Healthy Eating Tips: How Seasonal Changes Influence Food Fads and Emotions in Women’s Health Journeys

Have you ever noticed how the changing seasons can influence not just your mood but also your health? As we transition into fall, it’s essential to understand the profound impact that seasonal changes can have on our emotional and physical well-being. Join host Heather Carey in this enlightening episode of Real Food Stories, where she shares her personal journey, including the significant life changes she faced in October, such as her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Through her candid storytelling, Heather invites you to explore the intricate relationship between nutrition, food fads and emotional health, especially for women navigating midlife.

Heather introduces her innovative Healthy Midlife Fall Reset program, a transformative approach designed to ease your transition into the fall season with nutritious and delicious recipes. This program is not just another diet; it’s a sustainable way of eating that emphasizes balance and enjoyment. Throughout the episode, Heather critiques various popular and controversial diets that have been promoted by medical professionals, particularly those that instill fear in women seeking health solutions. She expresses her frustration with the promotion of diets lacking scientific backing, such as the carnivore diet, and discusses the ethical implications of these practices in the realm of women’s health.

With her expertise as a culinary nutritionist, Heather advocates for a balanced approach to nutrition, encouraging listeners to seek guidance from qualified nutritionists rather than succumbing to potentially harmful food fads. You’ll gain valuable insights into mindful eating practices and learn how to cultivate a healthy relationship with food that honors your body and its needs. Heather emphasizes the importance of enjoying food as a vital aspect of our lives, especially as we navigate the complexities of midlife and menopause.

This episode is packed with healthy eating tips, nutrition advice, and personal food stories that resonate with anyone looking to improve their health and well-being. Whether you’re curious about seasonal eating, the Mediterranean diet, or the myths surrounding weight loss, Heather provides a wealth of information to help you make informed decisions about your food and lifestyle choices. Join the conversation and discover how to embrace the fall season with a renewed sense of vitality and joy in your culinary journey.

Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with Heather and share your thoughts on the episode. Together, let’s break free from the confusion surrounding food fads and celebrate the abundance of real food stories!

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Whether you are looking for 1-1 nutrition coaching or kitchen coaching let’s have a chat. Click HERE to reach out to Heather.

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Hi, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the first time, it’s so nice to meet you, and I’m very glad you’re here with me. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relationship to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. So hello again and welcome back and happy fall. We are in the fall season. Now the month of October has always historically been for me the month when big things change in my life. This is the month that I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 27 years ago. It was the month that I had back surgery and It also always just feels like a big change to me physically. I can really feel the seasons, especially when we go from warmer into cooler months. It’s cold. It’s dreary where I live. It’s 50 degrees and raining today. It’s been raining for days. So this month always provokes a lot of emotions for me. And you might be feeling this too. So let’s not be alone. Let’s do this together. I’m going to mention quickly before I get on with what I was planning on speaking about today and just get this out of the way, but my Healthy Midlife Fall Reset has officially launched for the season and I am in the middle of my own two weeks on the reset because I love it that much. And I can tell you personally that it has been so great. Going into colder weather, can feel jarring sometimes when literally last week I was at the beach swimming in the ocean at my friend’s beach house. Right now I want to give myself a meal planning holiday, so to speak, yet still eat healthy while at the same time transitioning what I’m eating into fall seasonal foods. And that is what the reset is totally about. Now, I call it a midlife reset because I address some foods and behaviors that specifically women need to get support with. But seriously, the food and recipes are great for everybody. This is not a diet, nor is this not an isolated way to eat, as in the food only applies to you and your family can’t partake in it. Instead, this is a way to get back on track. and ease into fall. It’s a way to get inspired and show you what nutritious, delicious food can actually be. The Reset is a way to eat for life. All of my participants have raved about the creative yet easy recipes, along with pictures, of course, and the day-by-day game plan that you get. Plus, you get a one-on-one coaching session with me to talk about goals for the next few months. Now, the link is in my show notes, and I would love to see you there. And while you can sign up anytime and get started at any time, this is a fall reset, so it doesn’t last forever. So definitely consider clicking on the link in my show notes, just checking it out, no pressure, and hope to see you in there. Now. Being that it is October and we are slipping into dark, cold, and all things Halloween, I thought I would dedicate this month to all the scary food trends you see on the internet. Because in the nutrition and food world, there’s so much to be fearful of. Scary diets, there’s scary food trends, scary people promoting those frightening ways to eat. And for the next few weeks of October, I will be highlighting all of these scary things so you can have the information and make your own educated decisions. So let’s get on with it. On today’s episode, I look at some of the top nutrition gurus and point out why they have made an absolute mess out of everyday eating. Not only do they come up with insane diets and theories, but they instill a huge amount of fear, especially into women in midlife who are desperately seeking answers to their ever-changing bodies. I personally, I have had enough. Seriously, just when it seems like there are no other diets that can possibly be created by snake oil salespeople, something new pops up to upend my theory. I talked in episode eight, if you want to go back and take a listen, about some diets that have been popular lately and why these diets need to be ignored. But today I am going after the people behind these diets. And actually, I’m going to get a little more specific even and talk about the worst offenders of them all, the medical community, the medical doctors who come up with some ridiculous radical ideas. and in turn, make a ton of money off these ideas simply because they have an MD after their names, the ones who do not care about you and are simply out to profit at your expense. It is utterly baffling to me how some medical doctors can spew so much misinformation and feel good about themselves on a daily basis. And as I was doing some research, I realized that there are so many of these doctors. And… While I can’t get to every one of them in this episode, because that would literally take me days to do, I’m going to highlight a few of my favorites and hopefully do a follow-up episode because seriously, there is an unending list of these culprits. Now, I know I sound agitated and you might be wondering, why does this even get to me so much? Why do I even care about what other people are doing and selling? Because I always tell my clients, my friends, my family, whoever. will listen to me to please ignore the insanity. Food and eating is not that complicated, but he who screams the loudest gets heard the most. And when medical doctors, with all their respect and glory, start spewing nutritional nonsense, people listen. And it drives me crazy. It drives me crazy because it gives traditional nutritionists and people… who genuinely care about you, your well-being, and your health, a backseat. What I have to say about food, which is not alarmist or full of fear, it’s actually quite the opposite, is boring to some people. People are looking for the magic bullet, the gold star, and some medical professionals are there to promise it all to you for a price. Now listen. I know that I can invent some unrealistic menopause diet and tell you to detox and eat certain foods while eliminating gluten and dairy, and I can sell a lot of books that ultimately don’t work and make you feel worse about yourself. But I ethically cannot do that. I can’t do that because I know there is no science behind half of this nonsense, and I know that you will end. this diet frustrated and more confused than ever. And then you’ll end up searching for your next diet and on and on. Now, doctors promoting diets have been around since I can remember, since I was a young girl. The first that I really remember was the Atkins diet and the Dr. Atkins diet revolution. The first high protein diet that promoted steak, eggs, butter, and bacon in lieu of simple, healthy eating in order to lose weight. Now, let it be known that Dr. Atkins was also a cardiologist, and unbelievably, there have been many, many offshoots to his original diet. Think the keto diet and, most recently, the carnivore diet. So if a diet like the carnivore diet sounds appealing to you because you love eating steak, think again. This diet might go down as one of the worst I have ever seen. On this diet, you eat only meat, steak, eggs, chicken, seafood, butter. In short, anything that is labeled an animal product only. Now, what happens when you eat only meat on the carnivore diet? Well, for one, you eat zero carbohydrates. Zero. Yes, I am talking about the essential food group that feeds your brain. Carbs are the fruits and vegetables of the food world. You know those edible vitamins I frequently talk about. On this type of diet, which is close to the keto diet, except that the keto diet actually does have some carbs, not a lot, but some, you are likely going to lose some weight for reasons that are entirely unhealthy. The author also promotes better moods and, of course, blood sugar regulation, all catch phrases, because you are eating absolutely nothing that would spike or lower. Blood sugar. You need to eat sugar to do that. But what about vegetables like those pesky green beans? There’s none of that. I’m not sure where the better moods come from, which is entirely subjective anyway, but I guess when you don’t have blood sugar rising and falling, you don’t feel as crazy. But I’m not really sure, actually. This diet is insane. Okay, being on an all-meat diet is not recommended for so many reasons. Here’s what the meat diet does not have. Fiber, which is necessary to digest food and promote gut health. Healthy fats from plants like olive oil and avocado. There’s no fruits and vegetables, like I said, no beans, no nothing except for meat. Listen, we’re not lions and cheetahs. We humans don’t work that way. Not to mention the price tag of such a diet. Who can afford to live on a meat? Only diet anyway. So if you’re wondering who wrote the book, The Carnivore Diet, I won’t keep you in suspense. The author is Sean Baker, and he is a medical doctor, an orthopedist, in fact, and an elite level athlete. Go figure. Now, again, what is a medical doctor doing writing a book like this that promotes a diet that is full of saturated fat and cholesterol? and has no fiber and nothing else nutritious to talk about. And on top of it, it has no credible evidence and only anecdotal evidence. Personal stories do not a good diet make, people. Let’s get clear on that. Now, the reason I am going on and on about this meat-only diet is because from my research, a lot of these doctors seem to promote these more radical diets. the keto diet, keto versions of the diet, high protein diets, and now this meat-only diet. So I wanted to just highlight this diet. But let’s consider also the environmental impact of eating a meat-only diet. The methane gas that cows release is easily one of the worst offenders to our environment. The soil erosion from having to clear land for livestock degrades organic matter in the soil. and on and on. These side effects to this type of diet are just a handful that this medical doctor has failed to consider and that most diets fail to consider. And one more, I wanted to mention the one consideration that I think is the most important sticking point of almost all of these diets, and that is the elitism that surrounds them. Whenever I hear about a diet like the carnivore diet, for example, my first thought is to consider who on earth can afford a diet like that? I know that when I eat meat of any kind, I want my meats to be organic because organic ensures that no pesticides or antibiotics were used in the feeding of the animals or the slaughtering of them. And even still, organic or not, Meat is considerably more expensive than, say, beans and brown rice, which is an excellent combination of high-quality protein. I’m not positive who can actually afford such a diet, but I guess someone is out there who can. And for the rest of us who think groceries are sort of expensive these days, that would probably be a no. Diets notoriously cater to a certain class of people. because those people have money, and those people will spend on organics and supplements and obscure ingredients. And this leaves out the majority of people who don’t have access to good grocery stores, or money, or have to pay the rent, or are incredibly busy working parents, or who can sometimes barely scrape up enough money for bills. Now, no matter what your economic level, though, Diets like these, created by unethical medical doctors, profit from playing on people’s fears and pain. I can understand when you are diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, for example, or another illness that seems to have no cause or cure, you can become entirely desperate for answers and a cure. And there are many professional people to cater to your fears. Fear is an excellent motivator. And speaking of elitism, there’s also Dr. Mark Hyman and his Ultra Wellness Center. Just by the way, Dr. Hyman has been called by the American Council on Science and Health, quote, the Dr. Oz of nutrition. And if you don’t know who Dr. Oz is, you likely do. I’ll get to him after I talk about Dr. Hyman and tell you why he was called the Dr. Oz of nutrition. So let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Mark Hyman. Dr. Hyman is a medical doctor who practices is functional medicine now, which gets to the root cause. Now, functional medicine is something I’m going to get more into in the next couple of weeks in my series on scary diets and all things nutrition. So I won’t totally get into it right now. But Dr. Hyman has a center in Massachusetts called the Ultra Wellness Center and has written a number of books, the latest being called the Pee-gan diet, which is a combination of paleo and vegan. He has written the 10-Day Detox Diet, The Blood Sugar Solution, Eat Fat, Get Thin, The Food Fix, and a couple others. Dr. Hyman also, in conjunction with his books, sells supplements, shakes, powders, pills, programs, and everything that you can shake your dollar tree at. Dr. Hyman is full of contradictions and cuckoo claims. Hyman, on the homepage of his website, says, quote, food isn’t like medicine. It is our medicine. But then in his frequently asked questions on his website, writes about his trademarked term, diabesity, which I guess is a combination of diabetes and obesity, and tells you about all the supplements that you need to buy to support your health. Now, supplements are not food, just by the way. Looking deeper into his website, he has an entire store of highly priced supplements, and I mean high priced. That is not food, Dr. Hyman. I’m baffled. If food is medicine, why not get these nutrients from your food? In his Diabesity Frequently Asked Questions, he claims that you need to take his supplements for at least one year. Why? Who knows? Is there research done on this? Is there a study that proves that his supplements are the thing that moves the needle to good health? The supplement industry, by the way, is a multi-billion dollar unregulated business. There is zero regulation to taking vitamins. You can walk into any Whole Foods or CVS and buy pills and take as many as you want for unknown reasons. Now, I was about to start looking up the specific supplements he tells you to take for adrenal burnout, another false diagnosis, or your thyroid support, and on and on. And I just stopped myself because it’s not worth my time or yours. The point is, doctors trying to sell you thousands of dollars in overpriced supplements you is completely unethical in my opinion, especially when and if you ever need those supplements, you can likely just buy them for a better price anywhere else. You can buy them on the internet and get a better price. And let’s go a little further here. Now, food is powerful. I am the first person to advocate that. Food is something we need to do every single day. And what we eat definitely matters. So why is this doctor who says food is your medicine on his homepage following that up with supplements and with other things like protein powders made with, quote, natural flavors like stevia and silicon dioxide, a food additive, a food additive, To make money, period. I’m going to give you a little bonus too. Silicon dioxide was shown to promote intestinal inflammation in a study done in the Journal of Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. I’ll link that in my show notes if you’re interested in finding out more about that. inflammation in your intestines does not go against what he is trying to promote. Dr. Hyman also has a warning on his site for legal purposes about lead being found in his protein powders. So again, Dr. Hyman, why, why, why would you sell something like this? And the answer is that people don’t care. They are lured in by… The magic of these very powerful human beings. And when you are fed a spoonful of fear from a medical professional, most people are going to listen. They are not going to dig in and do the research, but it’s all over his site. So Dr. Hyman contradicts himself, but I want to also point out that even promoting food you as medicine, that food is not a substitute for medicine when it is needed. You are not a failure for needing support for medications. Talking about Dr. Hyman leads me to so many others. Let’s talk about the godfather of medical quackery, Dr. Oz, who recently ended his show that was on daily for years to run for senator of Pennsylvania. He hosted his nutrition and food-based show, I guess if that’s what you want to call it, based on unfounded science and puzzling theories on health and weight loss. I do believe that Dr. Oz started out with some good intentions. Back in 2005, he wrote his first book called You, an Owner’s Manual, which was aimed at demystifying the human body. and how our bodies work. And somewhere along the way, he chose to step out of a prestigious career as a cardiothoracic surgeon at Columbia to do a daily TV show and promote quackery. This has been a head-scratcher for me. Why? Why would a well-known prestigious physician go on national television to sell you his wares. For the money? For the prestige? Because you’re a narcissist? Probably all three. Maybe we do have a former president, if you remember, that did the very same thing and had his own television show for a while. Anyway, it’s bad enough that food manufacturers and supplement companies have almost zero regulation, but medical doctors like Dr. Oz, for example, have tried to sell anything and everything under the sun for profit. It’s unbelievable, and we see you. What has Dr. Oz not sold on his television shows? Now, here’s some examples. Encouraging people to take human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone that women produce during pregnancy, along with a 500-calorie diet. Now, you might have heard of this diet for a little bit. This diet, in fact, got the attention after a while of the FDA, which is the government regulating department for food and drugs in the United States. This was just the beginning. I mean, seriously, Dr. Oz attended Harvard and went to medical school at Columbia. What is the motivation to sell quackery? Don’t doctors have to follow a code of ethics to uphold standards of medicine? Now, the FDA banned the HCG hormone for weight loss, citing claims as dangerous. So what’s going on here? We’re supposed to be able to trust our doctors. If we can’t trust a medical professional, then what else do we have when it comes to the health of our bodies? But here’s something important to note. First of all, doctors are not traditionally trained in nutrition and food. They are surgeons. They are researchers. They are your family physician. As a nutritionist, you would not… expect me to give you medical advice, and I would never expect my doctor to tell me how to eat. It’s not their fault. Medical doctors can’t be experts in everything. I’m with you if you believe that doctors should know how to eat because I think food counts that much, especially when it comes to our health. Food is our main nutrient, but you can’t be everything to everyone. So doctors cannot be expected to know everything about your food. But some doctors think that you can. And medical doctors hold a lot of weight and prestige and power. And some doctors know that food is endlessly confusing. Orthopedists, cardiology surgeons, osteopathic doctors have ridden the wave of this food bewilderment to create books, eating plans, and radical diets. Many of these diets are fringe and crazy and fill you with fear if you don’t follow them. And in my opinion, it is flat out unethical. So do doctors have to adhere to a code of medical ethics? I was really curious about this. So I did a little internet research just to check this out. And I landed on the National Institute of Health and an article on the code of medical ethics. And in fact, they do. And here is one of their ethics. A physician shall, while caring for a patient, Regard responsibility to the patient as paramount. Now, my lawyer husband reminded me when I told him that, that unless these doctors are caring one-on-one for a patient, they do have the freedom of speech. And so I guess that they can write all the books in the world and spew things on their websites and not get reprimanded for that. So when you write a book or have a website, you’re not caring for individuals. So like I said at the beginning, there are an endless amount of doctors promoting diet books. So I think just knowing that a doctor is promoting a diet book should just raise a big red flag. A couple of the other notable ones are Dr. Dukin of the Dukin diet, which is another high-protein starvation diet. Dr. Perlmutter, who wrote the book Grain Brain. And. has other harebrained books. How about Dr. Mercola, an osteopathic doctor who is, quote, at war with medicine and has a website the size of Amazon with products on it that he sells? There’s the gynecologist, Dr. Kristen Northrup. These doctors and their books and products follow the money, and it is attractive to follow them. I get it. I want to also mention that I am talking only about medical doctors today. I haven’t even gotten into the other professionals who are allowed to call themselves doctors, such as chiropractors and naturopaths. If you can’t trust a doctor and they’re trying to sell you all of their pills and potions and supplements and books, then what are we supposed to do? And I think the first thing is to realize. that your doctor is trained in medicine. They are trained to diagnose diseases and health issues. They are trained to make recommendations for specialists and prescribe medications. They are not trained in nutrition and food. And that’s just fine. Just like I wouldn’t be expected to perform surgery on you, a doctor should not be expected to know everything. So when you see a doctor who is an orthopedist, for example, promote a book on nutrition, beware. Second, if your doctor is telling you to eat something that sounds like the latest diet, it is because they themselves are getting overwhelmed with confused clients and probably are just wanting to help. I would recommend not taking diet advice from your doctor unless they are trained you in clinical nutrition, which they are probably not. Most doctors get about an hour or two of nutrition training in medical school. The third, if the doctor sells a book that starts with the words, miracle diet, ultra, solution, or cure, and bonus, if they sell a long line of supplements, powder, shakes, pills, and expensive memberships, they are out. to make money off of you, period. Please do not waste your money or get scared that you are out of ideas of how to eat. And fourth, if a doctor is promoting a diet that cuts out whole food groups, has you take injections, eat only meat, for example, just run in the other direction. So okay, you might still be confused. If the doctor can’t prescribe you a diet, now what? So what can we do instead of following the directions of people who we have revered and put up on a pedestal?I think the most important thing is to get guidance from a real nutritionist. Food is not complicated. We need a balance of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and proteins. That’s it. On top of that, we want it to taste good, so we come back for more and keep eating this really healthy food. What really throws us is what happens with how we were raised. The food beliefs we carry, the diet culture we have embraced, our emotions around food, and so many of the other behaviors that have complicated real, whole, simple food. Show me a diet that talks about that side of eating. You probably won’t see it. We need to look at the behaviors. Now, I could talk all day about quack doctors, but I will leave you with this. You are worth having an uncomplicated, joyous way of eating that is pleasurable, healthy, and delicious. And that is totally possible. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, if you have any thoughts on today’s topic, please do not hesitate to leave me a comment in the show notes to continue the discussion. Look for any links that I referenced. on today’s podcast in those show notes and also check to see if I’ve always have just left a couple of bonus recipes for you to try. And if you loved this podcast, please do not hesitate to rate and review. I would love it. It helps me to get the word out. So have a great week and bye for now.