Greens Powders, Carnivore Diets, and the £385 Billion Wellness Boom

26:35It had helped them with kind of mental clarity. And if you imagine switching from like a very ultra processed diet, for example, into that, he actually initially felt he was achieving that because he did lose weight. He did have increased energy and he did have improved mental clarity. But then what happened was obviously that's taking it so far and, you know, a very kind of excessive approach to something. And what happened is that his cholesterol levels obviously have massively exceeded any normal and tolerable limit to the point that the cholesterol is, as you said, it's like, it's literally oozing out his skin.

27:14It's like, you know, when a baby's born and it's covered in the vermix. Yeah, it's like vermix. It looks just It's like that. It's a kind of waxy, yellowy paste, as though it's stuck to him, just like when baby's born. Poor guy. I mean, to give you an idea, guys, the baseline level should be between 210 and 300 milligrams. He was 1 ,000 milligrams. It is so worrying, but it's the placebo effect of you follow a fad diet, you feel great. But that's probably a knock-on effect of a multitude of factors. It's not the diet itself. It's probably the weight loss, depending on what weight he was before and after, that gave him more energy, not the fact he was eating sticks of butter.

27:49And then sure enough, years follow and you're left with irreversible damage. Yeah. And I just as a closing thought on that one, as I said, it's definitely not to demonize anything. But it is just when you're constantly being shown stuff like this will change your life. It really is. You know, I saw something and we're going to talk about it next week. So I'm not going to go into it too much. I saw I was advertised on something last night on my Instagram, which was a picture of a vitamin drip. And it said, be your best self. Yeah. And I'm really tired this week, feeling the juggle. And you say, well, that's quite tempting, isn't it?

28:24It's better than the tongue thing I got. It's probably better than that. But it's just it's also tempting, right? You're struggling. Someone says this is your easy route out and you take it. But actually, as you always say, like there's so much nuance in everything and you can't you just don't get that through that kind of very clickbaity advice online. and so I can completely understand how this was served to someone. And you think, yes, I do need to lose weight. I am struggling with my energy. That's a great idea. Maybe it will work for me too. But without that rounded education of, well, you don't have any fiber.

29:00There's too much saturated fat, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We both struggle, Ella. So how could, you know, doctors struggle, nutritionists struggle, health professionals struggle. And we were all hit by these drip things and everything. And you think, wow, that might work for me. So if we feel that way, imagine how everyone feels. It doesn't have any education in the area. I just think it's awful preying on vulnerable people. It's just not fair. Yeah, it's just normal to want a quick-ish fix. Someone to tell you how to sort a problem. It's just that life is more nuanced than that. And I think that's what's missing from the online world.

29:31So I think it's quite extraordinary. I've certainly never seen anything like it. But I think it is also like very wise warning in terms of getting too much singular advice online. Which is why we need a new book that's going to give us some very good accessible tips, Ella. It is so important to me that my home feels like a calm and cozy sanctuary from the chaos of the world. I found that beyond decorating, sensory things like warm smells and soft textures make the biggest impact for that. and especially as it cools down outside, I'm looking for the best ways to snuggle up on my couch. I recently moved and one of the very first things I added to my new living room was my bubble cuddle blanket from Cozy Earth.

30:15It's a faux fur material that is so incredibly soft and has this cool bubble design that makes it look and feel very plush. It's a mid-weight construction, so I've honestly decided against getting a weighted blanket because it's not too heavy, but you still get that feeling of security when you lie under it. My roommate has said it's her new favorite blanket, and we've been keeping it on the couch at all times instead of the blanket basket with the rest of our options. I've also been loving my bamboo sheets from Cozy Earth. The temperature regulating capabilities were great for the summer, and now that it's getting a little cooler at night, I'm just really appreciating the softness of the sheets and pillowcases.

30:51It's like I'm slipping into a cloud every night. Plus, you can try them risk-free with Cozy Earth's 100-night sleep trial. If you don't love them, you just return them hassle-free, but believe me, you're going to be hooked after the first night. So if you're looking to make your home a little more cozy this fall, head to CozyEarth.com and use my code SCOOP for 20 % off. That's CozyEarth.com code SCOOP. And if you get a post-purchase survey, make sure you let them know you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Because home isn't just where you live, it's how you feel. So let's go home with Cozy Earth.

31:24Raise the runners! Raise the sails! Raise the sails! Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait, is that an enterprise sales solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. The next headline we had is on brain implants, and I saw it in The Guardian. And we've been wanting to discuss it for a while, haven't we?

31:59Can they enhance our mood? This is absolutely mind-boggling stuff. OK, so it's been reported in lots of places, but it's basically can brain implants be used to enhance our mood, but really fundamentally alter neural pathways. So there is this groundbreaking NHS trial that's starting and it's looking at ways to boost patients' mood. So really focusing in particular here on depression, using a brain computer interface that directly alters brain activity using ultrasound. So essentially, if you can think about it like this, a device would be implanted beneath the skull, but outside the brain. Black mirror style.

32:38So black mirror. And I'm going to get into something that will really bring that up in a second. And that would then map your brain activity. And in doing that, it can then deliver really targeted pulses of the ultrasound, which would switch on clusters of neurons that maybe weren't firing to help change your mood. And the hope is obviously that in the start of this technology, it could completely revolutionize treatment of conditions like depression, addiction, OCD, eating disorders. They're looking at it as well as epilepsy and lots of other things in between because it would be able to rebalance disruptive patterns of brain activity.

33:10Actually, Elon Musk's company, Neuralink, have also launched a clinical trial. Their one is with patients suffering from paralysis. And they have implanted a brain chip into the human skull. And that's the first time it was done. So it's extraordinary. But then when I was writing up some of these notes on Monday, I was on the Times. And there was an interview with the neurosurgeon who was the consultant on the Apple TV show Severance. I haven't seen that. I haven't seen it either. I keep thinking I really want to watch it. It's had amazing reviews. It's actually directed by Ben Stiller. Anyway, that's it.

33:42This is a totally unnecessary. What, steel guy? Blue steel? Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I digress into unnecessary celebrity gossip. But this amazing neurosurgeon who was the neuro consultant on the show, he was interviewed in The Times talking about all of these kind of amazing advancements in brain implants and whether or not essentially in the show Severance they do this sort of procedure. And it's for office workers. they're looking at and they do it so that they can completely separate their work and their home lives. So the work people, when they leave work, I think essentially they can't remember the other one.

34:19So it creates this kind of entire separation between the two, but obviously it's very confusing for them. And it's a psychological drama, I think, all about that. So they undergo a procedure to separate their work selves from the outside selves. But the interesting thing on all of that is, so this neuroscientist was interviewed in the Times and he said, I don't think we're actually far off that being able to be a reality so your black mirror reference 100 you've got one of the top neurosurgeons saying yes i believe this is the future and obviously it raises so many kind of ethical questions where you could be implanting things in people's brains so it could be extraordinary for challenges with depression epilepsy anxiety all sorts of conditions you know related to the brain which is really interesting from a health and well-being perspective obviously if we could revolutionize um care there but equally it's so mind-boggling the idea that someone else would be able to control facets of your brain it's just so new it's just so fresh and it does seem because black mirror was years ago but in one of the episodes they have these um things you put over the eye and then you rate everyone on likes and then sure enough that's how social media works now and that was an episode on black mirror so if you spill a coffee on someone by accident that day, your overall liking rating goes down and then you don't get access to normal things like a taxi driver won't stop for you because you've got a low liking rating that day because you just had a bad day.

35:47But yeah. Oh my gosh, and that's real life today. Yes, and that is real life today, like a currency. A low Uber rating is a big deal. Yes, I know. So I feel like whoever did that show, Black Mirror, has foreseen the future. But what's really interesting about this, obviously the study, the NHS study is going to run for three and a half years. And I think it's because we have such a mental health crisis that we are looking at investing in these types of bits of research. I find it completely and utterly fascinating. The brain is such an unknown still area for neuroscientists. They all speak about it when they do talks, don't they?

36:19They say, look, we're learning as we go here. It's amazing. But privacy, data, someone seeing your life. I don't know how I feel about that. It definitely feels, we would say this stuff is nuanced. There's pros, there's cons. It could genuinely completely change the way that we look as you said about all sorts of conditions where we have this real mental health crisis and could we completely change it and yet on the flip side someone else could technically to some extent have control of your brain to put it very very simply so it's a minefield and moving from that one we had a call the nutrition team and I this week and I was representing the UK it was like a big global call for a brand and what I found so interesting was how these trends that we've been discussing, you know, these headlines in every country are still so different and how every country has its own approach to things.

37:09And we were actually discussing, let's take plant milks as an example. We had this discussion on plant based nutrition. We were talking through all the options. So there's me from the UK, this very well known and respected nutritionist from Spain. You've got these doctors from Belgium, from Brussels, Germany, someone else over in Switzerland, someone in Italy. We were all there. and we were talking about the trends and I said oh we see a trend here about oat milk and lots of fear mongering around it because of glucose spikes and people not knowing what to believe I have to stop you stop me I can't not stop you go I really want to talk about everything you want to talk about but I know I'm just putting myself into your car or your tube carriage or your walk and I know the number of people who will be saying explain that to me explain this whole oat milk and we will do a separate episode on I think blood sugar spikes.

37:59Shall we do glucose? But I think you need to give us a bit of a top line on this whole oat milk field. Okay top line I'll keep it brief everybody. Oat milk was never designed to replace cow's milk it's just something additional you can have on your diet that tastes nice it's sweet because it's a carbohydrate base carbs are naturally sweet because they're made from glucose which is a sugar but the problem that people are saying is that when you drink a lot of water with added oats, that is just a sugar spike. Technically, that's true. But oat milk's not trying not to be that. Oat milk's just delicious and it's not going to do any harm to have a tiny spike in blood sugar every now and again.

38:34But the key to oat milk is what you pair it with. If you're having it in porridge and then you're adding some nut butter, healthy fats to slow the release, some extra protein, that's okay. And the fear also stems from seed oils that we mentioned before because to fortify a milk or to get a texture to froth to make it special you need to add a tiny bit of this oil which we've busted in the last episode so anyone listening go back to last week's episode we discussed that but most plant milks contain seed oils so oat milk's been demonized for being a blood sugar raiser but how much are we talking about because i think the way you talk about it not you sorry the way it is talked about at the moment makes it sound like if you choose to get say like a flat white or a latte with oat milk in, that that's the equivalent of eating a bag of sweets or a bag of Haribo.

39:23And that's, I think, the bit that feels like it's lost the context. No, not at all. You cannot compare it. And we get into really dangerous territory when you start comparing individual food items in this way by saying they're good or they're bad. And that's fear mongering again. And actually, for you to have oat milk might be a form of hydration for you that day. It's not just a bit of sugar. and for some people it's going to have a different impact on their body than another person's and the portion sizes are fine. If you were to eat or drink, let's say you drank a whole carton, like one litre plus, that's not good.

39:57But having like a 200ml bit of oat milk every day is totally okay. And there'll be some individual cases in the clinic where I'd say I think you're better off going for soy because there's not as much sugar and perhaps you're pre-diabetic and you may need to make certain switches in your lifestyle. But for most people to say blanketly that oat milk is bad, is crazy. And that brings me on to the other countries couldn't believe it. Germany and Belgium were like, but we love oat milk. It's our favorite here. There's none of that talk over here. We can't believe this. This is really good for you.

40:29We think oats are wholesome. They're full of fiber. And even though we know we don't get that fiber in the drink, we still enjoy oat milk because we know it's a nice item of food. And I was like, that is fascinating. In Spain, their problem is soy. They spend their whole lives debunking soy. And then in Italy, their favorite was almond milk. So it just goes to show that whatever your algorithm, social media hole is in each country, that dictates those food choices. And the brand that we were doing this big discussion for, we just were all blown away by how different it is in every country in Europe.

41:01Yeah, and I think that really speaks to this idea, isn't it? That like it's ever evolving and to just keep asking questions like when something's so extreme, there's likely a middle ground there. But I can't move on without asking you to give us a top line on soy as well, because I think that's something that has also, there were definitely headlines. I feel like in the UK, it was a while ago, where people then had this fear that soy was going to cause breast cancer in particular. It was when I was at university because I wrote a whole essay I chose to title it Soy Healthy or Harmful. I actually turned it into a blog on my website a few years later.

41:35Oh, give us the top line. Yeah, so the top line on soy is that isoflavones and the amazing plant chemicals like phytoestrogens and soy, they're actually beneficial for us and they don't mimic and act like an actual female hormone in the body like estrogen. It's just impossible. And if you are having excessive amounts of anything, it's not going to be great for you. But soy does not give you man boobs. and actually over in Asia it's their main source they don't have as much cow's milk as we do in the UK or dairy and they have lower rates of hip fractures in Asia and they don't have dairy they predominantly drink soy so looking at all these different equations soy is great for protein it's the most similar replacement to cow's milk if you're making a switch because of the protein content and if you get it fortified and it's beneficial for women going through the menopause especially and it doesn't give you breast cancer because that was the other one where it's like the idea that there was this direct link.

42:27This came up last night in my talk and bless her, a woman in the audience had had cancer a few years ago and she said, I've been terrified to eat soy ever since. And I just reassured her, I said, you know, it's not soy that's causing the cancer. There's so many mechanisms that are unknown and you'd need to see a cancer specialist, but please, you don't need to give up soy. There's no link that soy causes cancer. Thank you so much on that clarification as well, because I think there are just these foods that have and seed oils is the most recent example of it that has this kind of blow up. And it's so difficult to kind of almost move forward because at one point someone saw something sensationalist about it.

43:04But because what we're linking to it in the sensationalist context is often death or disease, it's very difficult to move on from it. And I really, really appreciate that in people. Yeah, me too. And I think it's so scary, isn't it? I think when you hear that, I mean, I'm obviously, we spoke last week, I'm trying to move away from toxic household products. You know, who knows in 10 years' time what they're going to say about those. You know, we're always on the cusp. But when it comes to food, the only class one carcinogens that we have are red and processed meats that can be linked to cancer.

43:35We have no other food item like that. Even artificial sweeteners are much lower down on the ranking. They're not really associated with cancer in that way. So, yeah, don't panic, everybody. We're going to be OK. And gosh, doesn't it prey on the vulnerable? No, it really does. Like I definitely have health anxiety. And I think definitely for me, it came, we were talking about it before we were recording, my mother and I was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017. And she was really healthy and really well. And it came out of nowhere. And there was very, very few treatments available. And she passed away almost exactly a year later.

44:09And it definitely hit me in terms of that like health anxiety. And I really struggled ever since to like associate. anything would come up and be like oh my gosh that could be something awful so I definitely really relate to people who fear things and I think it's just so normal but these headlines were so unhelpful as you said when people think well I can never eat that again I can never eat that again I can never eat that again but if you're then also trying to reduce your consumption of ultra processed foods for example it just becomes this minefield and it's almost so confusing you don't know what to do.

44:40I know I mean soy milk in a glass is really beneficial and it's better for than having a McDonald's every day. You know, if you weigh it up and start taking things, what we say in the clinic is start putting things into your world, into your world and your context. Someone else might be doing great by having just one portion of broccoli every week. For someone else, that's every day. And you have to have a look at your own world and the context of what you need to do to be okay right now rather than focusing on what everyone else is telling you and doing because you are doing what you can. That is such great advice.

45:12and are you giving me another really nice segue today to move into what is trending and wellness

45:21so what's trending and wellness is the absolute antithesis of what you just said in general is this idea of like look at your life what do you need what's important to you what's plausible to you what's realistic for you and that is so different for all of us whereas these various different supplements and powders that we're going to talk about today are the absolute opposite and they're so similar to our lovely man in Florida who was taken in by this kind of absolute allure of promise from eating 26 blocks of parmesan a day of this idea that like there is this one thing that will change everything and there are these quick fixes and there are magic bullets and there are these like instant fairy approaches that will change everything in your life and certainly that is the way that I think the supplement is sold today and again looking at you a little bit here social media, you know, I get advertised all the time.

46:13It's like one clear skin, one glowy hair, one, you know, extra energy, etc. Take this very expensive powder. And to give people a bit of context, the global nutritional supplements market is enormous. So in 2024, it was valued at$385 billion, that's US dollars. But it's growing so fast, it's projected to nearly double reaching $758 billion US dollars by 2034. So this is serious business. So if anyone else is being advertised to them all the time, that is because there is so much money in this. And the market leader, Athletic Greens, it's the biggest brand in this space. It was last valued at£945 million, about$1.2 billion in 2022.

47:03That was the last public valuation because it was after a major fundraising round and their flagship product AG1 costs£97 for 30 servings. That's if you buy it without a subscription. It's cheaper with a subscription. But if you just want to buy the singular product, 30 servings,£97. So it's just over£3 a day,£21 a week in terms of just think how much you could spend on food. Yeah, on fresh fruit and veg. So I wanted to give a bit of context before we talk about supplements. And we have had so many people write in and say, Can you please explain this massive trend for greens powders? So it is a big trend.

47:39It definitely is. And I think there's so many things to consider here. And you've got to remember that a green powder can never give you the benefit that you'll get from eating a whole food. I think we touched on the food matrix a bit last week. You said the example, Ella, of how an apple will taste different every day because of its unique properties. And what a lot of people don't realize is that they're trying to reduce ultra-processed food items. But a green powder is an ultra-processed food item. and that's something that's also really interesting isn't it but yet it seems to have a health halo and perhaps people should list that as an example of a good UPF and actually it doesn't count as one of your five a day having this enormous amount of ingredients in one powder it still doesn't count maybe it counts as one because of the form you're taking it within and it doesn't come with those extra nutrients and what we see in the clinic is just there's such a lack of regulation on how you can advertise these things.

48:30And we wrote a feature in the summer for a well-known magazine and we went through every green powder. I was sent, I mean, I had boxes of it arriving through the post dollar. All these different brands. Obviously, I had the market leader there. I had all of them. And what astounded Abby and I in my clinic, my nutrition manager, we were looking through is that a lot of them don't declare what type of vitamin they've actually put in the drink. So vitamin A comes in different forms. It didn't say what form it comes in. And explain to people why that matters. Because if you have beta carotene or you have vitamin A and you're having retinol, all these different types of vitamins, they absorb differently.

49:04They have different toxicity effects on the body, interactions with other nutrients. It can be very, very dangerous. And one of the most risky things that I was making some notes on is that we know that one large meta-analysis conducted that high doses of vitamin A, vitamin E and beta carotene in the form of a supplement was actually associated with increased mortality. So risk of death, essentially. And I don't want to sound too doom and gloom. Obviously, we'll do the positives for green powder in a minute for some people, but I would say they're very small. But this is so, so risky. Because if you're already taking vitamin A, or you're already getting enough in your diet, and then you're taking a supplement, I think most women that have been pregnant are told, and they know, vitamin A, don't take too much.

49:51which is really risky and it's a message that's actually got across. But other ingredients can interact, like ones that are high in vitamin K can interact with blood thinners, people that are on those types of medication. And what's even worse, I'd say, than any of it is contamination of heavy metals and other substances. You can't vouch for the quality and there will always be discrepancies on the conveyor belt of these powders and the way they're made and produced. And the body just is not designed to absorb nutrients in this drink form at such a vast quantity. So I think the deception and the advertising purely is there to say we're giving you all this nutrition.

50:26You're probably not absorbing all that nutrition. You're just peeing it all out and you might get like one or two of those nutrition or values that are in that supplement. But it also makes you feel like you don't – and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's easy to cook every night and to batch cook and have a few leftovers for lunch. I'm not trying to do away with the almost more than anything, the mental load of planning that at the end of a busy day when you've got a lot going on. But I think the way that we often talk about these or the way they're often talked about is that they're a replacement for, you know, it's essentially we know you're busy.

51:00Don't worry about making your stir fry tonight. Have all your greens in this powder instead. And for example, like again, looking at most of them, the powdered greens only will have like one to two grams of fiber per serving. And obviously in the UK, kind of 90 so percent of us are deficient in fiber. It's even higher in the US. I think it's about 95 percent. So you're not getting that fiber when you've swapped, you know, I was looking at a tray bake of ours last night. Just a really, really simple dinner. Very, very easy. But it had just over 10 grams of fiber. So you've lost eight or nine grams in thinking that you'd get the benefit of eating the veg there by having it in a powder.

51:36But then again, lots of ads I've seen, for example, say with added fiber, et cetera. Oh, I know. It doesn't work that way in the body. It just doesn't work that way. And I can see, so we've had some cases in the clinic, Ella, where we have given people green powder because they literally have such an aversion to fruit and vegetables that you are desperate to get something in as well that isn't just taking an actual physical multivitaminal pill. And for some people, it can be a great placebo to help them getting to a routine. But that's with anything. You could be taking celery juice and getting a placebo, which I'd argue is potentially a more preferable method than the synthesized amount of vitamins and minerals you've got here.

52:11And it's amazing they can get away with it in a way because it's not in pill form, it's in food form. And it's where things lie with regulation. It's a really murky area. What's more disturbing is the money they put behind influencing spend. So I've seen doctors advertising it. And actually, that's really, I don't know. It's not my place to say it's up to them where their moral and ethical boundary sits. But I think doctors should know that it's not a replacement for food. But perhaps they're going on the angle of there's lots of people out there that aren't eating anything. But then you've got to have all this money to spend£100 a month on the powder.

52:48I think that's my challenge with it. And again, this isn't to say that if you're currently eating well and you're exercising and you're managing your stress and you're sleeping and you're also taking this and you feel really good on it, you know, yes, have a look at where the vitamins are coming from, as you said, what form are they in, you know, having a look at like whether there is any heavy metals, et cetera, et cetera. But if you're feeling good and you're happy with all of that, great, go for it. My challenge with it is the way that we're talking about these and like all of the hype that they've had.

53:22It is very much that don't worry, we know you're busy, you can have this instead. But actually having it instead is really bad substitute and it's an even worse substitute when you look at how expensive it is. And the risk. Yeah, and if you spend that£21 a week, say you're spending£3 a day on it, on fresh fruit and veg, you would get an extraordinary amount of goodness in your diet. And no risk of this. So the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, we call it SACON, they found that if you're taking green powders combined with other supplements containing vitamin A that day, it's also risky for bone health.

53:55So if this exceeds 1 ,500 micrograms per day, you've got an increase of bone fractures later in life. So it's not what you're seeing now by taking these things. You know, we meet people that have a long list of supplements and I totally get it. People are telling you it's worked for them, it's worked for them, this is what you should be taking. But it's what you don't see further down the line. But it's a hard debate, isn't it? Because I can see both sides to this as well completely. I think my hat sits more towards I'd rather really entice someone to make a smoothie at home or something with some frozen things in the freezer.

54:25then turn to an expensive green powder. But I can see for some people where it might fit in, but for the majority, I don't think it's necessary. Yeah, put that£21 towards, as you said, like even a daily-ish, very quick smoothie, chuck loads of frozen fruit and veg, some nuts, some oats, etc. in a blender, and you're going to get a lot closer to getting your five a day in just a few minutes, which is a similar premise, but you're going to get all the fibre, you're going to get lots of the fresh vitamins minerals antioxidants you know where it's all come from and it's not that much more work a smoothie all things considered if you have a blender yeah chuck it in but to be honest people that have these equipment at home are the ones that can afford to pay for the powder so that's also something to consider but we move on to another expensive item ella yeah we move on to this is the same topic but look i love david Beckham.

55:20Who doesn't? I think I really enjoyed his documentary on Netflix. I really respect his career. I think he seems like a great person. I genuinely don't say any of this to do him down, but I think he's just launched, for anyone who doesn't know, a new brand called IM8. And it's pitched as an unparalleled collaboration between academia, medicine and space science, because there is some people from NASA or ex-NASA working on it. And it's a team of doctors, professors and of course David Beckham and it's a new range of supplements and it feels very similar to the supplements we were just talking about so there's a supplement powder which is 92 nutrient rich ingredients in an acai and berry flavoured drink and then there's a daily supplement which is designed for cellular longevity and then you can get the Beckham stack which is the both together and it claims it can replace up to 16 daily supplements and that's 104 pounds.

56:11But who You should be taking 16 daily supplements unless you have a condition in the first place. And who can afford to take 16 daily supplements in the first place? So I think this is the question. And as I said, I don't levy the criticism of David Beckham, but it's more this industry we're talking about, this$385 billion industry, which is essentially preying on the fact that we're all busy, the fact that we're all overwhelmed, the fact that we desperately would love some quick and easy solution to all of it. and we can basically spend 104 pounds and emulate someone we look up to, to some extent.

56:42And yes, there are some really extraordinary people working on this. I so appreciate that. But equally, I just think we need to take it all with a caution. And I don't preclude myself from that. I told you about this example in the notes. Like last summer, I was so stressed, super overwhelmed and kept seeing loads of things online that were selling me these quick fixes. One of which was ashwagandha, which is an adaptogen. You know, so much of what I was saying was, it changed my life. I had no stress. And guess what I did? At like two o 'clock in the morning, at peak of stress, I bought myself from ashwagandha.

57:16I've done it as well by the way of ashwagandha, but we can delve into that another time. Yeah, we should talk about adaptions another time. But I just thought it, for me, it was so representative of the fact that I was, I had no childcare at that point. We were going through an M &A process on Delicious Cielo, which was extraordinarily stressful. Matt was working like 6am till 2am pretty much every day. Basically, I hadn't seen him in a while. It was a completely extraordinary time of stress and work and so much going on. And the idea that a singular supplement could change that is in fact madness.

57:52And yet even I, as someone who's worked in this for ages and knows how kind of tenuous often the claims are. And don't get me wrong, there is some interesting research in ashwagandha being potentially a support in reducing some anxiety and stress. But the word is potential, isn't it? Like all of this, it's not entirely made up. You can't create a$385 billion industry on something entirely fabricated. Absolutely not. But what it is, is take it with a pinch of salt. Like there was no way. And as you said, also, like absolutely there are risks. There's all sorts of contraindications, none of which I looked at.

58:25when I bought it in this impulsive, I need something to fix me. But actually, I had so much to fix myself and to deal with. And I was also scrolling late and I wasn't eating well and I wasn't exercising and I wasn't doing all these things that are clinically proven to be good for me. And I think this is what I keep coming back to is just that there's so much out there to show So they're like a quick walk on your lunch break, eating your five a day, reducing your intake of excess alcohol, cigarettes, etc. are so good for you. And yet they're really difficult to do every single day. And so instead there is this desire for these quick fixes.

59:06I mean, if I were to see a drink and I was in your state right then and I get days too and I'm a nutritionist, I get days where I want a quick fix. And if I saw a drink that said 92 rich ingredients, the first thing I think now is, well, I know that's impossible. You can't absorb all that. But if I were in a vulnerable state, I'd be like, yeah, I need those 92 ingredients right now. Give it to me. Let me have them. And what's so fascinating about what you say is that there isn't any clinical trials. So someone with all that funding like David Beckham to go about something this big, which we let's be honest, I wish it were real.

59:39I wish that it was because I'd take it to in a heartbeat. Wouldn't you? You'd just be like, yeah, this is groundbreaking. But if NASA haven't even published a clinical trial and it says on their website yet to be published and they've already launched it. Yeah. So the current findings are all self-reported. And the study itself is active on the US government's clinical trial website, but no results have yet been posted. And obviously, there's so much to show that anything that's self-reported always calls for caution because, you know, there's placebo at play and etc. So I just think that, again, I guess we always circle back to the same thing, but it's just ask yourself, like, could you do a bit more of the basics and actually remind yourself in that, that unfortunately, as you said, like, I wish that there was one simple thing that I could take every day or do every day that would instantly change your health for the rest of time.

1:00:34We should have a psychologist just for supplements. You should have a supplement psychologist. We all need one. Yeah, it's really interesting. It's the psychology of why we're all so vulnerable, as you said, to the quick fixes and the idea that when you've got a lot going on, singular something could change everything, which takes us right back to our friend on TikTok, which is like, I totally get it. I totally get why you were struggling with your health. And someone said this will completely change it. Just follow it. Yeah. And then obviously it didn't have great results. Maybe the American government was doing something right by banning it.

1:01:07And then it suddenly popped back up again, didn't it? Didn't it disappear? a TikTok for people in America. Maybe they had the right idea, but you know. I know lots of people make their income through TikTok and I appreciate that, but I was a big fan of it being banned because the sensationalist nature of the algorithm is so unhelpful. And that's not to say all content is bad, but what has happened to the wellness industry since the day we started to today is so detrimental. Yes, it's great that there's lots of information available in lots of ways. But it is now, as a result, I think almost solely because of social media, so sensationalized.

1:01:44And we've run out of time, I think, to talk about NAD Plus today. Should we do that next week? So we should do it next week. Let's carry over. And I'm sure she wouldn't mind me saying this, but like a girlfriend of mine who's just had her second baby, you know, was talking to me about the podcast and me listening to it and really enjoying it. And she was like, please can you talk about NAD Plus because I'm being advertised at all the time, moments amazing for longevity and so good for energy. And guess what? she has a few week old baby so surprise surprise she's exhausted and she was like yeah I've seen this company and you can like inject in yourself at home I knew that would be your face when I said that and she didn't buy it and she's very sensible but it's just well done you listening I don't know Ella's friend but it's such a hard time when you've just had a baby it's awful it is and she also exists in the in the well-being industry and and it's just it's so difficult to discern what's going on and it's such a minefield and so yeah I think we'll move that over to next week and do you want to finish Ella then with the question that we picked out from our listeners I think it's quite a nice positive thing to finish on it's quite uplifting on something we can give you all listening today to do absolutely so quickly before we go into that I forgot to have at the top of our trends that last week we talked about matcha and I promise I will give a quick how to make matcha I am no expert by any means but you need about a quarter of a teaspoon of matcha and you want to whisk that.

1:03:03I do think it's worth buying a little whisk if you want to try it. They're very inexpensive on Amazon. The electric ones. Or just a little bamboo one. Yes. A few pounds on Amazon, easy to get hold of. And you whisk about a quarter of a teaspoon of matcha powder with hot but not boiling water. So about 80 degrees-ish. So when your kettle hasn't quite boiled or you've let it cool down a little bit. So fill up about a third of a cup with that. Whisk it up until it looks really frothy and obviously all the powder is dissolved. and then you add your hot milk on top. And there was also a few requests for brands.

1:03:34I haven't tried every brand of matcha out there. Absolutely not. The nicest brand I've tried in a while is called OMT. I've seen that. There's Lalani, OMT. Sorry, it's OMGT. I always get it wrong. It's OMGT matcha. I buy it from Holland and Barra. And it's an amazing female founder. I met her at an event run by a group called By Women Built, which is all about championing female founders. so really she was amazing and it was the best quality I've ever tasted can you get it from Honour Barrett I need to try it because Ella took me to the place last week so in the storm so we left the podcast studio in torrential rain to get our matches didn't we we ran down Oxford Street I just seemed to think it was a really good idea and you were like it looks really rainy and I was like it'll be fine it was awful totally drenched but it was the best match I've probably ever had I love that thank you I love making good match Ella the question we had I think is really poignant and I think it's a good one for you.

1:04:28This listener said, things are really overwhelming for me. I have a two-year-old, I'm married to someone who doesn't like a lot of variety, as in no beans, pulses, anything. He thinks all of this diet stuff is unnecessary. Can you give me five tips of where to start? Maybe with five a day. She just feels just a bit lost with it all. And she said, thank you. I think it was such a great question. And thank you so much to everyone who's taken the time. We're going to try and include a question or two in each episode, ones that feel really universal, I think to lots of us. And I think it's a great question.

1:04:59The thing that I would say, and I guess it speaks to everything we've spoken about today, is just start small. This is not all or nothing. I think for almost anyone trying to change all of your diet or all of your partner or child's diet overnight, and I'm not saying that that's what this listener is trying to do, but that is so overwhelming. And as opposed to as well, thinking about what to take out, think about what to add in. Like, could you set yourself a goal of adding in one extra portion of plants every single day. And by that, it could be almond butter on your toast. It could be a sprinkling of seeds on your salad.

1:05:33Maybe you eat loads of bolognese in your house and actually 25 % of the bolognese mix actually starts to come from lentils. You know, could you add in to something like that some extra celery or carrots in the base of it? Just think every day about adding in, say, one extra plant, trying something new with that. Even cooking with olive oil is a plant point. Absolutely. And so don't get overwhelmed, start really small, start really gently. And I think we all so overestimate what we can achieve in a day, a week, a month with everything in our life, including dietary and health habit changes. But we so underestimate what we can do in a year, two years, three years, four years.

1:06:11And to me, I think about where would you love to get to with your health and well-being a year from now, two years from now? And then ask yourself, can I keep those habits up? Because if to get there, you've got to get up at 4.30 every single morning and you've got to do all of these various different things, or you've got to keep spending£104 or£97 on supplements. The morning shed. Yeah. Is it really going to last one, two, three, four, five years, decades? I would say unlikely. likely. Whereas if what you do is like, I'm going to batch cook on a Sunday and I'm going to eat that a few times throughout the week as packed lunches, for example, or what I'm going to do is I'm going to try and wake up 10 minutes earlier and I'm going to do five minutes of meditation or five minutes of stretching.

1:06:53You probably could do that most days for the next year. And then you'll have a week like I've just had as a nutritionist where I've had pizza and cake and it's been like a party week and that happens. And that's great. That's okay. And then you can pick it back up the next week. I just thought that was such a good question. And don't worry, you're not alone. And can you give her one soundbite as to why all this diet stuff does matter and isn't unnecessary? Yeah, absolutely. And I think we'll get our expert slot on that won't we as well to go into gut health more. But honestly, any little change you can make, adding in one little extra portion is good for what my son and I call the belly bugs, you know, that live in your belly.

1:07:27And it's just beneficial for your health to get that extra fiber. And the long term data we have and things that bring inflammation down because chronic inflammations what's linked to poor health long term is by eating more plants it's just so proven time and time again there's mountains of research that eating more veg and fruit and pulses and whole grains brings it down so yeah one little thing every day 80 grams is a portion one of your five a day so if you had three bananas for instance anyone listening that's still only one of your five a day not three just remember it's about different types and i think you're good to go yeah and don't do anything in extremes eating just bananas just as bad as eating only 26 blocks of parmesan.

1:08:06I still can't believe it. It's just so sad. And just when I looked at it, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. I think it's the extreme end, but representative of the madness that is the wellness world today. And that is all we have time for. Thank you guys so much for listening. And as I said at the top, if you wanted to spare two seconds at the end of this, please click follow. It would just mean episodes pop up for every week, top right on iTunes, just under the show title and image on Spotify. And if you're on the podcast app on your iPhone, just scroll down to the bottom of the page.

1:08:39And if you enjoyed the episode, give us five stars because that is what is going to push us up the charts and more people are going to see what hopefully feels like approachable health advice in a very confusing world. So thank you for listening. See you Monday.

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