Top nutritional scientist Dr Joanna McMillan, a Scot that has made a life for herself in Australia, chats with Marcus about the impact of our diet on our moods, health and what we can do to feel better. They talk about the gut brain connection and how it can affect mental health, sleep, digestion, anxiety and so many other things. Listen in for some great guidance, the answer to is coffee bad for us, and how we should also be kind to ourselves.
Transcript
[Music] Hello, I’m Marcus Railton, and this is the Scotscare podcast. Scotscare is the only charity dedicated to helping disadvantaged Scots in London through a range of support, including mental health therapy, financial grants, advocacy, sheltered housing for older Scots, job coaching, social events, befriending, and support for children and families. The charity has been running for 400 years to help break the cycle of poverty experienced by some Scots in London.
In this series of the Scotscare podcast, I’ll be chatting with celebrities and supporters of the charity who have forged a life, often away from Scotland, and discussing the ups and downs that can bring.
This week on the podcast it’s a long distance chat with nutritional scientist Dr Joanna MacMillan. Joanna is a well-known name in Australia, and she is the go-to person to chat with to sort out your diet discuss calories and what I wanted to know about the gut mind connection. We caught up over Zoom a few weeks ago at opposite ends of our day. She had actually just finished doing the school run and I was in my pyjamas waiting to go to bed. It was a lovely talk and I learned so much about what I should and shouldn’t be eating and when I should and shouldn’t be eating.
Scott’s care the charity helping to break the cycle of poverty some Scots find in London [Music]
Hello. Good morning Marcus, nice to see you. Just give me, I’m just going to get rid of that blurry background because I always think it’s a bit rubbish, I’ll just let you see my normal sitting room behind me.
Oh Christ I’ve got three kids you know mine looks like a landfill site most of the time well I don’t know teenagers so they should be a bit better but I mean the
only seven dresses they’re so rarely here because they’re teenagers so they’re not here to make a mess I know
my my oldest is 14 Noah’s 14. when I do see him I just seem to be shouting at him
what have you done since you got here I had a right go at them today because he got in at three o’clock and then I came
in at six o’clock with my other two kids they’d had after school stuff and you know he’s in his dressing going and I
said what have you done I’m not done anything have you emptied the dishwasher no I’ve not emptied the dish you’re sure
my wife’s obviously you’re just gonna get off his back you know I just I need to be nicer but anywho look thank you
for doing this it’s oh it’s an absolute pleasure it’s a joy to speak to someone back home at the in the Homeland where
are you Marcus well we’re just outside London I kind of I moved down to London from um glass region moved down to
London in 98. and so I’ve been here wow that’s scary 25 years and I I bet you get this like
when I go home now everybody thinks I sound English I get that all the time so I’ve been in
Australia almost as long so I think it’s 24 years for me now in Australia so you know I’m coming up to almost half my
life here in Australia but of course in Australia they all think I still sound really Scottish and then when I come home or when I talk to my mom on the
phone she thinks I sound Australian so I don’t know I’m obviously being impacted in some way do you do you think of
Australia now that I was talking to my friend Debbie and she’s from Aberdeen and she lives down the road from me and
she’s been he down here about as long as I have and she kind of says she can have
I feel sometimes caught in this Hinterland that she’s no longer 100 Scottish but she’s not you know she
doesn’t feel 100 home in England either so the she’s kind of stuck between two countries do you ever get that with half
your life spent in Australia yes I I do understand that sentiment because I’m still you know even though I’ve almost
met half my life here in Sydney I’m still sort of a foreigner in a way because I sound funny but on the other
hand I mean lots of people do in Australia there’s loads of of British people and lots of my friends are Irish
or new zealanders even or or even if they’re Australian they’re often from interstate so there’s lots of people in Sydney who are from elsewhere and so we
kind of have orphans Christmases Etc you know if you’re not going home to your family there’s always a gathering of people who don’t have family here so
that’s always really nice and I met I do talk about going home when I go to Scotland and then when I leave Scotland to come back to Sydney I talk about
going home so I’ve kind of got home and home but I understand that when I when I’m back in Scotland now I feel like you
know I dress differently my you know my my voice is a little different I might use words that that we don’t necessarily
use anywhere in Scotland so so I understand that sentiment I’m not quite you know I’m not quite another Scott
when I go home but of course I very quickly sort of integrate back into it and and similarly out here so you know I
just try to think of it as two homes which is quite nice how often do you get back because it’s such expands to
mobilize the family and come half a world away oh I know and you know that was one of
the hardest things for me during covet was you know I’ve always said my parents are still in Scotland my two brothers both lived back in the UK with their
families and um so I’ve always um you know I’ve always said to Mom I can be home in a day or it’s really 30
hours or whatever but you know basically I can be home in a day and so that was really difficult during covet that I said no one’s having heart attacks no
one’s getting sick well I can’t jump in a plane and get home and I really felt that was that was sort of a very
claustrophobic feeling for me I didn’t like it that I couldn’t jump in a plane um but yeah normally I tried to when my
kids were small it was easier and I came home for months every year when they were when they were small and then of course they go to school and it becomes
more difficult you’re restricted by school holidays and now of course they’re they’re charged as adults I’ve got two boys who are 16 and 18 so you
know if we all come back as four adult fairs it’s it’s some post-covered world it’s even more expensive so I am hoping
that can get us back for for this Christmas and I’m kind of now you know my parents are in their late 70s now
that my kids are almost kind of ones growing up and one’s only got a couple years of school I’m hoping I can
actually get back more often build some work in the UK but also just spend split my time a bit more between Scotland and
and Sydney and that will be my ideal because it’s interesting you must talk like you and I are talking here you’ve
just done the school run and I’m I am sitting here in my pajamas so yeah I
presume when you talk to your mum back home there is this you know she’ll be going to her bed or you’ll be going to your bed so it does make that quite
awkward doesn’t it well it does you can’t always get onto the same sort of um you know mindset
because there’s either you know invariably especially if it’s the weekend one of us has got a glass of wine in hand as and is in a merry
weekend evening mood and the other is sitting in their pajamas with a cup of coffee and so sometimes that right
amusing especially when I talk to Scottish your mum that’s having a glass of wine at nine o’clock in the morning you know as we all
well I did my 18 year old son just went back to Scotland and and England for the first time I’ve got a brother who is
also just outside London with his wife and three kids and and I had a lovely chat with you know my 18 year olds on
the couch with his two uncles all over the glass of wine in hand and and me sitting here with my cup of coffee and
it was great just seeing the three of them giggling and laughing away um so yeah it can be quite amusing did he
enjoy it coming back here he loved it even went to Barnes supper with uh that his his aunt um was
emceeing and did a brilliant job it was actually in London not in Scotland but we got him into his tilts and Charlie
and uh I was sent brilliant pictures of him Scottish country dancing and I loved it so yeah it was he had a really good
time for anyone who doesn’t know you in the UK how would you describe your area of expertise for anyone who has not seen
you on the TV or have read your books yeah I’m um I’m I’m not known really at
all in Scotland but here in Australia I’m doing quite well for for my Nutrition Works I’m a nutrition scientist so I came to Sydney originally
really really to to do my PhD and I’ve I’ve stayed um so I did my PhD at Sydney
University and um and I’ve and I’ve find myself just sort of stumbled into media
um so I’ve still got my foot in the research Camp I do some teaching and research in in the area of human nutrition I’m also dietitians so I’ve
I’ve kind of over the years done various things including some TV but lots of Media stuff I’ve written a whole bunch
of books um during covert I’ve been writing for audible actually so if you’re in the UK you can find my books on Audible I’ve
just been in the recording studio the last two days doing the latest one um so there’s a series of audible books that
I’ve covered brain health the latest one is heart health I’ve done gut health and then I did one called food fights making
sense in the diet Wars so that’s been really fun and actually that was funny because audible audible Australia
commissioned me but it goes out in the US and in the UK and here are on all the audible channels and they said to me
actually we really like your Scottish accent you know that’s it’s quite Universal so there you go Scott fellow
Scots that are listening our accent apparently is is a good one for taking around the world provided they say is
not too strong and everyone can understand you yeah that’s interesting to yeah can you slow down can you slow
down can you slow down even further it’s interesting
that made me I don’t know if you have this in Australia but at the moment if you go to a pub and you’re going to eat something
the menu has to have legally has to have the calorie count on it and everything you buy has to have these kind of
traffic lights with kind of like red is like it’s going to kill you before you finish your dinner you know through to
you know salt and sugars and fat and do you think calories is that a good way to live your life or because I always I
hear about bad calories and good calories and we should all have around 2 000 calories is that realistic yeah look
there’s been a lot of discussion and it’s kind of it’s still a Hot Topic in nutrition research um never mind in kind
of popular media with some people saying you know the old calories in calories out idea is a bit old hat
um and it doesn’t take into account food quality so you know I’m on the board of an olive oil company out here and I’ve
long been an advocate for having good fats in your diet but if you start looking at the calories and something like extra virgin olive oil you know you
wouldn’t be drinking you wouldn’t be using it um you’d panic and of course that’s exactly what happened during the
kind of local fats era that probably you and I grew up with Marcus when we were you know
um certainly when I was a teenager and in my 20s and early 20s in Scotland that that was very much the the goal and
we’ve learned her lesson from that and realized that we threw out all these really good fats and the things that we really need
um for good health so that’s what I object to about calories it doesn’t take into account the quality the other thing
is we all digest food differently we all have different digestive systems and we’ve learned nuts as a really great
example some recent research has shown that actually the calorie count on the packet for nuts because it’s all
calculated in a lab it’s not calculated as to what actually happens in the human body and we’ve realized that we’re
overestimating the calories and whole nuts by up to as much as 30 percent wow
some of these people who were thinking oh my goodness I’ve got to make sure I don’t eat too many nuts actually has
worked against us these are really healthy good foods for us to include and if you have your you know calorie dense
nuts and things like extra virgin olive oil and avocado then you you don’t teach so much of all the rubbish food so I
think calories can be I always say to people like just technicality awareness so if you are going for that Pub meal
and you see that the burger with fries and the and the you know I don’t know ranch dressing I’ve just been in the
states that I’m ranch dressing came to my mind um and you know and you look at it and you say oh my goodness that’s 4 000
calories all up that’s more than double the average then it can give you a bit of awareness as to all right maybe this
is a really energy dense meal that I shouldn’t be to quite so much of Children and Families Are Scott’s Care’s
top priorities there were most of our help goals Scott’s care offers Financial grants
counseling respite holidays and days out to the likes of London Zoo and winter
wonderland we see helping families with tailored support as key to improving the
lives of Scots in London [Music]
I I was at the supermarket yesterday and I was trying to choose something for my dinner because everybody else in the
house had gone out and I thought I’ll just go and get pizza and and they had done this sneaky thing where it says a
quarter of this pizza equals x amount of calories you know but when I when I when
I times that by four it was over a thousand calories in this pizza and then
what’s interesting is you talking about how we digest things differently and I I digest things differently now than I
than I used to and I and I don’t mean like obvious things as I’ve got older I used to be able to eat a curry and a
couple of pints of lager and I’d be okay about it and now I can’t even think about that I can you know in fact I
would either have rice or bread with it I can’t have both with it but even simpler things like like uh sometimes I
have an omelette and it makes me feel really nauseous for some reason I don’t get it I don’t understand why eggs make me feel sick now or the one that I
really miss is a baked potato because I used to love baked potatoes and now if I have a baby potato it it just it makes
me feel awful do you think our bodies change as we get older well they certainly can do but also what
can change is your gut microbiome so this is the collection of microbes that live within your gut and they’re concentrated especially right down at
the end in your colon and what might well have happened to you is that over time you’ve changed because you might
have followed protect I’m just I’m just um I don’t obviously don’t know what you’ve done over your lifetime Marcus
but let’s say you did follow the low carb fat for a while and so you weren’t eating potatoes and you weren’t having
bread and you weren’t having rice then your gut microbiome actually adapts to that and one of the problems with a low
carb diet is that it also ends up usually being low fiber and fiber is what feed you know fuels lots of these
really healthy bugs in your gut so you’ve got microbiome actually adapts to whatever you’re done you’re eating and
it adapts really quickly like within 24 hours you can start seeing changes and you’ve got microbiome and if that
continues over many years and over decades you know you’ve got microbiome can change quite considerably and if you
suddenly throw a baked potato with the you know all the fibers in that skin it’s actually a really healthy food but
potato provided that’s not massive you know the smaller potatoes tend to be much healthier you know your gut
microbiome is not adapted anymore to that kind of food so it can take some time to you know to recalibrate and and
to be able to take that food again so that can happen but then also certainly you know changes happen just in the way
that ours you know we start getting wrinkles and things start breaking down a little bit as we get older you know the same can happen with your digestive
system and you can just end up not being as good at metabolizing stuff or you’re just a lot more sedentary
um you know you get a few more aches and pains it takes longer to recover from exercise perhaps your career is kind of taken off a lot more you’re in a more
senior position and that might involve more sitting down and being in meetings and for lots of reasons we end up being
a lot more sedentary and that means our energy expenditure is not the same so lots of people who think oh I’m getting
middle-aged spread and I’m putting on weights but I eat the same well often that’s just because you’re you’re more
sedentary and you’re you know you’re you’re you’re still eating the same amount of food
um and then it just sort of creeps up on you you’re losing a muscle and gaining fat as time goes on so you know there’s
lots there’s lots of rubbish stuff that happens to us as we get older but we can only just mitigate some of that by
staying as active as we can and you take as well as we can yes I think this is well that’s interesting that’s the I
want to ask you about that staying as active as we can is you know when you’re talking about just sitting more a friend
of mine is a novelist and she’s she’s actually quite a successful novelist but she’s she obviously sits for long
periods of time writing every every day and yeah she was saying to me oh she said I’ve got to shift some of this
weight I’ve put on and she went on this diet Joanna and it was 800 calories a
day right so that’s so and I didn’t see her for like three or four weeks and then I saw her and I went wow but
and she must have lost a stone and a half or something like that and I just wonder is a is that a healthy way to
lose weight and surely it’s not sustainable well you’ve had the nail in the head that’s I mean I hope your
friend has managed to keep it off but that’s the trouble with and especially if you lose weight really quickly like I
don’t know on what’s a very low calorie diet you know I could put you on any diet and you’ll lose weight as long as
you stick to that diet but the trouble is what happens long term and long term you know your body fights against weight
loss it doesn’t recognize from an evolutionary perspective being overweight never used to be an issue for our ancestors you know if we go back far
enough so you know our body is much better at detecting you know fat cells that have been emptied of some fat start
shouting out sending signals wanting you know stimulating your appetite trying to get you to eat trying to suppress your
energy expenditure in order to refuel so our systems in play for sort of
refueling and refilling up fat cells is much more sensitive than much stronger
than the signals that are sensing oh yeah we’ve got plenty energy coming in we’ve got plenty energy on board and we
you know we actually might need to to lose some of that excess fat those you know from an evolutionary perspective
we’ve never had such a problem as with overweight and obesity as as we have done in the the last hundred years which
is just a blip in the sort of evolutionary scale so this is the trouble when you diet and you lose weight your body is reeling against that
and and trying to do everything that it can to to bring that energy back in and make you really getting the weight so
that’s the biggest challenge with with weight loss and we know that we’re notoriously bad at it some people manage to do it there’s a really good register
that’s held in the state so people who have lost a considerable amount of weight I think it’s 10 of their body weight and kept it off for at least a
year and they try to study these people to say what is it they’re doing what helps and exercise is one thing they’re
all big exercisers um but yeah you’ve got and the longer you can keep it off the easier it becomes your body eventually kind of
recalibrates in a way but that can take you know a year or two student and the more weight you’ve lost the longer it
takes to kind of get to that to that um place so unfortunately you know more than 90 percent of people who lose a
significant amount of weight end up putting it back on usually with extra um which is which is the real challenge
in in the in the weight loss game so do you think it’s interesting you say about the
the exercise being such a big part of it because so you know I’ll go to the gym and I’ll do a spin class and I’ll have
kill myself and you know I feel from our endorphin point of view I feel from a mental health point of view it’s
brilliant I need that kind of stimulation but they don’t look down at the the little panel on my bike and I
have lost 200 calories which isn’t even a Mars bar and and I do find that quite
depressing so I wonder what’s the balance as an exercise or is it just
stop stuffing my face with the pies well yeah you’re absolutely right the
exercise don’t even look at the calorie burn doing exercise because it will just depress you I mean the the truth is that
you know it takes you all hours and hours and hours to burn off the calories that you know you can you can consume in
just a few minutes so that’s why you know exercise is not a good way to lose weight but that’s not why we should be
exercising and and and if we just cover weight control first of all exercise does have a long but it’s the Long play
it helps you to modulate your appetite it’s got to roll in long-term you know weight management but over the next you
know three weeks or 12 weeks or whatever it’s not going to be the game changer for you losing weight your diet is but
the the reasons and I always say to people don’t exercise because you think it’s going to have an impact on your weight exercise for you mentioned
already you you feel good you get the endorphins exercise is brilliant for your brain health it’s brilliant if you
bring performance as well by the way so it’s it really charges up your brain it gets nutrients and blood and oxygen
flowing around your body so it’s just a non-negotiable and for us getting older you know it is it is one of the most
important things that we do we can do to age well is to stay active because it’s
loss of muscle mass over the years that really causes Frailty by the time you get into your Twilight years but also
because there’s a whole lot of metabolic problems including your muscles not being very good at taking glucose up out
of the blood so you get a risk of type 2 diabetes the older you get uh you know your arteries become and your blood
vessels become stiffer because you know that pushes up your blood pressure and you’re at risk of a heart attack and all
of these things so I mean to me exercise is just a non-negotiable for good health but don’t do it and that’s why I think
so many people give up exercise because they think well I thought I’d lose all this weight and I didn’t if you don’t
sign up to the gym or or even do any kind of exercise thinking it’s going to have a massive impact on your weight
it’s not about that think of it in terms of health you said just a couple of minutes ago
about we are just a paraphrase in what you said but we’re basically getting fatter we’ve never been you know we have
a problem with obesity why is that though is it is it too easy to eat rubbish food are we not are we not
exercising enough is it lots of things is a combination of all of that and I
think what we definitely have to do is start pointing the finger of blame we’ve got to stop blaming individuals it’s the
environment that we’re in and if we’re really going to Halt this obesity epidemic then we’ve got to change the environment so the truth is that we live
and and research circles we we call it an obesogenic environment which means that we you know lots of us live in
cities where it is hard to walk you know we often work further away from our home and than we ever did in the past so you
can’t necessarily walk to work so people get their cars they drive to work they Park they sit at a desk
um and then the food system has completely changed so instead of you know we’ve gone through these phases of blaming fat blaming carbohydrate going
back to blaming fat going back to blaming carbohydrate blaming sugar blaming gluten and the truth is it’s
Ultra processed foods that’s the problem well you know if you just think about what you eat across the course of the
week how many times are you actually eating a meal that’s made from the whole ingredients that are the way they were
grown in nature and and you start realizing how many times you’ve opened up a packet and that packet has got a
bunch of ingredients that have already been highly processed that’s what we’re talking about with ultra processed foods and it’s those Ultra processed foods
that give us refined carb too much added sugar the wrong kinds of fat they’re very palatable and Moorish so they make
you I mean they’re actually lots of these snack foods in particular are scientifically designed they’re clever
food scientists who sit in labs and work out the correct kind of ratio of fat
salt and sugar with the right crunch factor or whatever or chewy Factor depending what the food is that makes us
want to eat them more you know you remember that ad for for um for a particular brand of potato chips and and
it’s you know once you pop you can’t stop that was actually their adverb and they’re designed exactly to do that and
anyone who you’ll know what the brand I’m talking about you know that when she starts on on something like those
crunchy salty potato chips it’s really hard to stop at the little handful oh yeah
so and sweet thing that goes together doesn’t it yeah and I think what it is your brain again this is an evolutionary
thing your brain is hardwired to want energy so it really likes a lot of fat because you don’t get a lot of fat very
naturally in in most Foods in nature and then it really wants salts you know and salt has never been as as widely
ubiquitous some foods as it is now Natural Foods bar seafoods are are really low in salt so you know we’ve got
we’ve got drivers in the brain for sugar fat and salt and and you know these these foods are really sort of playing
on that system [Music] could be Sunday football or Monday piano
lessons whatever a child wants to learn after school hours Scott’s care has
grants to help cover costs parents can’t always find the funds for those extracurricular Pursuits but there’s a
good chance Scott’s care can I suppose one of the issues that we have
as a society is that we are in the middle of a cost of living crisis and it’s cheaper to buy processed
food and if you don’t if you don’t have much money you can go to the supermarket and and buy
for I would turn rubbish food for not too much money so I just I wonder if if you are strapped for cash is there
kind of like cornerstones or fundamentals that you should definitely try and and keep in your diet is it just
about trying to get whole vegetables into the diet yeah look it’s about having more Whole
Foods and trying to cut out those Ultra processed foods but you raise a really important point you know health is not
Equitable and and it’s a and it’s we see that so across the socioeconomic groups we see that people who are in those
lower socioeconomic groups have much higher rates of overweight and obesity we see that their diets are poorer and
and you know and that’s why I feel it’s really important that we stop doing this pointing the finger of blame and that’s
not to say I mean from an evolutionary perspective most of us have an issue you
know there’s a very small percentage of people who never have to worry about their weight most of us are are in
because this is just a blip as I say in The evolutionary time scale so you know we’re hardwired to to be you know
seeking out food storing food resting when we can and it’s really hard to sort of break out of that that we’ve got it
so we’ve got to try and and step back instead of it being about personal choice about Foods this is where we need
governments to step in and we see some things that have been successful I mean in Mexico they’ve had some success with
you know a sugar tax that’s then reduced the sugars sweet and soft drinks that are consumed which was a major problem
in countries like Mexico and so we see these kind of changes that can help but we’ve got to do more to make it more
affordable you know to to have fresh fruits and vegetables to have whole grains rather than refined highly
processed packaged grain foods you know to make it frustrates the life out of me when I go to the supermarket and I see
you know white sliced bread on special for here in Australia it’ll be for less than a dollar but if you want the whole
meal or the whole grain it costs more than double that amount and for a really beautiful whole grain sourdough it can
be you know eight nine ten dollars so you know that’s that’s just crazy when we start sort of seeing that that kind
of thing but having said all that what I will say is often it’s not one of the best segments I think I’ve ever done on
television over here I occasionally still do segments on uh artadisha which is our breakfast TV show which I’ve done
for over 16 years that a few years ago um I got a call to to come and do a
segment on could you show us how to make popular fast foods at home Joe and I said yeah no problem so do you want me
to show that it’s cheaper as well and they said oh can you do that yeah sure and then I hung up and I thought oh God
I hope I can and then hand on heart Marcus I I put
together my menu I I and I just calculated the cost of ingredients and without me manipulating anything
and yes I used you know the standard chicken breast not the organic whatever fancy one but I just used standard fare
and all of them came out from Pizza you know there was a kebab there was a uh you know Burger there was fish and chips
and so on and all of them came out cheaper than the board so I do sometimes wonder are we taught that these foods
are cheaper you know if you go and get fried chicken take out from one of those chains to feed the whole family I can I
can bet you 100 bucks that you know I could make a family meal for less money than you’ve just spent on that takeout
so I think sometimes 16 to 20 quid here to buy a family
bucket of of chicken yeah and you could you know you could buy a couple of whole chickens and make it
yourself at home um so I think you know we’ve just got to be careful that we’re we’re not losing the skills that we need you know the skills of our mothers and
grandmothers that helps to do a family budget you know the UK was never healthier than during the war when
everyone was on rations um and they had to learn to budget and make food from from the food that was
available yeah it’s interesting that isn’t it yes you’ve written a lot about uh the gut mind connection and this is
something particularly interested me this is how actually you came to my attention because I was I am really interested could you explain what the
the gut brain connection is yeah so this comes back to the gut
microbiome is involved and some people call the the gut your kind of second brain it doesn’t have a consciousness of
course but it’s got its own nervous system and what we now know is well there’s the vagus nerve that that um
connects the gut to the brain um but there’s also metabolites that happen from digestion or from the
fermentation processes that go on with the gut microbiome that then get up into the bloodstream and they can also make
their way to the brain so there’s various ways of communication so but mostly we’re talking about that vagus
nerve and it’s kind of like a think of it like a a Motorway between your brain and your gut and there’s more uh there’s
more Lanes going from the gut towards the brain than there is from the brain coming back so there’s about eight coming up to the brain and there’s
probably about two coming back so there’s always this communication between the gut and the brain and what’s
what’s been so extraordinary about the research and it’s now you know the field has literally exploded over the last
um decade or so with thousands of papers coming out um all the time on on these kind of links and why it might be important we
even understand now that what’s going on in your gut the metabolites that are produced the particular microbes that
are there are getting Communications to your brain that then influence your food choice that influence you know what
sorts of nutrients that you’re seeking out influence your appetite um they they infinitely go to the liver
and influence your glucose metabolism your cholesterol metabolism so it’s it’s just extraordinary starting to
understand your immune system is is very much centered in in the guts and is heavily influenced by the way that
you’re eating so you know during covet you know we started to see research studies coming out on on your
nutritional status actually influences um whether or not you’ll catch covert but particularly how sick you’ll get
when you get covet and some of that has been related back to the gut microbiome so it’s really quite extraordinary
you’ve got a lower risk of respiratory infections like covert if you’re eating in the right way
um and and you’ve got a really good strong immune system so these things are actually they’re so important and then relating back to mental health you know
we’re now seeing these fantastic results from studies looking at risk of depression management of depression and
other mood disorders that are all relating back to what’s going on in your gut
is there anywhere that is doing this well because I was thinking of as you were talking there I was thinking when I
grew up in Scotland you know parents did their best but I grew up in a very poor area and what what was fed to the kids
wasn’t particularly healthy and I know it’s changed a lot nowadays but is there anywhere in the world that you have seen
on your travels or within your research that does the the gut brain connection and gets it and and eats so that they do
have a better Mental Health yeah we’ll look at I mean I think what’s really extraordinary is is I love
traveling so I’ve traveled to to many places in the world I’ve actually just my husband and I went to South America over Christmas for five weeks
um and you know when you go to almost any country in the world including Scotland I often get ripped over
um I’m a nutrition scientist coming from Scotland because people around the world think Scottish diets are not healthy you
know we’re we’re a bit too famous for the deep fried Mars bar that didn’t come in until Life by the way I didn’t grow
up with that and I always remind people when I grew up in Scotland uh I mean we lived in the country so we had my mum
had a veggie patch and I mean we we literally we didn’t have fast food there was a fish and chip shop in the local
town and we’d occasionally have fish and chips but the rest of the time it was it was foods made you know from scratch so
you know perhaps not as healthy as a Mediterranean style diet but you know it really wasn’t it wasn’t too bad and and
actually when you go to any country in the world the traditional diet using their Whole Foods is almost always
healthy you know so in Scotland we’ve got Venison and fantastic Seafood we’ve got oats and barley and root veggies and
and the humble potato potatoes are really extraordinary food it’s only what we do to potatoes that make them
unhealthy so you know when you look at these traditional diets they’re really really healthy there are some standouts
you know you might have heard of the blue zones um the blue zones are identified area
originally there was only five it’s been expanded to a few more now um but this is a big research project
that identified the areas of the world where people live the longest healthiest lives so it’s places like a couple of
them are in the Mediterranean there’s one of the Greek Islands Zakaria um and Sardinia and Italy and then we’ve
got Okinawa in in Japan um and anyway these these areas have been identified as being these are where
and then the you know research teams go in and study their Lifestyles and their diets and try to identify what is it
that makes makes these people live long healthy lives and so diet is a huge part of it and in all of these areas there’s
there’s commonalities but the diets can also be quite different but they eat lots of Whole Foods essentially is the
good fats the the Japanese tend to have a lower fat diet but they are having loads of plant foods but the other thing
is the way that they eat in these plants you know they eat together they take time out and prioritize meals I think
that’s something that we’ve made a a big error with is that we’ve lost our social connections around food Foods become
something you know we grab it on the run and you eat in the car you eat your sandwich at your desk at lunchtime whereas in a lot of these and these Blue
zone areas and a lot of areas still that have more traditional um uh ways of eating they actually take
time out of their day to not sit me to the desk but go and sit at a table or at least at the kitchen bench and take time
out from the day to actually eat the meal properly and that’s really important because you tend to make a
more balanced meal for starters if you’re going to sit and eat with a knife and for it but you’re also then eating mindfully you’re recognizing when you’re
filming when you’ve had enough to eat and you’re if you’re eating with someone else you’re having those social connections that are really important
for mental health so I think there’s it’s not just and then of course there’s the lifestyle you know they’re they’re
usually very active you know in Okinawa where they’re great gardeners um they do things like you know dancing
is really popular right into their Twilight years so there’s a whole load of Lifestyle factors that go along with
that but there’s much that we can learn um from looking at these kinds of areas and it’s so it’s about what you eat but
it’s also how you eat when you eat um and how you’re living your life I like that we try to eat with the kids as
much as possible because you’re right it’s then you start rather than eating in front of the Telly or eating on the
coffee table where you’re all crouched over you know if we actually sit at the dining table and there’s no screens and
everybody puts their phone away it’s quite nice that because you know you do realize that you’re having a meal
together and it’s as as my kids get older is that one of the few times I get to say and how was your day and we
actually have a proper conversation which again is quite old-fashioned really isn’t it it is but you know
especially you know for people listening who’ve got younger kids I tell you what by the time they’re teenagers in the car
and over dinner are the only times that we really have proper conversations it’s a great time to get your teenagers
talking to you so yeah I think you’re right I think it’s such an important part and it’s and it saddens me
enormously when I hear of you know Apartments being built in cities like London that don’t even have a dining
table you know and they’ve got the kitchen consists of a microwave and and perhaps a one stovetop if you’re lucky
that just saddens me enormously and it’s not going to help us um you know get better diets moving forward I think it’s
so important to eat with our kids and also to get them in the kitchen learning how to cook because if you don’t have
the skills to make a food you know a meal from scratch from from real ingredients you know you’re going to end
up buying Ultra processed food well I do you know what I was I was just about to say something and I was
thinking was it you who actually wrote this and I just I just read it it was about don’t just teach your kids how to
cook fairy cakes get them actually cooking proper meals because it will stand them in good stead for later life
make an omelette somebody to just do boiled eggs with avocado toast you know that’s my kids will do that for their
breakfast you know teach them the basics not teach them how to be I mean yeah of course have some fun with making a cake
or baking cupcakes or whatever it might be but you know baking can be fun but really they need to learn the basics of
you know how to make a stir fry how to how to make bolognese to do a quick spaghetti bolognese you know how to
throw together a salad all these things make a salad dressing from scratch you know these are not difficult things to
do and we’ve got to teach them those kind of Basics and get them doing those basic skills before they go on to make
fancier stuff I want to talk about coffee and alcohol because I I you know coffee and alcohol I was
honestly play a big part of my life life but that doesn’t sound very good does it you know coffee plays a big part of my life and I I know I’m trying to move on
to half calf because if I drink too much coffee I don’t sleep very well and then uh I wake up in the middle of the night
and I eat and I I did want to ask you is if eating in the middle of the night is a bad thing yes
yeah I was kind of hoping you’d say no it’s great you crack on have a peanut butter sandwich no no eating in the
night or eating even late in the evening is is associated with with weight gain with with um you know we’re not our body
act goes through these Cycles we have these you know buying hormones go up and down across the 24 hours of the day
where our bodies are designed to be active and to consume food during the day and then during the night you really
want to I mean gosh we could we could have a whole conversation about intermittent fasting which is very
popular here in Australia I’m sure it is in the UK now too but you know so some people are kind of talking about what
should the fast be overnight and look we don’t have any really clear evidence about what the fast length should be but
I always say to people at the very least clothes kitchen should be closed after dinner and not reopened until breakfast
so you’ve hopefully got at least 12 hours overnight that you’re giving your body a break you need to give your
digestive system a break you’re when you’re sleeping that’s when your body should be focusing on recovery repair
you know it’s very important sleep is so important for organization of your memory for your brain health and for
repair and Recovery around your body um so you know when you shouldn’t be taking food in there’s obviously still
you know some stuff further down the gastrointestinal tract that can take you know a day or longer to get through but
the upper gastrointestinal tract should be empty so yeah so nice eating is not a great idea going back to coffee though
first of all you know people always expect me to tell them to give up coffee but actually there’s lots of good stuff about coffee when you look at the
research coffee is pretty extraordinary it’s rich in a bunch of of um plant compounds called polyphenols that are
kind of a hot research topic and you’ll get polyphenols and your extra virgin olive oil and your berries and lots of
fruits and vegetables um and some whole grains you know in tea and coffee as well and in Cocoa so if
you get your dark chocolate or you have pure cocoa powder that’s also very high in polyphenols it’s a wide group you
know more than 100 different polyphenol compounds and these are really important for the gut microbiome and they seem to
be really important for the brain they tend to have anti-inflammatory actions in the body so we know that people with
high polyphenol diets are tend to be much healthier so when we look at the research for coffee it
reduces your risk of type 2 diabetes it seems to be really good for your brain health um you know it’s got it reduces your
risk of of um certain types of cardiovascular disease so it’s it’s actually a good
drink but you’ve identified its biggest problem and that is impacting your sleep so I mean you saw me drinking from my
big Scottish oh this is a Scottish Cup by the way sent to me for my mum um uh so I you know drink coffee in the
morning and then switch to cup of tea in the afternoon perhaps and certainly don’t be drinking coffee from about
three in the afternoon but there are also some individual differences so some people are more sensitive they’re slower
metabolite metabolizers of caffeine so caffeine will stay in their system for longer so if you’re someone who finds
you know you have a coffee at lunchtime you’re still struggling to sleep at night then you probably have to stick to only having one or two coffees earlier
in the day so for most of us you know actually coffee can be a good thing and I think what where we go wrong is what
we put in the coffee you know so if you goes to especially those American style coffee shops where you get an enormous
coffee that’s got a huge amount of milk and if you have a shot of oh I fancy a I don’t know an almond latte yeah and they
put a shot of almond flavored syrup you can be getting you know eight nine teaspoonfuls of sugar into that coffee
and if there’s cream on the top you know you’re adding a whole load of calories that you really don’t need so I think
it’s what you put it in coffee how much you’re drinking and then some individual genetic differences that can make an
impact on how it influences your health and another thing that that will um up your sleep patterns I suppose
is is alcohol and I I read this report in and you’ve probably seen it as well that in Canada they’re now seeing that
we should be limiting ourselves to two alcoholic drinks a week and I I wondered
if I I see this more especially with the younger generation do you think we are moving slowly towards a more sober
Society yeah that certainly seems to be the trend even when I watch my own kids you know as I say my eldest just turned
18 and he’s not gonna I’ve said to my boys that they got two thousand dollars if they made it to 18 without drinking
and 18 you know did it and so I had to cough up it remains to be seen my 16
year old can do it so I coughed up and now when I watch him and his friends
um admissively a lot of his friends are Asian and they’re not very good at metabolizing alcohol genetically a lot of Asian people of Asian ancestry are
not very good at metabolic they don’t have the same enzymes to break down and metabolize alcohol so they’re not big drinkers anyway so maybe it’s friendship
group but I certainly noticed they’re having a few drinks when they go out but not in the same way that I suspect you and I did and the culture of Scotland
you know during the 80s and 90s which was very much a drinking culture so I
think things are changing and there’s no doubt and look I I will admit my advice
I was laughing to myself when you said coffee and alcohol because I drink you know probably three coffees across the
morning and and I certainly have have uh at least one glass of wine on most nights so I love my wine and you know
that would definitely be my advice to to try and I’m always trying to make you know make little uh goals to myself to
to drink less wine so I you know I appreciate uh the difference and I try to drink though in the Mediterranean
style way I mean what’s Difficult about alcohol is there does seem to be a difference um with the way that you drink so I try
to sort of adopt that Mediterranean style having a glass or so with with dinner um is is the way they tend to drink
rather than the very Scottish or certainly when I was growing up Scottish way of sort of binge drinking on the
weekend and I’ve seen that here in Australia too so yes I think the society is changing I
do worry about what they’re going to you know I mean I don’t know what’s happening with drug culture uh that
worries me enormously with um being a parent um but yes you know things are changing there’s no doubt from a research
perspective too much alcohol is harmful but for some things like heart I mean this doesn’t think is what’s confusing
about alcohol is that a drink or two a day tends to be good for some things like like um the cardiovascular system
so there’s a lot we don’t yet understand I think about alcohol but there’s no doubt you know having more than a couple
of drinks a day is very very definitely harmful um and increases your risk of different
types of cancer and not great for your brain and so on um so there’s no doubt that that most of
us have to really be careful with how much we’re drinking if you choose to drink I think yeah I think you can easily get away from you and I think
certainly around Christmas time I I was kind of lazy drinking because I’ve got a whole lot of beer in the house and even
if I just wanted a fizzy Drinker I was just thirsty I would crack open a beer and I re I realized that you know
between I don’t know start December and the beginning of January I’d probably gone through I won’t say a number but
too many beers and then so I decided I was going to do dry January and I did it and I was really surprised at how much
better I felt because I slept better I had more energy I had more patience with the kids uh strange things like my
toilet habits changed um that made such a big difference to me
um there was something else that was a big thing for me my memory got better and that wasn’t my
memory but it did make a big difference oh aches and pains general aches and pains they seem to go away as well and
yeah so I did try January and I’ve it’s kind of crept back in but only I could have oh have a glass of wine here and
there so I I’m trying to limit it because I’m generally feeling better for it yeah and look I also wonder whether
it does start to affect you more as you get older you know I certainly the feedback I get from from I mean I don’t
know if there is a difference between women and men but you know a lot of women talk to me about particularly after menopause that they start feeling
like they just can’t drink in the same way and so it naturally curves uh their alcohol intake
um so yeah so I wonder if it’s you know also one of those things that as you get older you just can’t drink in the same way you know hangovers might affect you
more and these kind of things that might reel it in but yeah there’s look there’s no doubt if he chose to drink then you know Isis but I think a glass or two a
day you know drinking wine with with a meal if that suits you and it’s something you enjoy then that’s fine but
certainly certainly drinking too much and it’s not a bad idea to do these kind of dry julys or or you know we have fed
fast is quite popular here in Australia and the only thing I think about some of those those kind of events are one of
you use it to sort of reset your habits to break some habits and and uh change things long term then that’s great but
if it’s just uh you know I do also know these people who’ve done these kind of months and then the minute it’s the first of the next month they go in a
bender because it’s kind of like oh I’ve been so good for a month so yeah so I
heard Yourself by going out and getting around exactly exactly do it with the right frame of
mind and and you know one of the things I’ve just been writing actually the last chapter in in the audible I’ve just recorded which is called heartfelt what
to eat for a healthier heart so my last chapter actually has nothing to do with food it’s actually about breaking habits and and building new habits and often
it’s about prioritizing so I talk about it you know being uh so food drink exercise activity sleep stress and I
include joy and joy as part of the social connection type stuff that we talked about eating dinner with family
or friends and so on and I talk about that as being a kind of graphic equalizer and sometimes you just have to stop and evaluate your life and go okay
is anything really out of whack and it might be after Christmas or after a holiday alcohol
um but it might also be oh I’ve been getting too much fast food or I’ve not been getting my exercise or I’ve not been sleeping well or stressed to the
max all of these things and decide and prioritize and not try to change too much at one time so you know I think
that’s where sometimes we set the bar too high so instead of saying okay I’m gonna limit myself to a glass of wine
with a meal you know we go all out and we go okay I’m going to stop drinking alcohol I’m going to go to the gym at
six every morning and I’m going to stop yelling at the kids and I’m going to you know la la we list all this stuff we’re
going to do and then we set the bar so high that of course we fall off the wagon and we can’t keep it up so I think
it’s about understanding how to break those habits and how to gradually you know set ourselves goals and get
ourselves onto the right track so that by the end of the year we’re in a healthier place and we started yeah I think you’re right being realistic and
uh being kind to yourself I think we you know social media is hard enough honest so we’ve got to be nice to ourselves
when we can you know Joanna thank you for joining me today it’s been absolutely brilliant chatting to you and
you know what I also uh I I wanted to talk ice cream with you because your family ice cream mackie’s ice cream
which I grew up with it’s got to be the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted in my life and uh yeah fantastic what did you
know Marcus just before we finish that’s a really interesting story so my cousins now have taken where the mackie’s farm
and and produced they always make me laugh because here’s me being a nutrition scientist and dietitian on the
other side of the world and I always say to them gosh you’re producing ice cream chocolate and potato crisps
can we get some healthier foods into the family but anyway it is very good ice cream I’ll I’ll admit but you know that
came about because my uncle this was in the ear of when I was growing up and uh and low-fat milk became the thing and so
they had all this excess cream and so my uncle at the time my late Uncle he’s passed away now he bought an ice cream
maker and the recipe from an from a retiring Italian guy I’m hoping my cousins are listening I’m getting the
story right and he started making ice cream and it was just a small little side business really they were in a dairy farm and it’s grown to today you
know the business is is ice cream and it’s really fantastic to go to the and the farm where the where the ice cream
is made is still the farm where my mom grew up and my she was one of six so my aunts and uncles all grew up on a farm
where it still is now and now it’s this it’s still a dairy farm they’ve still got their own cattle all too but it’s
essentially this massive Ice Cream Factory it’s fantastic it’s real ice cream real ice cream that’s what I like
about it you know it’s not like stuff you buy in the supermarket you go it’s got a lot of potatoes in it this is the
real thing well absolutely I mean even as a nutrition scientist I do at least like that you know it’s cream and sugar
and then fruit or you know whatever the the flavorings and so on like when it’s not artificial so you know I think if
you’re going to have ice cream have the real thing and really enjoy it Jill thank you very much thanks for having me on Marcus it’s been a pleasure to chat
Scott’s care supporting Scots away from home in London
