Dangerous Foods for Women’s Health

Transcript:

TERESA: Hello, this is Teresa, one of the dietitians at Nutritional Weight and Wellness. Before we start today's podcast, I want to let everyone know about a new online class that we just made available on our website. It's called Menopause Solutions. Menopause is a natural stage in a woman's life, but suffering is not. Whether you are in perimenopause, menopause, or post menopause, our comprehensive online class led by registered nutritionist Kara and Melanie, will help you understand the root cause of your symptoms and walk you through real food solutions to help you navigate each stage with ease.

Our Menopause Solutions class includes six prerecorded videos with in-depth education on every phase of menopause, the symptoms and how to remedy them, a private supportive community of educators and class peers for your questions, and a robust 79-page menopause survival guide e-book. Plus, you'll get access to all of these wonderful resources for one full year.

Our hope is that this class will empower you to make real food and lifestyle changes that alleviate the frustrating menopause symptoms so that you can thrive through all the years of your life. Learn more at weightandwellness.com/menopause. That's weightandwellness.com/menopause or call one of our six twin cities locations at 651-699-3438. Thanks for listening to Dishing Up Nutrition and enjoy the show.

TERESA: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness. I am Teresa Wagner and I am in studio today with Brandy Buro. We are both registered and licensed dietitians. We practice real food nutrition, and daily we see the benefits clients experience from eating real food.

BRANDY: That's right. Clients that are following our real food plan, which basically consist of three to four ounces of a quality meat like grass fed beef with one to two cups of vegetables, topped with about a tablespoon of beneficial fats, like butter, olive oil, coconut oil, or avocado oil, they end up having better energy, better moods and less aches and pains, and a nice side effect of all of this is that they usually lose a little weight right along with it.

TERESA: Yeah. That's a great side effect. You get to eat all those fantastic foods and you get to lose weight.

BRANDY: Yeah, it's great. Win, win, win. So, in addition, after eating this way for some time with some consistency, some of their lab values start to improve too. One of the first things I noticed in my clients is that they're fasting glucose and their A1C blood sugar tests are much lower and much better. So that makes them happy. That makes their doctors really happy.

And cholesterol is another big one that a lot of my clients are working on. Those LDL numbers and the triglycerides, they start to normalize, they start to lower a little bit. So their overall blood chemistry just gets a little better. And did I forget to mention their memory improves and their skin and their hair just starts looking and feeling so much better?

TERESA: You know, and sometimes those changes that are on the outside, you know, the better skin and hair is the motivation needed in order to stick with the plan. Not because the food isn't good, but just because it's a little bit more work, right? There's planning and preparation and grocery shopping. And there's just more, more thought in it. And sometimes that, that gets to be, you know, a little bit of a challenge, but when you start to see the difference on the outside of your body, it helps to keep going because it's harder to be motivated by things that are happening on the inside of our body, like blood sugar numbers or high blood, or, you know, bringing your blood pressure down or cholesterol numbers down.

BRANDY: Mm-Hmm.

TERESA: Those things that you can't see with your eyes, and sometimes you can't even feel necessarily. So it's nice to have those outside indicators to give us a little motivation to, yes, I'm doing it.

BRANDY: Totally.

TERESA: And you know, when we talk about these changes and they don't happen overnight, but we say, give it six months and you'll see some amazing results. And of course you don't have to wait six months to see any results. It'll, it'll start happening and you'll start noticing it sooner. But man, by that six-month, mark, you really can tell a difference.

BRANDY: Yep.

TERESA: When we see amazing results in our clients, we know that they're eating real food, but there are some foods sold in the marketplace that are actually dangerous for women's health. So today we want to expose some of those dangerous foods that you may not be aware of. These certain foods and beverages can actually be damaging to your health. We will also show you why these are, these are not good foods for your long-term health as well. So we will look at some research just so it isn't just the views of a dietitian, you know, telling you what you should and shouldn't do. This is actually backed by some science.

Dangerous food #1: alcohol

BRANDY: Right. So to kick off this list of dangerous foods, if you can even call it a food, is alcohol. So alcohol tops, the list I have to say. There are so many reasons to avoid alcohol, to try to limit it in your diet, cause there's a lot of risks that are attached. But one thing that you may not have realized, and this is probably going to be a great motivator for our audience, is that alcohol can actually increase the development of wrinkles.

TERESA: Oh no!

BRANDY: Yes. And we all want to look our best for as long as we can. So this is really motivating for a lot of us. So wrinkles aren't something we really think about in our twenties and thirties. They're not really on the radar, but they really start creeping in around our forties and fifties. And that's when we usually want to do something about it.

TERESA: Yes.

BRANDY: But we need to be a little more proactive. Alcohol is something that if we do this over time, it's actually going to contribute to wrinkles because it's a diuretic. It sucks the moisture out of our skin, which leaves our skin dehydrated. Without that hydration, our skin loses elasticity. And that sets the scene for wrinkles.

TERESA: Right. And being in that group, that, that group that is more aware of their wrinkles, the last thing I want is more wrinkle prone skin.

BRANDY: Totally.

TERESA: And I think now current, you know, current state, I, I would, I want to say post pandemic, but we're, I don't know if that's accurate, but just in this time where we've spent more time using our like cameras on Zoom and on our phones, those cameras are harsh. And I, I don't know if everybody notices this, but I certainly do. And I think it's brought on a whole new awareness and paranoia about the health and youth or lost youth of our skin.

BRANDY: We’re under a microscope all day it seems like.

TERESA: Yes. And then you, you see it because you see yourself.

BRANDY: Right.

TERESA: Yeah. You know, so yes, those cameras. Wow. Those are harsh. But it's something that's maybe a little bit more serious versus just something that's skin deep. Let's talk about some research out how alcohol damages the brain. A study at John's Hopkins publicized in the 2008 Archives of Neurology found that people who drink one to seven drinks per week have smaller brains. People who have two or more alcoholic drinks per have brain shrinkage. Yeah, Brandy, and didn't you didn't you do something; we were talking and you had some thoughts from, I think something from the Amen clinics?

BRANDY: That's right. Yes. So in preparation for the show, I did a little research on the side effects of alcohol and the brain. And this does come from Dr. Amen’s website. He’s a double board certified psychiatrist and brain disorder specialist. So we at Nutritional Weight and Wellness really love him because he puts a strong focus on nutrition's role in brain health.

So his research says that people who drink every day have smaller brains than non-drinkers. So when it comes to the brain size really does matter. You do not want a small brain because your, your brain is involved in everything. It's involved in how you think, how you feel, how you act, your interactions with one another. Also drinking just one to two glasses of wine a day leads to atrophy in the hippocampus, which is a brain region that's critical for learning and memory. So the hippocampus is a critical gateway into long term storage for memories. So if this part of your brain is damaged, you may not be able to remember what happened yesterday.

TERESA: Oh, that sounds terrible.

BRANDY: Right. So the loss of this, the volume of the hippocampus, it's been associated with memory loss, depression and Alzheimer's disease. So another finding from Dr. Amen’s clinic is that in the largest known brain imaging study, the scientists from Dr. Amen, Google, Johns Hopkins, UCLA and UC San Francisco evaluated over 60,000 brain scans of people to investigate the factors that accelerate that brain aging. And this study found that alcohol abuse is one of the top five factors that make the brain age faster.

TERESA: Oh, wow. So lots of reasons to consider our alcohol usage. And maybe you've missed the opportunity to do dry January. You know, I know that's kind of a popular thing to do the first month of the year. I think it's because after the holidays, we've all had our fair share of alcohol and we're ready to, to give, give our livers a break.

BRANDY: Yes.

TERESA: Well maybe you missed your opportunity to do dry January, so maybe perhaps it's the time to do sober February.

BRANDY: Yeah.

TERESA: And then maybe you'll enjoy the results so much that maybe you'll extend it into, you know, March and April and maybe the whole year through. It would be interesting to see how you would feel after taking an extended break from alcohol.

BRANDY: Right. And there is really no time like the present, right?

TERESA: Yes.

BRANDY: And maybe the story will encourage everyone to give it a shot. I actually have a very close friend that did dry January this month.

TERESA: Oh good.

BRANDY: Yes. And I just talked to her a couple days ago, so we're at like week four at this point. So I just wanted to see like, what happened, like how did this impact your life? And you know, she really did. She gave it all up. No cocktails, no wine, no beer, everything. So after months she was very happy to tell me…

TERESA: Four months or four weeks?

BRANDY: I'm sorry. Four weeks. Four weeks. So after only four weeks, she's lost four pounds.

TERESA: Wow.

BRANDY: And she's sleeping a lot better. And I think the biggest change for her was that her anxiety is a lot more manageable now.

TERESA: Well, that's wonderful.

BRANDY: So she's actually lowering her anti-anxiety medication.

TERESA: Well, fantastic. And maybe we'll talk a little bit about the role with anxiety and alcohol when we come back, but you're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness. Today, we want to share some tips for healthy weight loss. So tip number one: develop your desire to eat healthy. Without a personal desire, it's almost impossible to stay on track. This desire must be continually nurtured, or you may become derailed. To nurture your desire, we encourage you to take classes, listen to the podcast and make an appointment with your nutritionist.

Nutrition Counseling

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BRANDY: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Here's our tip number two for healthy weight loss: diagnose your personal needs. So before you even set your weight loss goal, think about your health challenges, consider your energy level, your lifestyle, or some of the habits you know could be holding you back. Perhaps your first step is to get seven and a half to nine hours of sleep most nights of the week. Sleep is something we can help you with at Nutritional Weight and Wellness. It's something a lot of our clients are struggling with. And it's a really good health goal to make when you're first starting to try to lose weight.

More detriments of alcohol

TERESA: Yes it is. And sleep is tricky. Don't we know it, Brandy? It is a tricky one and it takes some practice to figure out what's the best method for each person, person sometimes. So, you know, today what we're talking about are dangerous foods for women's health. And prior to break, we talking about alcohol and Brandy was sharing a story about one of her friends who had done a dry January and noticed that her anxiety levels had gone down. And I hear this too. I hear it with clients. I hear, I hear friends, you know, joke about “hanxiety”, you know, that anxiety hang over that you might get, you know, post drinking alcohol of course.

BRANDY: Right.

TERESA: Well, what happens here is that when you're drinking alcohol, it floods the pleasure center of the brain with dopamine. That feel good chemical rush only lasts a short time. Then when the dopamine drops off, the feelings of anxiety follow. Alcohol, it also messes with an, with another neurotransmitter called GABA and GABA is a calming neurotransmitter. Drinking alcohol releases, an influx of GABA, giving that relaxed feeling that maybe we're going for, you know?

BRANDY: Mm-hmm.

TERESA: When we use alcohol, let like this as a habit, maybe, maybe, you know, you're coming home from a stressful day at work, or maybe you're with your kids all day long. And you just want some me time or just want to feel kind of like an adult, you know, or perhaps you're lonely and you're using alcohol as a friend. Or maybe it's just a habit with your, with your partner, with your spouse. You know, maybe you guys just have a, a cocktail together and just share about your day.

Whatever it is, if you're using that alcohol as a crutch to give you that relaxed feeling when it's taken away that anxiety rears its ugly head. So, so that's kind of that connection on how alcohol, it, it, it messes with some of the neurotransmitters we have.

BRANDY: Mm-hmm.

TERESA: Of course it releases these chemicals and it makes us feel good.

BRANDY: Right.

TERESA: But then on the flip side, it's almost like we're a little deficient in those neurotransmitters, leaving us with the opposite effect and that being anxiety.

BRANDY: Right. And I think, especially with anxiety and alcohol, it's kind of like, well, it's a vicious cycle, vicious and I know alcohol's going to help me relax. So we're just adding fuel to the fire.

TERESA: Yeah, absolutely.

BRANDY: So really for, for better health, I suggest eliminating or at least seriously reducing your alcohol consumption and, and beyond all the health benefits, it's really fantastic for your pocket book. Think of all the money you're going to save just by switching out that habit.

TERESA: Yeah. Not ordering $15 martinis.

BRANDY: Yeah. Like one drink is about the cost of an entrée sometimes.

TERESA: Yes. Yes. I would say many times when you go out to dinner, if you're having alcohol, it's probably the alcohol is more than what the food bill is.

BRANDY: Mm-Hmm; definitely.

TERESA: Well, okay. Let's switch gears just a little bit on alcohol and just, how does that alcohol, how does it affect your sleep? If you have a glass of wine in the evening and wake up in the middle of the night, you may or may not know that the alcohol is causing your restless sleep. A glass or two of wine often helps people fall asleep, but in the middle of the night, you wake up and you toss and turn. And for some people, maybe they think they are sleeping through the night, but while you're not consciously awake, alcohol even in small amounts is the most potent inhibitor of REM sleep. And this is the stage of sleep that really restores your brain.

But so, so so many women and men wake up, you know, maybe between two and 4:00 AM just tossing around, staring at the ceiling and checking the clock, calculating the number of hours that they're going to sleep if they just fall asleep now. If I fall asleep now I'll get five hours of sleep. If I fall asleep, now it'll be four. I'm okay on four, just if I can fall asleep right now. And pretty soon, you're just praying that the sun will rise, right? You just want, want to get it over with.

It's miserable. And that culprit that might be causing your misery just might be that innocent glass of wine with dinner or, or that night cap that you had. And ladies, if you are in perimenopause or menopause, you may notice that that glass of wine brings on the night sweats. Some women need to get up and even change their clothes because they're sweating that heavily. So with alcohol, what I'm trying to say is you lose good quality sleep.

BRANDY: And quality sleep is so crucial for good health. It's, it's something that I don't think a lot of people may realize how sleep can actually impact your, your diet. Poor sleep often leads to more sugar cravings the next day. And it kind of makes sense. You know, you're, you're low on energy. You haven't gotten the rest you need to, to recover and recuperate. So it, it makes sense that you might be reaching for something that's going to give you a quick boost of energy. Sugar is the ticket for a lot of people. So it might make going to the vending machine in the afternoon a little more attractive or hitting the candy dish. So it's, it can throw off even the best laid meal plan if you don't have a good night's sleep. But alcohol can lead to even more serious risks beyond just losing a few hours of sleep.

The National Cancer Institute pooled some data from 118 individual studies and found that even light drinkers have an increased risk of developing breast cancer when they compared that data to non-drinkers. And that risk of developing breast cancer increases the more you drink. So the moderate to heavy drinkers had a, had a bigger chance of developing breast cancer later in life. So looking at the research and from our own clinical experience, we are encouraging women to consider that alcohol, that little glass or two of wine at night to unwind and relax; it's actually very hazardous to your health. That's why it's on the danger list.

TERESA: Yeah, and no wonder it's on the, our first thing on our danger list, because it increases our risk of cancer. It steals our memory, interferes with our ability to sleep, makes us anxious and gives us wrinkles. Well, okay. Brandy, let's switch away from alcohol and maybe we can make more friends.

BRANDY: Yeah. Right.

TERESA: By talking about our next topic of favorite things that maybe we're doing that could, could increase our risk or, or foods that are dangerous.

BRANDY: Right.

Dangerous food #2: high sugar coffee drinks

TERESA: What about those high sugar coffee drinks? Are they dangerous? Especially for our teens and young adults? You know, as I watch preteens, teens and young adults line up at the of local coffee houses, I would say that, yeah, the next food or beverage that we would put on our dangerous list is those high sugar coffee drinks.

BRANDY: Mm-Hmm.

TERESA: We don't worry about the caffeine as much so long as it's drunk earlier in the day as we do about the sugar in those coffee drinks. Although let me digress for just a minute here. If your teen or you struggle with anxiety, caffeine is at the top of the list of foods to eliminate to get over that anxiety. Okay. So, let's get back to the sugar. Let's look at some research to help you see how these high sugar coffee drinks are a dangerous beverage. It is a fact that, that heart disease is the leading cause of women in the U.S. One in five women die of heart disease.

BRANDY: Wow. That is a stunning statistic. And I don't think a lot of people realize that. There was actually a survey that found almost half of women were not aware that heart disease was the number one cause of death among women. What I think is even more alarming is that women are dying from heart disease at a younger age. So this isn't something that's affecting our elderly population. Women at a younger age are dying of heart disease.

TERESA: And on that note, you are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. Tip number three: get educated about nutrition. There are good fats and bad fats. There are processed refined carbs, and there are vegetable carbohydrates. There is grass fed meat and wild-caught fish. And then there is commercially-raised animals with hormones and antibiotics. We encourage you to take classes, listen to the podcast and read our articles and blogs. Also, share this information with your family and friends.

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BRANDY: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Here's tip number four for healthy weight loss: set some health goals, then start to take gradual steps to make those changes. Perhaps the first goal is to take a cooking class from Marianne, our culinary nutrition educator. Once you are able to feed your body the nutrients it needs to get the energy you need, you can continue to make more changes. We're actually offering a couple of classes in the next couple of weeks. One's on February 8th and another on February 10^th.

Marianne will be teaching us how to cook heart healthy meals, that taste great. And this is a class I've actually taken myself. And I think it's amazing how good these recipes are for how easy they are to prepare. There's another class if you're not able to make the ones on in February 8th or 10th, we have one on February 15th and the 17^th that's all about how to prepare meat. So she's going to demonstrate how to braise, roast and sauté meat. So if this sounds interesting, the class fee is only $25 and they're all taught from Zoom. So you can learn in from the comfort of your own home. If you want to learn more or sign up, give us a call at (651) 699-3438.

Cooking Classes

TERESA: And I think taking a cooking class in February, sounds like a great idea in our topic today, where we're talking about dangerous foods for women's health and how keeping the sugar level to less than six teaspoons a day I think is what's recommended by the American Heart Association.

BRANDY: Right.

TERESA: So for American heart month, which is in February, it would be a good goal to just take a cooking class, to learn how to cook some, some, some recipes that don't have any added sugar in them.

BRANDY: Good point.

TERESA: All right. And in speaking of the American Heart Association and those six teaspoons of sugar a day, and talking about heart disease and women being the number one cause of death in women and how that's happening in women who are younger and younger, one food that we consider dangerous is maybe those high sugar coffee drinks that we're drinking.

So let's take a look at the amount of sugar in the new pistachio latte. In a 16 ounce or two cup or grande cup, there are 45 grams of sugar, which breaks down into 11 and half teaspoons of sugar. Looking at the ingredients, the first ingredient is invert sugar. It also contains powdered sugar and other additional forms of sugar in that one beverage.

BRANDY: Wow.

TERESA: You know, I've got to laugh about this example because I actually, I went to California a couple weeks ago.

BRANDY: Oh yeah.

TERESA: And I must have been like in total vacation mode because I saw this marketing and I was like, pistachio latte. That sounds amazing. And I know full well it's full of sugar, but I just chose not to. So I ordered the tall, which is the small.

BRANDY: Okay. Yeah.

TERESA: And the first two to five step sips: heavenly. I mean, amazing. But after that it was so full of sugar. I felt like my tongue was coated in sugar and I ended up just throwing most of it away, you know, just our taste buds, they just evolve. Right?

BRANDY: Right.

TERESA: And, you know, rewind 10, 20 years, I would've drunk that. No problem.

BRANDY: Right.

TERESA: But it is so full of sugar. And if you think about that recommendation from American Heart Association of six teaspoons of added sugar a day, with one sweetened coffee drink, you or your teen is taking in almost twice as much of that recommended sugar in just one drink. That's not to include any of the other food or drinks that you're having for the rest of the day. So you're drinking enough to cover for two days in that one drink.

BRANDY: That's wild. So let's check out another popular drink at some of these coffee shops. And I think this one's kind of making the rounds lately. The peppermint mocha Frappuccino: how does that add up? Well, there are 50 grams of sugar in that one, which breaks down into about 12 and a half teaspoons of sugar.

So remember to support our heart health, we want to strive for less than six teaspoons of added sugar in our beverages and drinks every day. So again, this one coffee drink is double what we need in a single day. So what is the big deal? Why are these high sugar drinks on the danger zone? What's wrong with a little sugar? Well this much sugar from one coffee drink, just like you mentioned, it's consumed right away in the morning. We're not even thinking about what's happening the rest of the day. And we're getting twice our daily dose of sugar, which increases the risk for developing type two diabetes, heart disease. And it can worsen symptoms of anxiety and depression.

And we know that this added sugar is not nourishing our body. It's not giving us any nutrients that we need. It's just pure empty calories, which, you know, if this is a habit that we're doing most days of the week, this can really lead to weight gain for women and young teens and eventually obesity.

TERESA: Right. And with those foofy coffees with all that sugar, we're pre we're paying a pretty penny for weight gain and for diabetes and for heart disease. I mean, we're, we're willingly shelling out our cash for these, for these things.

BRANDY: That's a great way to think of it.

TERESA: When I'm working with teenage and young adult clients, I try to teach them to think of these high sugar drinks as, as a treat, rather than something that they, they do all the time. You know, and, and I also don't say you never can have one. It's just maybe limit them to once or twice a month. I also like to go through the menu at the coffee houses with them and just find like whatever their favorite place is to go and find the low sugar options that they can, that they can order. So when they're out with their friends, they can still be a part of the group and not feel like they're restricting. And, you know, because there's lots of really great options that are low sugar.

BRANDY: Yeah.

TERESA: You know, and we know that long term use of sugar often inflames the blood vessels and arteries leading to circulation problems and blockages. This is heart disease. That's what it's causing.

BRANDY: Mm-hmm.

TERESA: So for, for maybe for teens, but often for, for more for my adult clients, I suggest switching to black coffee or you know, black coffee and some heavy whipping cream and maybe adding a little bit of stevia to it if you want it just a little bit sweetened.

BRANDY: Yeah.

TERESA: But I encourage my clients to take charge of their health by understanding the way those ingredients are working in their body and what they're doing and staying away for those dangerous ones.

BRANDY: And once you're armed with some alternatives that can be really empowering. So you don't feel so isolated in those social situations.

TERESA: Yes. Yes.

BRANDY: So in getting back to, you know, avoiding the dangerous foods, we have to think about, okay, well what, what are we supposed to do then? Well, keeping it simple: real foods. And I think a lot of us believe that vegetables are probably always a safe choice.

TERESA: Right.

Steer clear of plastic leaching into food/beverages

BRANDY: But even vegetables, we need to be a little cautious about how we're preparing them, you know, and I'm always going to encourage my clients to eat lots of veggies. But what about those vegetables that are cooked in the plastic bags; those steamer vegetables?

TERESA: That's a really good one, Brandy. Yeah. Those steamer bags are getting our vegetables all hot inside plastic.

BRANDY: Yeah. It could be a pause for cause. Let's stop and think: is that safe? Of course those food companies are going to tell you that they are because that's what they're designed to do. But what does the researcher and author Dr. Anthony Jay recommend? He wrote a book called Estrogeneration: How Estrogens are Making you Fat, Sick and Infertile. And he said regarding plastics and foods that we don't want to heat anything in plastic. And he even goes as far to say that we should avoid stirring hot liquids with plastic spoons.

TERESA: Yeah. And just taking a step back to our conversation about coffee, think about what you're drinking your hot coffee through when you go to the coffee shop: a plastic lid. Right?

BRANDY: So true.

TERESA: So I, that's another thing I tell my clients, I mean drinking hot coffee through those plastic lids: that's not a great idea. Especially if you're thinking about the estrogen effects of plastics in our, in our, in our diet, quite frankly.

BRANDY: Right.

TERESA: So as a dietitian, I encourage my clients to use reusable mugs when they go out for coffee. It's good for them and it's good for the environment.

BRANDY: Perfect.

TERESA: I also so encourage them to heat their foods in glass or ceramic bowls. I find glass, ceramic, silicone, cast iron pans or stainless steel pans are the best choices. And we agree with Dr. Jay, Anthony Jay's recommendation of trying to reduce those estrogens or those toxic estrogens for are our long term health. Yes. It takes time for that, for that to happen.

You know, we can do it. Sometimes it takes even years because these environmental estrogens are stored in our fat cells. So losing weight and reducing the number of fat cells can help to reduce the toxic estrogens. When you avoid estrogens by cooking in a glass bowl or in a ceramic bowl or on those cast iron pans or, or stainless steel pans and not in plastic, you reduce the toxic environmental estrogens that can come in your food. This can be a long term solution to chronic problems.

BRANDY: So instead of microwaving your vegetables in that plastic bag, one simple change you can make is open the bag and cook that broccoli in a stainless steel skillet, sauté it with a little beneficial oil like butter or coconut oil, add a little garlic, a sprinkle of salt and you have a delicious and simple healthy side dish. And just a little note about cooking preparation: we do want to try to cook at a lower heat so that we preserve the integrity of those healthy fats.

TERESA: Yeah. Especially that olive oil. We don't want to heat that really, really hot.

BRANDY: Yep. Nice and low. And then another benefit to cooking with oil besides just making it taste delicious: it actually helps us absorb some of the nutrients from those vegetables a little better. It helps carry those nutrients into the cells. So sautéing in a little butter is a great way to get the most benefit out of your veggies, but also avoid those toxic estrogens. So it's kind of interesting to think that even vegetables are something that we have to be a little cautious about, but it's all coming down to the preparation method.

TERESA: Right. And even if we're trying to avoid plastics and estrogenic materials, to offset the environmental estrogens and estrogens that are sneaking into our bodies, eating several servings of vegetables per day, especially those cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage; these vegetables naturally support estrogen, detoxification and hormone balance. So basically when you eat those veggies, they help to get rid of those environmental estrogens that come into our body, whether we're trying or not.

BRANDY: Right. Mm-hmm. Good detoxifier. Think cruciferous: detoxifier.

TERESA: Yes. Yes. What is your favorite way to make cruciferous vegetables?

BRANDY: Well, I love them all.

TERESA: Yeah. Good.

BRANDY: So I prepare them in all ways. But something I've been making quite a bit lately is like a variety of cabbage slaws.

TERESA: Oh yeah.

BRANDY: So I'll do like just shredded cabbage with some good mayonnaise, a little apple cider vinegar, and then add some spices. I had that the other night with some baked chicken. It was delicious.

TERESA: Yeah. Sounds great. Yeah. That would be good with pulled pork or something along that line too. I know I've got a couple of friends that swear by broccoli and cauliflower in the air fryer.

BRANDY: Mm. Yeah. I've heard that too.

TERESA: Yeah. I don't own an air fryer yet. I'm putting that off, but I'm but I've heard, so one of my friends says her kids eat their broccoli and they from the air fry like candy.

BRANDY: Yeah.

TERESA: So I'm like, well, that's, that's a good selling point.

BRANDY: Yeah. My, my nieces and nephews, they love roasted broccoli. It’s delicious.

TERESA: Yeah. Well, you are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. Our tip number five for weight loss is to support or to excuse me, to sort fact from fiction. Sort through the marketing hype and start to develop your own nutrition belief system that will support your long-term health. Our topic today, Dangerous Foods for Women's Health, is a good place to start. Many food companies have a product to sell. It may be healthy and it may not be. Ask yourself, is that big bowl of cereal really heart healthy; really? And we'll be back.

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BRANDY: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Tip number six: develop a support system. Making major lifestyle changes can seem overwhelming. And it's true. Change is hard, but it can be a little easier and a little more fun when you can share your challenges, share your frustrations and even your successes with a group of people that's going through the same thing. This is something we can offer with our Nutrition for Weight Loss class series. And we actually have a couple new classes starting on Tuesday, February 15th, and that's just a couple weeks away. And I really think that this is the perfect Valentine’s Day gift if you're still trying to think of something for your sweetie or treat yourself. One of my clients was actually joking the other day that every couple needs to take this class because it has been so transformative for her marriage.

TERESA: Oh.

BRANDY: Yeah. After cleaning up her diet, her moods are so much better that she's just a nicer person in general. And just getting along with her husband so much better.

TERESA: Yeah. And you can have a team approach to it.

BRANDY: Yes, definitely. You can support each other in making these changes. So if you're still thinking of the perfect Valentine's Day gift for your sweetie, think about this 12 class series. It could bring you two closer together and it's definitely going to bring you closer to your health goals. So give us a call at (651) 699-3438. Or you can sign up online at weightandwellness.com.

Nutrition 4 Weight Loss program

TERESA: Well, okay. So today we're talking about dangerous foods for women to eat and I'm just going to jump into our next, our next item. Let's talk about sushi.

Sushi: another potentially dangerous food

BRANDY: Yeah.

TERESA: Sushi is another dangerous food that many young adults are meeting their friends out after work and ordering. Many women though, they don't actually eat the raw high protein fish, but they get the rolls that are mostly just rice with a little protein and a smattering of veggies.

BRANDY: Yep.

TERESA: And we know that rice is a high carbohydrate food. And we know also know that when you're eating high carbohydrate foods, they break down into sugar in digestion. And we know that having too much sugar is not good for our health. So the serving of rice that we recommend per meal is a half a cup and with those sushi roll, that's, that's quite a bit more, I would say, depending on depending on how much you're eating.

BRANDY: Yep.

TERESA: And you know, if we think about the California rolls, those contain imitation crab meat, which contains gluten, preservatives, artificial crab flavorings, and red coloring. Imitation crab is a highly processed food. It contains lots of salt and sugar and damaged fats. So we would consider certain types of sushi a dangerous food for women's health. So when you go out for sushi, because we're not saying don't ever go out for sushi, order sashimi. It's basically sushi without the rice. If straight up, you know, raw fish isn't your thing, many sushi places do have the non-rice roll that are wrapped in thinly sliced cucumber or avocado. And they're super delicious. I love those. And then you can also, I mean, you can add a bowl of miso soup and you've, there you've got some probiotics.

BRANDY: Right. That's awesome. I actually had one of my clients email me just this week to, to ask me what can I do when I go out to sushi? Can I even go out to sushi and still stick within my plan? So we did a little research and found out that yeah. With the sushi roll, some places are using up to a cup of white rice in one roll, which for her, because she's a little more sensitive to those carbohydrates, we decided, yeah; sticking to a half a roll is probably the route to go.

TERESA: Yeah.

BRANDY: And then get some sashimi; get a side salad. Some maybe some grilled chicken or something just to keep that balance.

TERESA: Yeah. Yeah.

BRANDY: It's, it's certainly something that we have to pay attention to because it can spike our blood sugar.

TERESA: Right. And we're not about restriction.

BRANDY: Right.

TERESA: We, we are, what we want to do is how can we make food good for you? How can you get what you want because life is we got to live, right. We want to live and we want to enjoy our food and we want to enjoy our beverages. So how can we do that? How can we go to the coffee shop? How can we go to out for sushi? Like how can we do this and make it work for our lives and still, you know, you know, live a healthy life and, and move towards our goals.

BRANDY: We talk about that with our clients all the time, just strategizing.

TERESA: Mm-hmm.

High sugar juice and smoothies are dangerous for our health

BRANDY: So there's one more beverage that we have to talk about before we wrap up today. So juice and smoothies; they're so popular these days. And I think for the most part, we're all assuming that they're healthy because we've been, we've been taught that fruit is healthy. And that that's true. We can get a lot of good benefits from fruit, but when you're blending up maybe five or six servings of fruit in one drink, it can become dangerous for our health. So when I tell you the amount of carbs in a tropical cooler smoothie, you may decide for yourself that yes, it's something that's, it's hazardous; maybe something I should avoid. So this tropical cooler smoothie contains 55 grams of carbs, which converts into about 14 teaspoons of sugar.

TERESA: Isn't that similar to drinking a 20-ounce soda?

BRANDY: Yes, actually, that's a really good comparison. Good way to think of it. If you're not somebody that does the, the juices, soda is just as bad.

TERESA: Yeah. Or, but one we think is healthy and one we're like that's unhealthy.

BRANDY: Right.

TERESA: Yeah.

BRANDY: Definitely. And there's another drink that, you know, if you're maybe on a road trip or something, and you're at a gas station searching for something that's a little more healthy than the soda, I see a lot of people gravitate towards those pre-made smoothies.

TERESA: Oh, sure.

BRANDY: Yeah. Yeah. I looked up the nutrition facts for that and I found that there's 19 teaspoons of sugar in just one of those.

TERESA: Yeah.

BRANDY: It's wild. So remember, thinking back to the American Heart Association's recommendation for trying to limit our sugar to less than 6 teaspoons a day to support our heart health. So just in one drink, you're doubling or sometimes even tripling the amount of sugar that is good for your heart.

TERESA: Yeah. And I think it's ironic sometimes too, because there are those, if you go into a juice bar or a smoothie place, and there's some that are labeled like they’re like detoxification or their cleanse drinks, and then you look up how many, how many grams of sugar are in it? It's like, I don't, I don't think that you're, you're detoxing with that.

BRANDY: No, no, not at all. And in fact, that amount of sugar all at once can be very inflammatory. It can, once it hits the bloodstream, it inflames the cardiovascular system, which we know can lead to heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and it can worsen symptoms of depression. So these fruit juices and smoothies, they're, they're dangerous foods because they're parading around like their health foods. And we continue to turn to them over and over because we think we're doing something good for ourselves. But it's really all about marketing. You know, we, it's really easy to get distracted by the package or the, the branding of some of these items. So I think we need to just try to approach everything that comes in a package or that you're getting from some of these juice bars with, you know, a spirit of curiosity.

We, we need to be our own detectives. We need to dig a little deeper and find out what is this product made from. Is it real food? Are they ingredients I can pronounce? And, and how much sugar is hidden in some of these products. So we really hope to teach you all how to be wise consumers so you can protect your health.

TERESA: Yes. I think that that is excellent advice and, and, you know, and, and the nice thing about how our current state of society is, is that for the most part, you can find all that information relatively easily. I mean, it's in the palm of your hand. How many of you are sitting right now with the phone in your hand, right? Or very near you?

BRANDY: That's right.

TERESA: That information of most of those foods is, is very accessible. And so certainly there are some, some options at some of those places, any one of the places that we talked about, where you can make this work. If you're going out with the girls and you're going to hit up one of the juice bars, I bet there's something that we can find that will work. It's just, you have to look into it. Sometimes it's less about what you like feel like, or the marketing, and then looking in and finding, okay, what can satisfy both of my goals? Having something fun with my girlfriends or friends and family and work towards good health.

BRANDY: Yes.

TERESA: Well, our goal at Nutritional Weight and Wellness is to help each and every person and experience better health through eating real food. It's a simple yet powerful message. Eating real food is life changing. Thank you for joining us today and have a wonderful day.