of view, but absolutely, you know,
Speaker 4: we need to be practical from a point of view
Speaker 4: of what's out there for us, what's actually accessible, not
Speaker 4: just affordable, but accessible to us. We need to be
Speaker 4: practical from a point of view of how we live
Speaker 4: our lives. You know, most families now in many countries
Speaker 4: have two working parents. I don't have the time to
Speaker 4: cook everything from scratch when I get home from work.
Speaker 4: Neither does my husband. So we need to be pragmatic
Speaker 4: in this discussion about process foods as well about what's
Speaker 4: actually practical for us. And this is where I think
Speaker 4: what we need to do is firstly accept that we
Speaker 4: can't all be perfect in our diet, and actually life
Speaker 4: would be pretty damn boring if we're all perfect, including
Speaker 4: our diet. That if we enjoy our food, great, you know,
Speaker 4: I often say that to people if your food is
Speaker 4: too healthy to be enjoyed. It's just not healthy at all.
Speaker 4: So if you get some pleasure in that heavily processed
Speaker 4: crisps or chocolate or yogurt, fine, enjoy it. So long
Speaker 4: as the bulk of your diet comes from healthy foods
Speaker 4: to minimally processed whole foods, as long as you're getting
Speaker 4: plenty of fiber ideally from whole foods, then don't worry
Speaker 4: about having a little bit of this. You know, sometimes
Speaker 4: a bit of what's bad for you can be good
Speaker 4: for you. And I think that again, our research that
Speaker 4: we've shown at Zori and I know I've already mentioned,
Speaker 4: has shown that really it's only about twenty percent of
Speaker 4: those processed foods that are out there that are actually
Speaker 4: really unhealthy for us. Those foods that we're just eating
Speaker 4: so so quickly, those foods that are so so tasty
Speaker 4: we don't know when we're filled, and those foods that
Speaker 4: have additives and emulsifies that are particularly harmful for us.
Speaker 4: Let's relax a little bit about the rest of them.
Speaker 1: It's been an amazing Look, just one quick question. Sorry, we
Speaker 1: want to check in there because it so seems to
Speaker 1: be so controversial.
Speaker 2: Is oils.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so much confusion about it and what should
Speaker 1: we and shouldn't we use? Are seed oil's the devil?
Speaker 4: So firstly, extravergin olive oil I think is kind of
Speaker 4: the king of oils. It's full of monarch saturated fatty acids,
Speaker 4: which are fantastic for our health. It's packed with polyphenols
Speaker 4: which have these bioactive properties that impact inflammation in a
Speaker 4: favorable way, et cetera, et cetera. So extraverted olive oil absolutely,
Speaker 4: we should use it where we can. For some people,
Speaker 4: it might be quite expensive. For other people, they might
Speaker 4: not like the taste of it. It's very fragrant oil.
Speaker 4: I personally don't want to find my egg in extra
Speaker 4: virgin olive oil because it's too fragrant in terms or
Speaker 4: too powerful the taste. Seed oils, I think is one
Speaker 4: of the most misunderstood food or ingredient at the moment.
Speaker 4: There is so much misinformation. I mean, it's mind blowing again.
Speaker 4: If you put it into Google, most of the things
Speaker 4: you get up or YouTube or Instagram are these headlines
Speaker 4: saying seed dolls are toxic, seed doors are going to
Speaker 4: kill you. There is not evidence to support that, and
Speaker 4: there are many, many influencers out there that are making
Speaker 4: these claims that, oh, as seed oil intake went up,
Speaker 4: so did rates of heart disease obesity. Well, yeah, what
Speaker 4: else has changed over the last fifty years. It's not
Speaker 4: just seed oil intake. Also, about sixty percent of the
Speaker 4: seed all that we consume is in heavily processed, unhealthy food.
Speaker 4: What else is in that food? It's not just the
Speaker 4: seed oils. They also talk a lot about seed doors
Speaker 4: are inflammatory. Maybe it's super physiological amounts in a test
Speaker 4: tuble in a mouse, absolutely not in humans. We know
Speaker 4: now that what is talked about from a theoretical biological
Speaker 4: pathway perspective, where we know that the main fatty acid
Speaker 4: and seed doors, which is only A six, can be
Speaker 4: converted into precursors of inflammation in a very kind of
Speaker 4: simple terms. We know that actually, our body is so
Speaker 4: clever that this doesn't actually translate to an increase in
Speaker 4: circulating inflammatory measures. And there's meta analysis or analysis that
Speaker 4: look at loads of RCTs, loads of randomized control trials
Speaker 4: that show from about forty different clinical trials the actually
Speaker 4: eating seed oils, and I'm talking about seed doors that
Speaker 4: have been refined so they have been processed. Does not
Speaker 4: increase inflammation. In many instances, it actually has the opposite effect,
Speaker 4: it actually reduces inflammation. And then you've got all of
Speaker 4: these big studies coming out from the big cohorts, so
Speaker 4: you know where you've got hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 4: that have been followed over many years, and it shows
Speaker 4: though the people that consume more seed oils compared to
Speaker 4: butter or alternative animal fats have low risk of cancer,
Speaker 4: lower risk of cardiovascular disease, lower risk of all course mortality.
Speaker 4: So the evidence just does not stack up to the
Speaker 4: claims that you see on social media. And you will
Speaker 4: never see a evidence based nutritional scientist saying seed doors
Speaker 4: are toxic. You will see many of these keto brows
Speaker 4: that are in the supermarket topless holding their bit of
Speaker 4: steak saying seed alls toxic and it's going to kill
Speaker 4: us absolutely. And you know, I went on quite a
Speaker 4: high profile podcast earlier this year and talked about the
Speaker 4: evidence around seed oils, and after that podcast, I got
Speaker 4: four thousand Instagram messages saying that firstly, I couldn't be
Speaker 4: trusted because I was paid by the seed all industry,
Speaker 4: and I've actually never had any research found in seed
Speaker 4: all the industry. I didn't know what I was talking about,
Speaker 4: even though I've run twenty five randomized control trials in
Speaker 4: the air of dietary fat and seed dolls on health
Speaker 4: and that I'm just down right stupid. So I had
Speaker 4: all of this. Hey, even had someone email me to say,
Speaker 4: how does it feel to be the most hated scientist
Speaker 4: in America? Because I dare to question the narrative around
Speaker 4: seed doors because god forbid, they're also processor. Obviously they're
Speaker 4: bad for us, and absolutely no, the evidence that doesn't
Speaker 4: stack up. I think where we need to understand more
Speaker 4: is how refine seed oils compared to cold press seed
Speaker 4: doors that haven't gone through all of the same processes.
Speaker 4: So by cold press seed doors, we mean let's take
Speaker 4: some some flass seed, literally squeeze it and take the
Speaker 4: oil out. Yes, we know that you have greater preservation
Speaker 4: of some of the bioactives like the polypemales, so yes,
Speaker 4: they might be slightly better for us. But also by
Speaker 4: not kind of cleaning up the oil, using refinement and
Speaker 4: using processes does make that cold press oil less stable.
Speaker 4: So I think it's a bit of a kind of
Speaker 4: balancing act here. But yeah, I'm very proceed oils. Oh,
Speaker 4: I'm so answer. I'm sorry so much.
Speaker 1: It's your Friday night, but there was such an emphetic answer.
Speaker 1: I really really really appreciate. Put the beef tallow down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just absolutely.
Speaker 4: And this is what's worrying is you've got our FK
Speaker 4: in the US transforming entire popular you know, public health policy.
Speaker 4: You go to the US, so is there recently an
Speaker 4: outside restaurants there's notices saying seed or free restaurant. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is really scary. And people are advising people at
Speaker 4: our FK. They're not nutritional scientists. They haven't interpreted the
Speaker 4: evidence correctly.
Speaker 3: Well, this is why we love having people like you
Speaker 3: on this podcast, so we can clear these things up.
Speaker 3: One very last question we have. You've spoken a little
Speaker 3: bit about emulsifiers and editors, which aren't great for us.
Speaker 3: Is there anything in particular we should look out for
Speaker 3: on the label.
Speaker 4: I think this is really tricky because in every different
Speaker 4: country there's different ways that they are labeled. They have
Speaker 4: different names, they have different E numbers, so it's quite
Speaker 4: hard to identify. Yes, we know some are worse for
Speaker 4: us than others, but I don't think there is enough
Speaker 4: evidence to say, Okay, these are the five really evil ones,
Speaker 4: so I'm a little bit reluctant to call out ones.
Speaker 4: What I would say is there's many that are actually
Speaker 4: fine for us, that have what I think are quite
Speaker 4: scary names, like a scorbic acid that's actually just bitumin
Speaker 4: c and it's in there to actually keep it more stable.
Speaker 4: You know, you've got to massifies like lesser thin that
Speaker 4: we think actually might be even favorable for us. But
Speaker 4: kind of the real baddies, you know, I would be
Speaker 4: quite cautious about sweetness. Not all sweetness, again, are created equally.
Speaker 4: I would be a little bit cautious about sweetness like
Speaker 4: acek potentially sparteme sucralose, for example, But I would have
Speaker 4: that with We still don't know enough at the normal
Speaker 4: levels that these are consumed to know quite how bad
Speaker 4: they are. But I would say it's very graded that
Speaker 4: there are some that the evidence is starting to emerge
Speaker 4: that they can have quite an unfavorable effect on our
Speaker 4: got microphone, which therefore might lead to unfavorable health effects.
Speaker 4: Where there's others that we think probably are quite inert
Speaker 4: and neutral, and there's enough for us to start grading them.
Speaker 4: But I think to off the top of my head.
Speaker 4: I couldn't kind of specify these are the real baddies.
Speaker 2: That's okay.
Speaker 1: I also work in research, and I know that these
Speaker 1: things take time and you will get to it.
Speaker 3: Thankfully, Sarah, thank you so much for your time. Go
Speaker 3: join your family, have your glass of wine. We really
Speaker 3: appreciate you taking the time to explain this and sort
Speaker 3: a few things out for us.
Speaker 2: It's been brilliant. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks Sierah.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you. It's one of my favorite topics. So
Speaker 4: if I was going to work late on a Friday night,
Speaker 4: it would be late.
Speaker 2: There is very kind of you, but no, we really
Speaker 2: appreciate it. Thanks so much, Sarah.
Speaker 3: Pleasure that has cleared a few things up, hasn't it.
Speaker 1: Yes, I've got I've got some. And also I love
Speaker 1: a podcast where you take away a few late little
Speaker 1: sayings like crunch back into your lunch.
Speaker 3: I just like hyper palatable. There was a hyper palatable meal,
Speaker 3: Thank you, Louise. The eating rate is really interesting though,
Speaker 3: it's always just something. As I said, I thought, you
Speaker 3: know that my grandmother would tell me it was sort
Speaker 3: of an etiquette thing. Slow down, don't guzzle your food
Speaker 3: and things. But the way she just spoke about the
Speaker 3: body and it processing. It just made a huge amount
Speaker 3: of sense, and it is something we can all do. Yes,
Speaker 3: regardless of what you're eating.
Speaker 1: That is something we can control.
Speaker 3: It is something we can control. And how often I
Speaker 3: mean you open a packet of chips and everyone just
Speaker 3: dives on it in our house, like if you.
Speaker 2: Don't get in there quickly, that will be gone. They
Speaker 2: probably will be and you just shovel them in, right,
Speaker 2: you know, you sort of sit and enjoy the.
Speaker 1: Chap n it's so and it's even worse if you
Speaker 1: add and some onion dip. But I was thinking about that.
Speaker 1: You do shovel down the chips and then you I
Speaker 1: just lately I've been remembering how crappy I feel, so
Speaker 1: then I will literally only have half a dozen because
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh no, you know you're gonna feel rubbish. Surely.
Speaker 1: I used to grab a bag in the supermarket, you
Speaker 1: know it's three for six bucks or whatever, and wolf
Speaker 1: half a bag on my way home from the supermarket
Speaker 1: is my little treat.
Speaker 2: I think we've all sat in the car and walf
Speaker 2: something down on them.
Speaker 1: I know, I love it when I see people at
Speaker 1: the supermarket and they're putting all their bags in the
Speaker 1: back and they just grab something, so you're gonna eat
Speaker 1: that all the way up.
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 3: I really like Sarah's approach. It's practical, it's sensible. It's
Speaker 3: you know, eat well and you don't have to stress
Speaker 3: about having a little bit of you know, a little
Speaker 3: ultra process treat here and there.
Speaker 2: We need to be practical.
Speaker 3: We're all time poor and you know the cost of
Speaker 3: living is hitting at the supermarket, so you have to
Speaker 3: make some sensible decisions. You know what I take from this,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna sort of step back and go processed so
Speaker 3: much as processed, make sure, you know, relatively well processed. Great,
Speaker 3: maybe just be a little bit more conscious of the
Speaker 3: ultra processed foods. That's a treat something you have here
Speaker 3: and there. Don't stress about it too much either.
Speaker 2: Yeah I did.
Speaker 1: I did find it funny right at the outset she said,
Speaker 1: you know, artisanal versus process, and I'm like, is real
Speaker 1: food artisanal?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 2: Isn't that interesting? You know, like.
Speaker 1: It's it's we didn't go into this, but it's it's
Speaker 1: ultra process and process. But it's also marketing thing, right, Oh, totally,
Speaker 1: So you don't get tricked, don't get fooled. Just go
Speaker 1: for the simple things. And gosh, that was really really
Speaker 1: helpful about the seed oils because it has been rattling
Speaker 1: around my brain. When I go to the Supermarke and go,
Speaker 1: I'll get the extra virginal oil, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to cook everything in it because it's too expensive.
Speaker 3: You know how I said that, I'm going to follow
Speaker 3: my son and eat at his rate. Yeah, it's going
Speaker 3: to be really interesting to seeing that I can do that.
Speaker 3: I'm going to have to train myself to do that.
Speaker 3: I'm probably not going to hear any of the conversation.
Speaker 3: I'm just going to be sitting there watching her meat.
Speaker 3: Going to take the time. I'll be talking myself through
Speaker 3: eating dinner, which I don't think is quite the plan,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to get there.
Speaker 2: I'm going to get there.
Speaker 1: Well, he's obviously entertaining you with stories.
Speaker 3: Were you told us sort of as a kid, you
Speaker 3: had to chew your food ninety times or something ridiculous?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: Were you told things like that?
Speaker 1: I might have been, but we're a family of seven
Speaker 1: and it was just eat it or lose. Oh no,
Speaker 1: so we ate pretty fast. So that we could get
Speaker 1: to the second helping. I just think it's it is.
Speaker 1: It is handy if you have a storyteller at your table,
Speaker 1: because it does slow everything down and you do feel
Speaker 1: a bit of a full sitting there with your empty
Speaker 1: plate when everyone else is still eating, you know.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think just take your grandmother's avice pie your life
Speaker 1: and fall down. I eat slower if I haven't cooked it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if it's something that I've prepared myself, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: here it is right, let's go. I'm not hugely I'm
Speaker 1: not as interested and I invested if somebody else is.
Speaker 2: Cooking in me el, I don't know why. I'm but
Speaker 2: more relaxed about the speeder. Eat it anyway.
Speaker 1: There we go, make it crunchy, and make it crunchy, folks.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us on our New
Speaker 1: Zealand Herald podcast series, The Little Things. So good to
Speaker 1: be back. We hope you share this podcast with the
Speaker 1: women and men in your life so we can turn
Speaker 1: down the food noise in the supermarket aisles. You can
Speaker 1: follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and for more episodes from us On other topics, head
Speaker 1: to zid herold dot co dot nz.
Speaker 2: Okay to you next time. On the little Things,