Explore the fundamental principles of nutrition. Dive into key topics such as understanding macronutrients and micronutrients, decoding food labels, and staying abreast of the latest nutrition trends. Tackle common and frequently asked nutrition questions. From dispelling myths to providing practical tips for everyday meal planning, you will gain the essential knowledge needed to make informed choices about your diet and discover how to make healthy eating a joyful and sustainable part of your life.
This workshop is open to all, with no prior nutrition knowledge required.
Presented by Kylie Smith, MS, RD, CDCES. Kylie is a clinical dietitian at John Muir Health. She also teaches nutrition at Diablo Valley College. She earned her MS in Nutrition Science and Food Management from Oregon State University and her BS in Physiological Science from UCLA.
All right well welcome this is the lecture um eat better not less and I hope to provide some basic nutrition insights into what we need and how we could simplify our diet for our health um a little bit of background about me so uh like Lori said my initial degree
Was in physiology at that time I was thinking about going into physical therapy I had to take a class to apply to PT school that was on diet and exercise and I was really intrigu more about the diet portion of the class than the exercise so I acted quickly and sent
Out applications for Master’s programs um and ended up at the lonus polling Institute at Oregon State um and while I love the science of nutrition what I really wanted to do was get to Medicine which is what my original degree Was preparing me for so I completed a
Dietetic internship and passed my boards to become a registered dietitian um I called myself a jack of all trades dietician because I really held a lot of positions in the medical field that dietitians can hold and that includes 15 years as an oncology dietitian and going on 17 years as a
Diabetes educator and just in the last eight years I’ve moved more towards Critical Care uh which really kind of satisfies that data analysis side of my brain but I really wanted to educate more and that’s how I ended up at a part-time teaching position at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill and it’s
Been really a perfect balance between the science and the teaching of nutrition and so for this lecture eat better not less um where should we start and I want to begin with label reading um because as a consumer you’re hit with all kinds of labels some that
You can see here some are relevant and some are not and many are really misleading so for instance up here at the top left there’s one that says natural and that’s not even a regulated term um what that means is that we don’t have a legal food definition for natural
And for the consumer that sounds really appealing doesn’t it natural sounds like something really untouched and unaltered but since there’s no definition for the term natural can mean whatever the food manufacturer wants it to me uh something else that can cause a lot of confusion is like sugar-free down
Here uh whoops by sugarfree um there’s um it is at the product contains no more than 05 grams of sugar per serving but it also must distinguish whether it’s a low calorie product since most consumers believe that sugar-free means that it’s good for weight control and if the
Company doesn’t fit that definition they can also use another regulated term called low sugar and that means the product contains 25% less sugar than the company’s original product but some food manufacturers will add their own lab LA to this mix and one of them is called
Low and added sugar and did you catch that you know yes food manufacturers can make their own labels it’s kind of a loophole that they have in these nutrient content claims um to create their own definitions and despite sounding similar to the regulated ones they bear no consistency from one food manufacturer
To the next and in fact low and added sugar honestly tells you nothing about the sugar content of the food product um I like using the example of jam here like a jam that you put on your toast because it may say low and added sugar which means they probably add something
Like Splenda to it but you can’t take the natural sugar out of the fruit that they used to make the jam so it’s not really low in sugar at all and there are so many misleading examples about food labels even the regulated ones and so where does that leave the consumer what
Are you supposed to do well my advice is really to ignore all of these labels just ignore the front of the box and I want to ask do you know where you should look and I think that is the nutrition fact panel so this is your golden ticket
To understanding what is really in the food you purchase now the only downside here is that you need to have some guidance on what you need for your health goals um so on the nutrition facts panel at the very very top it is important to know how many servings are
In that container and how big that serving is supposed to be if you grab a bag of chips at the store um and you take one of the small ones not the super tiny ones more like the two to three ounce ones that bag has two to three
Servings in it what that means is that if you eat the entire bag you’re eating two to three times the calories the fat the sodium the carbs and everything listed here on this label so this is always a good starting point to know how many servings you’re getting in the
Package and how big that serving is the label also now very clearly puts the calories bolded in a bigger type this is consistent with FDA goals to help manage Weight Control in Americans so they want you to know what you’re getting when you eat and underneath those um you have the macronutrients
That’s going to be your fat your uh carbohydrates and your protein um it’s also going to list sodium as well as nutrients that uh if they’re present vitamin D and calcium and iron and that’s because most Americans are notoriously low in all of these potassium is listed on there too that’s
Usually helpful if you have any kidney issues and so how can you use this to help well let’s take sodium as an example so most Americans eat too much sodium and every day I’m sure you can see there’s some new research coming out on how sodium restriction can improve
Heart health so your doctor told you to cut back on salt salt is just sodium chloride and so when your doctor says cut back on salt they mean sodium and your doctor or your dietitian’s recommendation might be to have less than 2,000 milligrams of sodium per day this particular label says 160
Milligrams can you see that there next to where it says sodium okay um and that’s not too bad I mean if you’re eating the recommended serving size that should be able to fit into your diet pretty well the actual definition of a low sodium food is if it contains less than
140 milligrams of sodium per serving and if you choose all of your foods with less than 140 milligrams of sodium per serving you’re very likely to stay under that 2,000 milligram a day goal some other things you’re going to notice on this food label are these percentages on the sides these are
Called The Daily values and I like to use them to help people stay within the diet diary guidelines for Americans so if you stay within less than 10% of saturated fat you’re going to meet that goal and the same for added sugar Which is less than
10% um we have trans fats listed on here still and they were important to to list on Foods because we wanted to know which foods contain them we know that trans fats are worse for us than saturated fats for hard health and artificial trans fats those are the partially
Hydrogenated lipids they’ve been baned 28 18 but you can still find them at small amounts if they have less than 0.5 gram per serving or if they’re naturally occurring in the food and we’re still researching the health effects of natural trans fats but rest assured that it’s the artificial trans fats that you
Need to be most concerned about um as far as Fiber goes how do you know if a food is a good source of fiber I ask people to aim for something that has two or more grams per serving okay um and then there’s the ingredient list
On the label but how come I don’t recommend looking at the ingredient list well there are many people out there who say that if you shouldn’t be eating the foods you can’t pronounce and I can’t go a day without seeing an influencer on social media who is recommending that we count our chemicals
And our Foods if you don’t know what it is then don’t eat it uh I think this pairs pretty well with that natural label we talked about earlier people want foods that are unaltered and simple they associate chemicals with cleaning supplies and science experiments but this kind of
Chemophobia uh became really evident to a high school teacher by the name of James Kennedy in Milbourne Australia so he made up this ingredient panel for a fresh banana and the ingredients he listed here have been validated by the USDA food database as well and so you
Can see here that many of these components of the banana sound just like chemicals um ingredient labels list the components and order of weight uh with the one that weighs the most being listed first and then the next heaviest and so on and so forth and they sound really
Intimidating but it’s mostly because we’re not used to those kinds of terms in everyday language however it doesn’t mean they’re harmful in fact bananas are really helpful for us they’re full of potassium and fiber and they balance out that sodium you’re trying to cut back on
So I don’t find this to be a very helpful tool at all and just to kind of give meme to this to sum up the thoughts on this trend here’s one that I found that says too many people are counting chemicals and not enough people understand basic
Chemistry and so they list three points here that I want to point out number one everything is made of chemicals it’s not only a word for cleaning supplies it’s a word that tells us how things are made and how they behave and number two whether a chemical
Is man-made or natural will tell us absolutely nothing about how dangerous it is there are numer natural chemicals that you can definitely find out there that you don’t want to consume like Arsenic and Cyanide and lead and bleach and yeah they’re natural but I wouldn’t want to have them and you shouldn’t
Either um and finally number three whether or not you can pronounce a chemical is really irrelevant um we’ve all stumbled upon words in a book and that doesn’t mean anything other than we haven’t had any practice saying it and so speaking of chemicals we can classify them in two main ways we’re
Talking about nutrition uh there’s macronutrients those are your proteins your fats or lipids um carbohydrates which include starches and sugars and water and micronutrients are another category of nutrients that we need in smaller amounts on a daily basis and they include things like vitamins minerals phytochemicals which are
Chemicals found in plants that provide some known health benefits and antioxidants but I could talk about nutrition all day they’ve Limited me to an hour on this presentation so let’s focus on just these three for now okay and I want to start with everyone’s favorite macronutrient and that’s
Protein uh protein is kind of the unicorn of nutrition right I mean it’s everyone’s Golden Child and so what makes protein so special to so many I think it’s because most people associate protein with healing and with lean body tissue and while it certainly is needed for healing um protein is no different
Than any other calorie taken in excess and then it can lead to body fat deposits where do we find protein well we find protein in things like Meats fish poultry Dairy eggs as well as vegetarian sources like um beans nuts and seeds but almost all of these foods that
We eat contain a little bit of protein um just some are better sources and I I’m thinking about a time when I was working up in Oregon I had a patient who had something called an inborn error of metabolism and patients who had this condition are at risk for building up
Dangerous levels of ammonia in their blood and so we usually treat them with a very low protein diet and I remember walking up to the floor after having this patient for a few days and I was greeted by the medical intern because you can tell he has a really short white
Coat on and he was so excited to talk to me about our patient and he wanted to know how to restrict the protein because he had quote gone down to the kitchen to see what the options were and was shocked that even bread had protein in
It so I think it’s a great learning experience for everyone to know that protein is widely available but has richer sources such as those that are listed here and after eating the foods with protein our bodies are going to use enzymes to digest them breaking them down into individual amino acids which
Are known as the building blocks that our bodies will use to make specific combination um there are nine essential amino acids out of the 20 available ones that we need for our body’s maintenance essential means that we cannot make it ourselves so we have to obtain it from the diet um and those
Nine are histadine isol leucine Lucine lysine methionine phenol alanine threonine tryptophan and veine there are some other amino acids that are conditionally essential and what that means is that even though our body can make them under certain conditions we can’t make enough so what we need to do in those types of
Scenarios is eat more dietary protein so that we can build up more of those particular amino acids and of course protein will provide our bodies with four calories per gram not all proteins provide us with all of the essential amino acids that we need um those that do are called
Complete proteins they contain all nine of the essential amino acids the best sources of complete protein are animal proteins things like Meats fish poultry but also eggs and dairy and the quality the meat matters too if we use something called an egg standard um 1 ounce of chicken meat or
Fish will have about seven grams of protein in it and let’s compare that to a 2 O sausage which also has seven grams of protein so why is that well it’s no secret that things like sausage and hot dogs are made from the byproducts of animals and
Most of those proteins are fibrous and they’re not easy to break down in digestion uh plus they’re also higher in fat usually saturated fat so even though they provide more food by weight they are not as dense in protein for that extra weight there are two known sources of
Complete protein in the Plant World both soy and quinoa have all nine amino acids that our body needs but Soy is clearly the winner here between the two it provides 18 grams of protein pres serving compared to four and a half for the quinoa so what do we call all of the
Other foods that provide protein but don’t have all nine amino acids well these are called incomplete proteins um they’re defined as missing at least one essential amino acid and they’re largely vegetarian sources like the beans nuts seeds and Grains if we combine a food that’s missing one type of amino acid with
Another food that has that amino acid but is missing a different one we call these complimentary proteins and a classic example would be beans and rice beans are missing methionine are commonly served with grain products like rice which have the methionine but they’re missing lysine and similarly beans have lysine so together they
Complement each other to form a complete protein however you don’t need to consume these two Foods at the same time but in order for them to be considered complimentary you should have one of each during the course of a 24-hour period now you know where you can get
Your protein the next question you might be asking is how much protein do I need a day and that answer really depends on many things but the simple answer is that for a healthy adult you only need about 8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight older adults are going to
Need more anywhere from 1 to 1.3 grams of protein per kilogram um that’s because after the age of 65 muscle mass starts to decline it puts the older person at risk for something called sarcopenia which means muscle wasting as we age we tend to eat less overall so
Our calories Decline and when our calories decline so does our protein intake and since our bodies a certain amount of protein they’re going to break down the muscles in the body that we have by encouraging a higher percentage of protein in the diet we can hopefully prevent this muscle
Loss vegetarians and vegans should also aim for greater amount anywhere from 0.9 to one per kilogram um this is because most of the vegetarian sources are not complete proteins so they would need to eat a greater amount to ensure they’re getting enough of all of those essential amino
Acids some also believe that vegetarian sources are not as well digested due to the presence of fiber and components in the plants um and if You’ had surgery or if you’re recovering from an illness you’re going to need more protein to repair the damage and prevent the muscle
Breakdown if we took um a look at how much protein we need as a percentage of our calorie intake this is all going to amount to somewhere between 10 and 35% of our total calories now you’re probably thinking that’s a really wide range but I think it just goes to show
That we really do overemphasize protein intake in the US when most of us can get by with much less and honestly that comes down to being only about 50 to 75 grams of protein today is how much people can mostly do well with speaking of eating protein to
Prevent muscle loss I can often hear people tell me that oh I need to eat more protein so I can gain muscle well this is really the same thing so preserving muscle mass and gaining muscle are not the same and eating more protein alone will not lead to muscle
Gain so if you’re trying to gain muscle you do need to increase your protein intake but I want you to think about it like building a house you’re going to need the materials which is the protein and you have to do the work which is the resistance training
Okay let’s move on now to a lesser appreciated macronutrient these are the devil of the 90s these are fats um we also call them lipids but we’ve learned so much more since the 1990s and we can better understand what kinds of fats are beneficial and those that are harmful
And I like to always point out too that nutrition is a very young science it’s actually even a younger science than genetics um let’s face it humans are pretty unreliable subjects um which makes getting consist consistent results really difficult so we do get fats from food and these are called dietary fats
Um they’re calorie dense they provide about nine calories per gram of fat that we consume um they also contain essential fats that we need to obtain from our diet alpha linolenic acid which are the omega-3 fats and lenic acid which are the omega-6 fats our bodies digest dietary fats into fatty acids
Which we will use to make hormones and the structural component of cell membranes and here’s an illustration I have of what a cell membrane looks like and you can see that we use two layers of what’s called a phospholipid to make up the membrane um you have the water
Loving part of the phospholipid that faces outward toward the blood and the inside of your cells that’s kind of little pink balls you see there and the lipid layer here in the center is the fatty acid tail okay something we also need fats for is to digest fat soluble vitamins um we
Need vitamins a d e and K and honestly I think a lot of people will take these supplements with their breakfast and breakfast for many people is a cup of coffee or a glass of OJ and why I suggest instead you start taking your vitamin D supplement at nighttime with
Your dinner because your dinner’s going to have a little more fat and that’s going to help absorb these nutrients a little bit better we also have non-essential fats uh we can use these fats in our diet to make whatever we need for our body we also use fats as an energy source when
We’re resting and also during low intensity exercises there are two main types of fats uh one is called saturated fat and I’m sure you’re probably wondering what that really means so if we look at the chemical structure of fatty acid saturated fats have only one single Bond
On the fatty acid tail meaning it’s entirely saturated with hydrogen atoms and here you can see a diagram of the chemical nature of a saturated fat compared to an unsaturated fat the little red circles on the end here are the oxygen and they make up what’s called a glycerol backbone and this long
Chain of blue circles represents the carbon of the fatty acid tail and you can see there are only one dash attached to the green hydrogen atoms that’s saturated with the hydrogen that we see there okay um saturated fats are solid at room temperature um we often say that
If the fat is hard at room temperature then it’s going to be hard on your arteries and the dietary guidelines for Americans uh recommends that we consume no more than 10% of our calories from saturated fats each day thinking back to that nutrition panel that I showed you earlier
Uh you can look at those daily values on the side on the right hand side of the label to see the percentages of saturated fats and aim for anything to be less than 10% and you’re going to be well under way to meeting this goal saturated fats are often found in animal
Fats so if you look at a steak and you’re kind of admiring that marbling between the meat fibers and so forth those are the um that’s the fat that’s that’s the saturated fat um my husband and I were eating at a restaurant up in Portland Oregon many years ago and my
Husband saw there was something called Kobe beef on the menu and at the time he’s like I don’t know what that is so he asked the waiter what’s Koby beef and what makes it so special um the waiter told us that the meat is really highly marbled and when it’s cooked the fat
Melts away and becomes very lean and tender after the waiter left I told my husband that there’s no way that’s true um but he could still order it if he wanted to um USDA will Define the lean cut of meat is to have no more than 10
Grams of total fat and no more than 4 and 1/2 gram of saturated fat in a 3 and 1/2 ounce Portion by comparison that Kobe beef has 28 grams of total fat and 11 grams of saturated fat so it’s pretty heavy up there um there are leaner cuts
Of beef by the way some of it will cook away but that portion that has most of the fat is going to be bound to something called fibrous fat meaning that it doesn’t really cook away with the heating process and so you’re going to consume that there are some vegetarian sources or plant-based
Sources and you might be thinking things like coconut oil is fine because it doesn’t come from an animal Source but honestly our bodies don’t know the difference between saturated fats from animals or plants and the research has shown that coconut and palm oils will raise the bad cholesterol moreover we have plenty of
Research indicating the health benefits of fish and plant oils that have been demonstrated in reliable research um where don’t have that with coconut oils still even though we know that saturated fats are known to increase the bad or the LDL cholesterol the exact link is debated
And many people will say it’s clear as mud the other type of fat is called an unsaturated fat and unlike saturated fats the fatty acid tail will have at least one double bond so it’ll have fewer hydrogens um when there’s only one of those double bonds it’s called a mono
Unsaturated fat these fats are liquid at room temperature and you can find them in plants like nuts olive oil avocado and canola oil um these kinds of oils could help to lower the bad or the lbl cholesterol and raise the good or the HDL cholesterol now if that unsaturated fat
Has more than one double bond so even fewer hydrogens on it um we call it a polyunsaturated fat and just like the monounsaturated fats they are liquid at room temperature uh polyunsaturated fats contain the class of essential fats that we need to obtain from our diet to
Survive there are two types of essential fats there’s the alpha linolenic acid or the omega-3 and lenic acid or Omega 6 the omega-3 fats are anti-inflammatory and you might see them listed as DH a or EPA or a plant-based version called ala and our bodies can usually convert that
Ala to both the EPA and DHA um but this process is really inefficient and so vegetarians should really aim for higher amounts of ala or think about consuming seaweed which is a great source of EPA Flex seeds chia seeds nuts and fish as well as plant oils like canola
Avocado and Olive are all good sources of omega three fats um these oils really should be stored in a dark container away from heat and light so you can prevent them from going rancid and similarly you should avoid using these oils for frying since it degrades the
Omega-3 fats of all of these the avocado oil has the highest smoke point uh that’s followed by canola oil and then olive oil and this is the temperature at which you can heat an oil before it starts to create smoke so here’s a diagram to kind of sum up
The dietary fats for you um we touched a little bit on trans fats these are the highly inflammatory fats that were banned from the US Food uh Market in 2015 companies hadn’t until about 2018 to apply and they were used by taking liquid oils from plants and pumping them
Full of hydrogen to make them solid and we know that these oils are more atherogenic than saturated fats uh on the ingredient label you see them listed as partially hydrogenated fats and it’s not the same as fully hydrogenated fats um fully hydrogenated fats are not as inflammatory as partially hydrogenated
Fats um but still they’re not considered a healthy oil Crisco is a good example of a fully hydrogenated oil and you still find these oils in many processed foods that are high in added sugar and high in added salt saturated fats are the ones that are solid at room temperature and they
Can be found in meats and full fat dairy products as well as those tropical oils like coconut and palm unsaturated fats over here are the healthiest we have the polyunsaturated fats that provide us with the essential fats we need to survive um you get them from fish nuts
And plant oils and then the monounsaturated fats are helpful to lower the LDL and raise the HDL cholesterol and you can find them in plant sources like the nuts seeds and avocados and so how do oils relate to heart health well simplistically there are two types of cholesterol there’s the
LDL cholesterol this the bad cholesterol and I want you to remember that L stands for lousy and we want that number to be low and the HDL is the good cholesterol H will stand for healthy and we want it higher so LDL cholesterol is what our bodies will deposit in the arteries the
More LDL is deposited the narrower the arteries become and this creates higher blood pressure and eventually decreases the oxygen to the heart causing a heart attack or will decrease oxygen to the brain and cause a stroke the HDL cholesterol will act like a garbage truck and pick up the
Cholesterol to deposit it back to the liver where it’ll be excreted in bile so here at the at the bottom you can see a young healthy artery and as it slowly becomes narrower and narrower with LDL cholesterol deposits and when do we start seeing this kind of narrowing well it’s usually
Sooner than you think they’ve done autopsies on children as only F years old and have already demonstrated cholesterol plaque formation usually coming from highly processed High saturated fat diets um namely fast foods and sometimes I’ll hear Too patients who have had a cardiac event in the hospital
And they’ll tell me I been eating healthy for the last two five 10 years whatever it might be but unfortunately if your HDL cholesterol remains low those plaques can remain stable and lead to these events that’s why your doctor will often place so much emphasis on improving that HDL cholesterol while
Still lowering the LDL all right so here’s your pop quiz okay um which of these fats are heart healthy and you can choose more than one I’ve got canola oil coconut oil butter margarine olive oil avocado Crisco what do you think well if you said canola oil then you’re
Right okay there’s a lot of this about canola oil but the truth is that it’s really the best ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats out of any of the oils um however you really should minimize its exposure to higher temperatures when cooking to preserve that omega-3 profile and similarly the
To the canola oil you got olive oil and avocado oil which I go ahead and like move through here um these oils have a higher ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats than the canola oil does but they’re still really good anti-inflammatory oils and as I said previously the avocado oil
Has a higher smoke point and that allows you to cook with it at a higher temperature um what about margarine well this one really depends on a lot of factors um margarin in the US must be free of trans fats so the healthiest ones are a blend of plant oils that are
High and unsaturated fats however some margins will substitute palm oil or fully hydrogenated oils to make them more firm so the answer here is to choose a very soft tub margin and then check the ingredients for tropical oils and fully hydrogenated fats um and now which ones didn’t we
Choose well we didn’t choose coconut oil and like I’ve mentioned before they’re a saturated fat and they’ve been shown to raise the LDL cholesterol even though they’ve also been shown to raise the HDL cholesterol too um butter is another saturated fat that has negative consequences on the on the lipid profile
And then there’s the Crisco that we talked about which uses those fully hydrogenated fats and it doesn’t really have any heart health benefits all right so let’s move on to America’s favorite macronutrient but the one that has the most controversy behind it carbohydrates um carbs as we call them
More starches sugars and fiber that provide the body with glucose for energy um glucose is the body’s preferred form of energy and all of the cells in the body use glucose to function our brain is the only organ that we know that can run on ketones for energy as well as
Glucose and so what else does our body use carbs for energy well if you need a quick burst of energy I can bet that that’s going to be from glucose and when you do cardio exercise where your heart rate gets gets up your body will also use glucose for that activity as
Well um carbohydrates will provide us with four calories per gram something you may not know carbohydrates are actually considered conditionally essential um and that’s because we can get our glucose from other sources in our diet rather than carbs and um it’s not true for everyone in the population
But for the general population this is true foods with carb hydrates do provide us though with some important nutrients like thamin riboflavin nasin folate iron zinc and magnesium though we can get those at other food sources but there’s one thing that carbohydrates provide for us that we can’t get anywhere else and
That’s dietary fiber and this has been shown to be hugely beneficial to our health so there are two main classes of carbohydrates okay simple carb hydrates um are known as monosaccharides monosaccharides are glucose fructose and galactose there’s also disaccharides that means Two Sugars um It’s a combination of any of the glucose
Fructose and galactose to form sucrose lactose and maltose say that five times as fast you’ll know they’re simple carbs because they’re sweet in taste which is why they are refined and they’re used to make added sugars um and sweeteners but they can be found naturally in food like honey milk
And maple syrup and fruits complex carbohydrates on the other hand are just long chains of monosaccharides and because they’re so long they have more of a starchy taste to them and we find them in foods like rice wheat potato barley oats beans and lentils the complex carbohydrates also
Contain non-digestible f um uh ones called fiber and fibers are not broken down and absorbed by our bodies at all uh they can still provide some important improvements to our health and you can find uh fibers in whole form of complex carbohydrates like whole wheat brown rice and potatoes with their
Skins soluble fiber is a type of fiber that helps as the name suggests it’s soluble and water it can slow down digestion that helps to improve satiety which that feeling of fullness after a meal I want you to think of a marathon runner soluble fibers have a slow and
Steady Pace that’s still strong but moving along they don’t create a lot of bulk in the stool in fact this gel-like texture can bind the bile of our intestine during the digestive process and it’ll excrete it in our stool and our body needs to pull more cholesterol
From the blood to make more bile and this is how soluble fibers can help lower cholesterol levels um soluble fibers can also hydrate hard stools to relieve constipation and absorb extra liquid in stools to help manage diarrhea you can find them in things like oats beans psyllium Apple pectin and
Bananas then there’s insoluble fiber okay so this type of fiber does not dissolve in water and therefore creates a lot of bulk in the stool when you think of insoluble fiber I want you to think of a bodybuilder so look down here at this picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger
Nick corne and you can see they have quite a lot of bulk and that’s kind of the same bulk that insoluble fibers are creating too um with this bulk it causes those smooth muscles of the intestines to squeeze and it really acts like a workout and it strengthens the wall of
The intestine this could help prevent constipation and also a condition called diverticulosis where these little pockets form in the large intestine that can become inflamed and cause problems in the large intestine insoluble fibers might also help in aiding and weight loss because they can make you feel full you can find them in
Things like bran nuts the cellulose of vegetables and fruit skins some of you might be thinking oh we’re talking about fiber how does it relate to the glycemic index what is the glycemic index um well this is a measurement of how much 50 grams of food raises the blood sugar 2 hours after
Consumption and this is done after a 12-hour fast that sounds really complicated but what they’re doing is they’re making they’re demonstrating how quickly food is broken down in the digestive tracts uh and absorbed into the bloodstream so foods that are broken down more quickly enter the bloodstream faster those foods have a higher
Glycemic index than the foods that are slow lower digesting and so foods with a high glycemic index would include things like potatoes corn flakes white rice and instant oatmeal foods that are more slower absorbing include ones like apples bananas oats beans spaghetti and bread and some fall somewhere in the
Middle like brown rice french fries potato chips sweet potatoes and wheat cereals but the system is really problematic some foods just don’t make sense and snicker bars are really slow absorbing despite being the kinds of foods we encourage a moderation and watermelon is a high glycemic food and
As a fresh fruit I would certainly want people to enjoy more often and soda absorbs similarly to brown rice so part of the reason for these differences comes down to the fiber content of the food the fat content of the food as well as preparation methods and other things
It’s also important to know that when these foods are tested they’re test tested individually but when we eat them at meal times we eat them as a mixture with other foods like proteins fats and vegetables that pretty much evens out the blood sugar absorption moreover the amount of carbohydrate consumed seems to
Have a bigger impact on blood sugar levels than glycemic index and that’s why we tend to emphasize more carbohydrate counting for diabetics than using the glycemic index so that leaves you to question which carbs are best well I want you to focus on fiber first um adult Americans should be getting
Anywhere from 22 to 34 grams of fiber a day with women being on the lower end and Men on the higher end and you can do this by eating more Whole Food whole fruits um I do recommend selecting seasonal ones you have some changes to your palette over the course of the Year
Choose whole grain options when possible and make vegetables a priority too um but I know there’s some instances where you just don’t want to make that substitution and sometimes that’s when other types of carbs are best so if you go to like New Orleans to get some authentic gumbo they’re going to serve
It over white rice not brown rice and that’s okay or you going to go see your Nona and she has a spaghetti and meatball recipe that her family has passed down for a hundred years and I guarantee you she’s not using whole wheat pasta that’s okay too and of
Course you really should enjoy your birthday cake the way you want it these are examples of moderation in your diet but there are other times that you want to try and reduce the added sugars in your diet remember the dietary guidelines for Americans does recommend consuming less than 10% of our total
Calories from added sugar and again going back to that nutrient panel and looking at the daily values just make sure your that number on this on the right hand side is less than 10% it would mean reducing sweeteners like table sugar honey agave syrup and like similar like things like that um if
You’re worried about your heart health I really can’t emphasize this enough fried starches and oops and starches that are cooked in um high temperature oils really should be avoided um some other things that you may want to consider too especially if you’re worried about glucose spikes if you’re
Diabetic um there’s new and upcoming research on something called a resistant starch and what resistant starches are are starches like rice or potato or pasta that have been prepared and then refrigerated and then reheated and in this process of refrigeration the starches realign and they become more resistant to breaking down so this
Lessens their effect of the blood sugar and helps to improve satiety okay how are we going to put this all together this is a lot I know um there’s a few things I want you to aim for here first and foremost I want you to aim for moderation and even though I
Really don’t like this term because it doesn’t really provide anything specific what it’s telling you is that it’s okay to have some foods that not be the healthiest all the time just in small amounts um as an example I eat breakfast at the hospital 5 days a week and
Usually my breakfast consists of some parboiled eggs some fresh fruit um some yogurt um and sometimes they will offer up a sweet bread like a pancake or a french toast or a waffle and so moderation would be me saying on Tuesday no I don’t want to have pancakes because
I’d rather have the waffles on Friday moderation is not saying I’ll have pancakes today the French toast tomorrow the waffles on Friday that’s not moderation moderation is picking one in a a course of a period of time that’s going to allow you to fall off of that kind of healthier pattern that you’re
Trying to fit into um and most of you should probably agree right now that these foods can fit like if you’re trying to eat a a cookie and you can keep the rest of your added sugars below 10% of your calories that cookie is going to be just
Fine think about the course of a week think about the course of a month there’s certain times of the of the month where you might say I’m going to have it on this day or pick a day of the week that you’re going to have a sweet
Bread or something that might fall off to um consider that to be be war in moderation there’s also a trend on social media that’s called eat what you need add what you want and those waffles that I mentioned earlier uh that I like on Fridays um I
Want them but I still need to make sure I’m getting some protein and some fruit and so what I’ll do is I’ll take some plain Greek yogurt super high in protein I’ll put them on top and I’ll add some sliced strawberries and this makes me happy because I can still have my Waffle
But it suits my dietary needs with the protein and the yogurt and the fiber and the fruit and then let’s not forget my favorite goal of all which is eat better not less it’s a fact that cutting calories is the only way to lose weight and many
Diets out there will try and convince you that it’s some special makeup but really when we look at it they just cut back on calories but when people start to diet they talk about how they’re eating less and I want to stop them and say no no no
You don’t need to eat less you go from having a hamburger and a french fries and a large Coke to a chicken breast and a carrot stick with some water you’re going to be really hungry um you’re going to reach for something later that you crave and
You’re going to overdo it so don’t subtract just make better choices have a chicken breast over a salad put some quinoa and some steamed beans and beets and broccoli and carrot add a vinegrette squeeze a lemon that’s going to be a much healthier lunch it’s be much more uh filling and you’re going
To feel full afterward there are some things I want you to try and avoid though um really making sure that you have a good relationship with your food is Paramount so you want to avoid diet extremes um there are people who create some fear about Foods or food groups and they’re really
Unfounded uh people don’t generally stick with these types of extreme diets and they go back to bad habits and unconscious eating and that can lead to the same health problems that they had before um I see people then say look hey I was following that really strict diet
It was working and now I’m back to eating like usual but I’ve regained weight so that means the diet was probably right but honestly it’s not another example would be like 15 years ago or so everyone was going gluten-free even if they didn’t have celiac disease but
For the most that just isn’t sustainable and they go back to eating foods with gluten that they would have gained the weight with the gluten real was never the problem it never was it was the foods they were eating and avoiding at the time like crackers muffins cakes and
Chips that were high in calories then when they cut them out and they lost weight and then they added them back and they regained It roller coaster dieting is something that’s really dangerous too because your body is going through severe restrictions and calories usually with less protein that causes muscle
Breakdown down and then the pendulum will swing back to normal diet it’s high in calories and people will gain more weight than before and this repeats again and again and it WS havoc on your metabolism there’s also something called orthorexia and you might see that little suffix there rexia and I’m sure you’re
Going to associate it with anorexia and you’re right this is an eating disorder so orthorexia is the avoidance of all foods that are not considered healthy and it’s it’s an obession uh with healthy eating and it often leads to social isolation and anxiety about eating food um avoiding foods that are not considered
Healthy can lead to malnutrition and other nutrient deficiencies so remember we really do know that all foods can fit into a healthy diet yeah Kylie I know but how do I make this work okay all right so the simple answer here is my go-to recommendation I like the Mediterranean
Diet um these are the foods that are eaten around the countries of the Mediterranean Sea including Spain Italy Greece Lebanon Morocco southern France the foods in this region will vary on culture but they are largely plant-based with whole grains nuts fresh fruits and vegetables beans low-fat Dairy seafood
And lean poultry uh very little meat is consumed and olive oil is the preferred dietary fat um in fact these diets were studied in the famous seven country study which found that the type of fat affects cardiovascular health more than total fat and AFF fact Mediterranean diets average about 40% fat but they’re
Mostly unsaturated fats they’re also 40% carbohydrate and they’re high in fiber with very few processed foods um they also contain only about 20% protein and here’s the reason I recommend this diet it has been ranked the number one healthiest diet for years in a row by US News and World Report
They found that it’s best for weight loss heart health diabetes bone and joint health it’s the easiest to follow it’s good for family meals and it has more longevity po potential than most other diets that are out there and the research backs this up if
You turn on the news or you check the pub Med database you can find endless studies that are strongly linking the Mediterranean diet to lower stroke risk lower risk for type two diabetes lower risk for certain cancers heart attack hypertension and the lower risk for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson these
Too so if you’re interested um here’s some guidelines on how to follow the Mediterranean diet first aim for plentiful portions of fruits and vegetables um I recommend replacing not adding so if I say I want you to have some hummus and you say oh I
Have hummus every day with P chips I was say that’s great I want you to replace the P chips with fresh carrots and bell peppers um also think about having half of your dinner plate full of vegetables but it doesn’t have to be the same vegetable
You can have one prepared and one raw eat fruits for a snack with a handful of nuts choose whole grains most of the time but yeah aware like I said earlier even Italians have white flour pastas but they have them in smaller portions so the portions matter to choose fish
And poultry a few times a week and use lean poultry or beans and lentils in other days some more tips for Success um are to limit things like butter and lard um I think we heard how bad Mor drone was a few years ago and with the trans fats
And I think a lot of Americans went back to using butter but honestly having a selection of oils like olive oil avocado oil walnut oil and use them using them for various purposes is much better uh Reserve sweets and meats for once a week and if you choose toink drink uh red
Wine is what is used in the Mediterranean diet but you need to limit your portion to 5 ounces for women or 10 ounces for men and the thing that I really like about the Mediterranean diet is that it’s not owned by any one person or company and there’s so many free
Excellent sources that are out there um I like the oldways website and I put their little logo right here so you can see it they have lots of free recipes and resources so you can go on there to look up um some more information about this here’s what an example of a
Mediterranean menu would look like I pulled it from Healthline they’ve got some breakfast here with an omelette and veggie and Olive they have a snack of some dried apricots and roasted almonds for lunch they’re having a falafal bowl with some feta onions quinoa lettuce tomatoes hummus and brown rice they’ll
Have some fresh vegetables with hummus for a snack and for dinner they’ll have some grilled chicken with vegetables olives tomatoes and a glass of red wine and for dessert they have some Greek yogurt with fresh fruit and honey uh my personal take on this is I like to take
Frozen berries and I Tha them out in the microwave and then put a dollop of lowfat Greek yogurt on top with some pizzas and cinnamon and so good yummy that’s one of my addictions right now so is that it well no there’s one other diet that’s out there um it’s
Called the DASH diet and dash stands for dietary approaches to stop hypertension and was created by the National Institute of Health and it rakes number two as the healthiest diet by US News and World Report you’re going to find a lot of similarities with the Mediterranean diet but this one was
Promoted mostly for preventing hypertension it has a focus on reducing dietary sodium um to less than 2,300 milligrams per day which is about one teaspoon and as this diet has been studied and used other health benefits such as cancer reduction uh lowering type 2 diabetes risk lowering metabolic
Syndrome which is the trifecta of high blood pressure high cholesterol and insulin resistance as a consequence of having some excessive disal fat in the abdomen um it’s also been shown to decrease heart disease and stroke in men and also in women this diet is also free
And you can find recipes um on the national heart lung and blood institute’s website so here’s an example of a dash menu uh as you can see it’s very similar to the Mediterranean diet but geared more toward that American taste um I also have several photo suggestions down
Here the one of the very far right is mine I serve that to my kids it’s some Greek uh vanilla yogurt with some fresh berries and nuts and a split banana sometimes I’ll put chocolate chips in there too just to make it more fun um there’s a Bento Box over here with some
Quinoa tomatoes cucumbers and blueberries um probably some nuts in there too here’s some chicken lettuce wraps here you can see a piece of whole grained toast with some nut or seed butter and fresh berries and here’s a grilled chicken breast on a salad of lettuce and tomatoes and hopefully
You’re star to see a pattern here of what to expect when you’re following a dash diet there’s an abundant amount of produce that helps to reduce the salt in the diet and the fiber and the meats improve the body’s inflammation and the last thoughts okay please enjoy eating just really work on
Having a good relationship with your food you can usually feel better about yourself by making some sensible choices and I like to preach that 8020 rule where you follow what you need 80% of the day and allow up to 20% to stray from it um you want to choose habits
That are going to stick with you for the long term so it’s not a diet it’s a lifestyle and lifestyle habits take longer to see the benefits but they are the ones that are proven to help you for your future health and if you do make a
Bad choice don’t let it ruin your day so if you get a flat tire do you let the air out of the other three no you just change the tire and move on and that’s what I’ve got thank you so much for listening it’s been my pleasure to spend the evening with
You thank you so much cie um does anyone have questions um feel free to either put them in the chat or unmute yourself yeah now you can un mute yourself and ask your question or you feel free to put them in the chat okay question um any tricks for
Getting kids to eat raw bell peppers um kids could be really picky and it depends on their age usually one of my favorite tips is that if you’re going to introduce a new food um have a food that they’re comfortable with on the same plate so uh my kids usually
Loved fresh fruit like strawberries and if I was going to put anything new on there putting something that’s really familiar that they enjoy on the plate at the same time and then not pressuring them to eat it all um and honestly you are going to be the poster child for
What your kids want to do so if you’re eating the bell peppers you’re showing your children that they’re delicious that you enjoy them and they’re more likely to put it to their mouth but sometimes maybe what you got to do honestly is give them something to
Enjoy it with um this is where giving them something like a little bit of ranch dressing or something just until they can get used to having it and that’s perfectly fine um sometimes that’s what they need and then they enjoy it and as they get older they’re
Not going to want it with Ranch and they’re going to want it with something else or even plain thank you Kelly um let’s see thank you uh from Shay oh question okay let’s see my 10-year-old hates my cooking and I hate cooking he suggested I take a cooking
Class or that he would teach me any recommendations for this situation maybe I um experiment with Dash and Mediterranean diets and try to enjoy it more incorporate your child the cooking process with you um usually if they are there and they’re seeing how everything is gone into the cooking um they’re
Committed to it and they’re more likely to try the food not only that but I think these are skills that children are eager to learn they want to know how to prepare food and a cooking class with your 10-year-old SS like a really fun activity for the two of you to do
Together but I think engaging children in cooking and getting them to uh become more comfortable with the cooking process is going to allow to see all the opportunities for healthy eating that are out there thank you Kelly question uh what are the foods that reduces the blood
Pressure most of the research is done on reducing sodium intake and honestly there was um something that had just come out after I had made all these slides which shows that a high pottassium diet is actually the most beneficial for reducing um hypertension and we get cium from fruits and
Vegetables and that just aligns with both the Mediterranean and the DASH diet uh both of those are high produce diets we’re talking about anywhere from 9 to 12 servings of fruits and vegetables a day and when you’re eating that many fruits and vegetables you’re not leaving
A lot of room for processed foods and processed foods have a lot of sodium in them so it goes hand in hand um cut back on the processed boots um reduce sodium in your cooking by using other methods like marinating in juices or using lemon uh lemon rind actually is a really great
Uh way to add flavor without having to add salt um and then incorporating more of the fresh produce into the diet is going to help to reduce the hypertension thank you Kelly question is there a brand you recommend for a vegan v multivitamin oh that’s such a great question you know I
Um I’m GNA have to get back to you on that one I can’t say off the top of my head um and I’m not sponsored by anybody so I don’t want there anyone to think that I’m selling a product but um I can get back to you Lori with some
Recommendations okay sure I I remember Jenny asked that question I’ll email it to her when I receive the information from you so that’s the last question I see in the chat um if you guys have any more question please feel free again to unmute yourself and ask or put in the
Chat oh uh do you recommend Omega 3 FY s’s to everyone um I don’t think that they’re a bad idea I’m as a dietician I really believe in the power of food and I want people to make healthier food choices and when I was doing my Master’s
Research I was on vitamin E um my major Professor is known as the goddess of vitamin E and she is amazing um and she had this really fun cartoon that she would always show whenever she talk about vitamin E and it a fast food counter and there was a rather portly
Gentleman ordering a double double with a biggie fry and a extra large Coke and oh throw in a vitamin E pill gotta watch the old ticker um that really sunk in when I was studying this that I thought gosh we shouldn’t be band dating our diet by taking supplements and he’d be
So much better off if he were to have a handful of nuts to replace some of those french fries and ultimately that’s kind of what this conversation is about eat better not less and choosing foods that are going to be providing you with those nutrients but if you are somebody who is
A vegan or a vegetarian um I know that getting your Omega-3s are very difficult um and in those cases or if you feel like you have a vitamin deficiency for a medical reason um then yeah taking the supplement is absolutely advisable but take it with a fatty food so it absorbs thank you
Kelly that’s the last question um now it’s 702 I want to respect everybody’s time and it’s dinner time Kelly hasn’t had her dinner yet um and she might be hungry um so thank you so much Cali uh we really appreciate um uh you taking the time to share with us
Um the essentials of nutrition and how to eat better not less I also want to thank everyone for joining the program I hope you all find the information um helpful to you I will send out an evaluation survey together with the recording link and K’s presentation slides uh please give us your feedback
So we can continue to proof again thank you everyone have a wonderful rest of your evening bye-bye now