Is Wine Good for You Now? Build a Better Relationship with Food & Stay Sharp

0:00If we knew more about our sleep, what would we do differently? Would we go to bed at a consistent time? Or take steps to reduce interruptions to our sleep? With Sleep Score, Apple Watch measures your bedtime consistency, interruptions, and sleep duration. Then, every morning it combines these factors into an easy-to-understand score from 1 to 100. So you'll know how to take the quality of your sleep from OK to very high. Know your Sleep Score with Apple Watch. iPhone 11 or later required. welcome to the wellness scoop your weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration and as always we are both here as your hosts i'm ella mills and i'm rianna lambert and after a decade in the wellness industry we know it's just completely overwhelming and confusing because there's so much misinformation out there and that's why we've created this podcast to cut through the noise and make healthier living simple fun and personal exactly that it's always about inspiring and empowering you with your health and also happy easter guys it was easter yesterday i hope you all had a delicious chocolatey kind of situation oh my goodness i definitely did and it's one of my highlights of the year do you know i read this stat that there was a percentage i can't remember what it is of parents that eat the kids easter eggs and have to go out and buy another one it's like me with the gingerbread house at christmas oh my god i'm so like that i'm like where's it gone?

1:23I don't know. I love Easter. Can I just say, I am not Scrooge, but I'm not a massive Christmas person. I just think there's a lot of complexity at Christmas, a lot of family dynamics that people have, a lot of pressure to get it perfect and, you know, all the gifts. It's just, I find Christmas a bit much. Well, it's highly pressured, especially, yeah, for everybody, regardless of if you're a parent or not. I think Christmas can be, like you said, so emotive. It's a lot of complexities in Christmas and Easter I love because it's just about having a lovely time and eating great food. Well, yeah, and also the weather's a bit better and I'm all about that.

1:57The sunshine comes out, well, you know, it can be, it can't be, but either way it does make a difference to our day. So coming up in today's show, we have got how to build a healthier, more positive relationship with food, why guilt and restriction often work against us, and the truth behind the wine and longevity headlines because we get a lot of those. how to read health news with more clarity and confidence the science of super ages and staying sharp for longer and how to use your sleep trackers in a way that actually supports your well-being

2:34ella i know that you've got building work going on at the house today so you're still juggling that how are you how have you been how was easter yeah guys if you hear any banging i am so sorry there are some carpets going down out of sales and carpets going down is very noisy job at first it turns out no I am so good first Easter at home in our new house and just so grateful for that and just loving time outside time with the kids yeah loving the Easter holidays all around 10 out of 10 yeah I mean we went to my mother-in-law's for lunch on Easter Sunday which was actually really nice. And I did enjoy definitely the whole Easter egg hunt.

3:14I have to say the imagination and I've been doing all sorts of Easter crafts. I am that person that loves watching Stacey Solomon's account and what's her name on Dragon's Den that has the crafting business. Sarah Davies. Davies, that's it. Yes, we've got it. But I honestly got really into that. But I'm really excited to be back wellness scooping, to be honest, because I feel I need the show so, so much. And I know that Easter is complex in the clinic for years. It's been a big thing, So I think we should start with our helpful advice today, Ella. Yeah, exactly that. We were talking about, we almost didn't do an episode this week.

3:48That sounds so dramatic. It wasn't dramatic. It was just like, we nearly quit. We didn't nearly quit. We just thought, you know what, is this the week that people want to hear from us? And actually we were like, well, we love chatting to you guys. So we're going to be in your ears any which way. But also it is this interesting thing and we've talked about it a lot and it very much exists in the ecosystem that the wellness scoop sits in. But there is such a complicated relationship sometimes that play with all of this. And like, I know for me, my worst question people ask me, and I'm so kind of irritating in my answer is like, what's your guilty pleasure?

4:25I don't know how many interviews I've been asked that in. And I always say like, that is an oxymoron. It's probably a very rude answer, but I'm like, you just need to remove that because it is an oxymoron. Like if something makes you feel guilty, it is not a pleasure. Like those two things can't sit together. You know, look, it's different if I'm like, oh, my guilty pleasure is the Kardashians, you know. Yeah, you laugh about it. But when it comes to food. But it's not funny with food. And I also think it's such a shame. And that was why it felt so relevant today because there's so much joy in food, in indulging with friends and family and just like having a great time and eating way too much chocolate in an Easter egg hunt or drinking way too much wine, you know, for a big lunch with your family or something, you know what I mean.

5:12In these moments, like that can be a massive part of life. And I've always just looked at it and felt this frustration of like, well, there's kind of no point indulging if it just makes you feel guilty. Like that's just crazy. Like what are we doing? Like we've got to be able to have a balance where we root our lives in nourishing food because we know that's so important for our health. And then we enjoy it when we have a giant chocolate cake, we enjoy it. It doesn't make us feel guilty, but I know that's so much easier said than done and it can be so complicated. And we just felt, we see this all the time in the clinic.

5:47This very much exists in the health and wellness world. We thought it was actually, instead of doing three headlines this week, we'll do two headlines. Then we'll do a whole section on kind of guilt and food and managing that psychology and how do we indulge and love it and enjoy it and not feel it's a guilty pleasure or it prompt this all or nothing mindset of like oh I've eaten way too much this weekend I'm not going to eat this week. I think like Ella said I think it's a key time to just highlight the fact that relationships with food can be very complex and that can be driven by societal factors like what's your guilty pleasure, what's in the media, what your food world is, so how you've been brought up around food?

6:26What's the expectation in your family at Easter time? What do they do? Do they have different relationships with food? You know, so many people might go around a parent's house or grandparent's house, and they will be speaking about dieting or stepping on scales after Easter. And there's that language that is spoken very colloquially and casually, but actually, it shouldn't be because you don't know the impact that's having on another person in the room. So it's a complicated dynamic, I think, to manage. And I've got a few stats here that, you know, at the moment, and this is only an estimation because we know the numbers are probably higher, but 1.25 million people are living with confirmed eating disorders, Ella, in the UK.

7:06And that doesn't account for the people with disordered relationships of food, where they haven't quite crossed over to it becoming an all-consuming psychological illness, but they do live with food noise and food guilt and shame every single day. And these can have such detrimental impacts on your life because it can inhibit these social occasions that Ella and I have said should bring so much joy. But for many people, they may feel stressed about it. And it's starting younger and younger. Young people, gosh, we've got ages 11 to 19. We've seen a prevalence in eating disorders. as one in five young women aged 17 to 19 test positive for eating disorders.

7:44And it's happening in men as well, because historically, it was associated with females, you know, around 25 % of people affected in the UK now with eating disorders are actually male, so a quarter. So, and like I said, this is just the numbers of it rising, Ella. So, it's an important discussion to have for sure. Yeah, it really is. And as you said, and then there's, you know, just the general sort of not that necessarily it's always fully disordered eating but just that sense of guilt or shame that sits too often with food and events as we said like easter can sometimes trigger this where does that come from it's a good question and our relationship with food is shaped from childhood essentially and it will be around the conversations in your house around easter it could have been a trigger almost like we discuss epigenetics on the podcast you know one lifestyle event that can switch on a gene that then expresses differently.

8:35It's similar to like a switch in your head is how we describe it in training for disordered eating and relationships with food that once that switch has been switched on, you've become aware of calories or food or food guilt, then it's very hard to switch it off. And then you have to start speaking internally to that extra voice that you've switched on in your head. So can I add to that really with the switch in our head is that also I know just like from looking at our audience stats our core audience are women similar-ish ages to us in their late 20s 30s 40s and 50s we have some teens we had our 14 year olds for sure yeah for people around the same age as us we grew up in a moment where we had heroin chic you know where it was the heat you know magazine type circle of shame circle of James, like, yeah, do you remember the double page spreads that would circle like celebs on the beach?

9:30And it would be like, here's a roll of fat. Here's a little patch of cellulite. Let's weigh them on national TV. Yeah, like Victoria Beckham, exactly on that show famously. So we grew up in a very odd environment when it comes to body image. And I think people speak so openly about that, that it didn't necessarily trigger a kind of full eating disorder. it, but it did flip on that switch, as you were just saying, of awareness between food and body image and kind of conscious of body image. And yeah, I mean, it was just an era of like completely emaciated stick thin as the ideal. I mean, I've heard it in so many shapes or forms in the clinic and some families will say to female members in their household, I remember this one saying, our family should never weigh over X amount stone.

10:18You know, the women in our household should always be a certain weight. And you hear all sorts of things that they have to live with that. And there's also cultural elements massively. It can stem to religion, dare I say it, too. There's some beliefs around the world that women and men should be within a certain size or shape, or it equates to a sin, essentially. So it can have deep rooted meanings. But from a young age, we're taught to label foods. And I think this is when we discuss the moralization of food a lot. as good or bad or healthy or treats and things we've earned essentially. Earning felt like a massive part of that cultural context.

10:57If I reflect back on it of like, I've gone on a run, so I've earned this chocolate bar. Because I've burned X calories. Exactly. I've, yeah, I've been to the gym, so I've earned my dinner. Yeah. And it's very toxic. And instead of saying, well, actually, you know, it's Easter, you know, you don't do that every day. Let's just reframe the conversation. We don't eat Easter eggs every single day of the year. We don't do huge Christmas dinner every single day of the year. There's sometimes occasions. But the problem is the demonization of food then makes you feel like you've failed. Yeah, exactly.

11:30And then the thing is, and this is what I was so keen to talk to you about today, because I feel like I see this all the time, is this sense of, well, I've eaten too much on holiday this week, or I've eaten too much over Easter weekend or on Christmas or whatever, I've been stressed at work. So now I'm not eating sugar ever again. I'm not eating this ever again. I'm, you know, you have these self-imposed rules, which again, I just want to say, I think this is really normal. This isn't about a full blown eating disorder or that's completely different kettle of fish. This is just about like, I don't feel great in myself today.

12:06And the way I think about it is to say, well, I'm going to go all or nothing here and I'm going to put something off limits. But restriction, again, it's so normal, but it doesn't help, does it? Well, I'm told all the time, a lot of clients, I'm all or nothing. You know, I can't just have that one pack of biscuits in the house because I will eat all of them. I would actually say that with work, a lot of work, that becomes breakable. But it depends how willing you are as a person to identify that or address it. Because the problem with this restrict cycle is that it becomes a thing. And you can have an eating disorder, which is classified as a psychological illness, or disordered eating, which embarks upon the same cycle.

12:46You eat the item of food, you feel guilt and shame, therefore you restrict the food. Therefore, all you can think about is that food. And then it's impossible to never go near it again with that all or nothing mindset. And then when you eat it again, you've put even more emphasis and ownership on that food being something so bad that then you restrict again and the cycle of binge eat restrict becomes ingrained and you erode your self-esteem in a way because you've told yourself you're not going to do it and then you've failed because you've done it and again if you look at your food environment i think one of the things that people often say like i'm not going to eat this for x amount of time is sugar for example and like we just live in a really sugar filled society and so not doing that is nigh on impossible I mean I think and so you're setting yourself up you're at least setting an incredibly high barrier for yourself and then feeling guilty that you can't maintain it but maintaining it is nigh on impossible in the world that we live in.

13:41And I understand that for some people online I've seen prominent voices state they're doing a sugar detox or they're going to give up sugar forever and I know it comes from a good place because you know they think they might be helping people and I understand where that comes from and perhaps for some people it might kickstart healthy relationships food but for most people they're still not allowing themselves permission to be able to trust themselves and this is the biggest thing is trusting your body if you do not have trust with yourself it isn't your fault it is the food environment predominantly speaking but we have to learn to navigate that for our own health and our own sanity because permission reduces the likelihood of binging.

14:22And by telling everybody they don't have permission to eat a certain item of food for a prolonged period of time, there's a huge depth of complexion within that. And I have actually asked for, got some voice notes for us today as well, Ella, on that moralization of food, the cultural differences as well from some of my team, my psychologist in the clinic, Dr. Suki Bilku and our registered a dietitian with eating disorders, Lisa Waldron, because chronic guilt and stress around eating is not good for anybody. Food being moralised, restriction, we don't have any enjoyment left or neutralisation of food.

14:59No, exactly. Okay. So just before we go into this, I love where you always say to really think about, eat regularly across the day, so you're not starving. So that, again, it's that sense of you're not urgently needing something. I think that's really important. make sure you're including really nourishing meals alongside that. So again, you are actually full and not feeling like you're craving things because actually it's your body saying, I'm really hungry. And I think that's so important. And remember, you just don't need to earn your food. And can I paint a little picture? If your favorite thing in the world is that bag of candy kittens or that...

15:35Oh my gosh, have you tried the new sour ones? Yeah, I've got those at home. In the green packet. Me and Ella are slightly obsessed. But if you don't allow yourself that one item. That's when the problem occurs. It's much better off to allow yourself with full permission, give yourself a number if it helps to have 20 sweets or whatever you want to do, than to end up binging on them a week or two later because you've restricted them to the point where all you can think about is that one item of food. And then it would have been much better. I mean, who cares? It's just 20 sweets versus, you know, a whole bag and then the feelings that come alongside it.

16:12So allowing yourself to eat enjoyed items is, I think I did that in my TED talk because I did a TED talk about relationships with food. And that one statistic is so valuable for so many people. And that's when I think we discussed it on the pod before having it at a time you wouldn't normally associate eating that item instead of having it at nighttime, have it in the morning and break the cycle. I absolutely love that. It's such good advice. Okay. Should we go into your voice notes? Yeah. So I thought the first one to share is a psychologist's perspective. So Dr. Sue Kiboku, she specializes in working with eating disorders from ages seven plus.

16:48So she's seen a whole spectrum. She's remarkable. She's obviously HCPC registered. She's a clinical psychologist. Let's hear what she has to say. Main thing is, I guess, like, you know, not to, during these times, to keep going, to persevere, to acknowledge that we're on this road to recovery, whatever that might look like, and difficult emotions will accompany us on the way. A bit like passengers on a bus, you know, guilt will come in, shame will come in, catastrophisation might come, whatever it might come in, they are like little passengers, they come and they go. A bit like the clouds too, so if you want to use that metaphor, that, you know, the weather, you know, weather is interchangeable, so is our emotions too.

17:27And really just to kind of, I guess, kind of, there's no one way for recovery to happen when it comes to food. So find your way, find what helps, you know, to build your toolbox, build your toolbox, not just with your own self-schools, but with skills with other people too, like relational tools, I call them. Go for a walk with a partner, go for a walk with a dog, for example. I always find Suki brings so many different elements and ways of reframing the conversation. It's what she does for a living, but reframing the conversation. And I think it's so helpful. And we also have an added note from our eating disorder dietitian, Lisa Waldron.

18:03something that comes up a lot in clinic is managing special occasions be it christmas easter eid or any moment where food feels more abundant it's important to recognize that eating more enjoying lots of different foods or celebrating through food is not something you need to earn or undo or feel guilty about in any way it can really help if we zoom out so remembering that one meal one day or one week doesn't define your health or your relationship with food Your body responds to patterns over time. So that can be across weeks, months, even years. So rather than fixating on a period of indulgence, try to see the bigger picture of it as part of your overall intake and self-care.

18:46So it's not a case of all or nothing. It's also useful to kind of think about and remember that humans have always marked important moments with food. So across cultures and throughout history, feasting has been a traditional part of celebration, survival, connection, meaning. and these kind of soul foods aren't just about nutrition they're about enjoyment about identity and feeling part of something that bigger belonging feeling including them in our lives feeds our soul now guilt often shows up when we believe we've done something wrong but enjoying festive foods eating more than usual or leaning into those traditions isn't wrong it's a deeply human thing food guilt serves no helpful purpose the food's already eaten doesn't change that so instead of asking how do I undo this try asking yourself what could support me next so that might be having something like a regular meal having a glass of water getting some fresh air chatting to a friend or simply returning back into your usual rhythm so you don't need to compensate for enjoyment you're allowed to eat to celebrate and to feel at ease with food especially in these moments oh well we thank you so much for bringing this to the show today and I hope that was helpful.

19:59If you guys have any follow-on questions to this though, please, please, please do email them to us, hello at wellness-scoop.com or pop them in Spotify, put them in the comments, question box, whatever it is and we can keep going on this conversation if it's helpful. Yeah, 100%. All I want is my candy kittens now so I will be snacking on those later this afternoon. Our headline two, completely different, against the grain, Ella, wine lovers live longer than beer drinkers. Here we go again. It was in the Times, another alcohol-fueled headline. Yes. Okay. This one was very interesting. Obviously, we've got to say before we go into this, overall, we know concretely alcohol, unfortunately for lots of people, is linked to worse health outcomes.

20:44That is the foundation of this conversation. Those headlines can get confusing. And I'm going to show you one in a minute where it gets really confusing. Compared to people who rarely or never drink, where you do those stats, So yes, compared to people who rarely or never drink, heavy drinkers are 24 % more likely to die early, 36 % more likely to die from cancer, and 14 % more likely to die from heart disease. We know it's not a good thing. So this story isn't about alcohol obviously being good, like Ella just said, it's about the consumption and I guess what type of alcohol you're consuming.

21:15Exactly that. And so in this, researchers looked at 340 ,000 UK adults from UK Biobank. Again, my mum was probably part of that cohort they were asked about their alcohol intake tracking their health over an average of 13 years and crucially they compared people drinking similar amounts of alcohol but different types that's what this research is looking at so it's wine versus beer cider or spirits and what they found among moderate drinkers that wine drinkers had a lower risk of early death than those drinking beer cider or spirits for heart disease specifically wine drinkers had a 21 % lower risk of death, while even a low intake of beer, cider or spirits was linked to a 9 % higher risk of cardiovascular death.

21:57So the difference here, just to be super clear, isn't about drinking or not drinking. We know concretely not drinking is better, but I think this was an interesting look at the different types of alcohols and that actually they could potentially be having a different effect on our health. Of course. And then you've got to consider the quality as well, how the alcohol is made itself. So let's discuss why it might be. I mean, the one thing that you'll see, again, doesn't make alcohol good, but wine does contain more polyphenols, especially if it's red wine, including resveratrol, which comes from a grape, which is a powerful antioxidant, which may support heart health.

22:33In fact, we do have lots of research that that particular isolated antioxidant itself does reduce inflammation. It can help with blood vessel function and limit oxidative stress. So we all get stress every day from external factors and oxidative stress happens daily. But by consuming more antioxidants, I would argue you're probably better off eating red grapes than drinking the wine. But, you know, both factors there. and then the lifestyle around the drink we have to look at that because wine drinkers have a very different culture to you know if you if you think of wine to beer drinkers people often if you're lucky enough to be in somewhere like cape town or you're in a vineyard and you're having a delicious lunch or in france with a glass of wine alongside it that's a very different culture to i'm going down the pub on a friday night or a saturday night to have several rounds of beer or watching the rugby or football now i'm stereotyping here i know this is not the case for everybody.

23:28No, but the researchers were saying a very similar thing that the lifestyle often around wine tends to be that you often drink wine with or around a meal rather than in isolation. And actually what they also showed was that wine drinkers on average tend to have healthier overall diets. They tend to be more affluent and have better access to healthcare. So it's not just the wine alone. It's that actually it's often symbolic of a slightly different lifestyle pattern. And obviously this is also an observational study. So, you know, it can't prove cause and effect. So it's definitely not saying that wine itself is driving the benefit.

24:07It might just be reflective of a broader lifestyle. But as Rhi said, there are also elements like the polyphenols in the wine that have give it an advantage over spirits or beer. But what I wanted to bring to you today, Rhi, so that was the times headline that you read out or give me the other against the grain wine lovers live longer than beer drinkers so it's kind of ambiguous but it doesn't say drinking wine will make you live longer right okay i didn't read it as that then we have from the sun boozing can cut your chance of dying young by up to 25 percent i mean i'm sorry but they should be held accountable same study that's just outrageous and they know that obviously you've got a different reader and that's not acceptable in my opinion that's so unethical.

24:54Like as far as headlines go, telling people to booze is just outrageously awful. What good clickbait. Like I bet that performed so well. I don't have any info on that, but I bet it performed so well. And I think it's just that interesting thing that like, it just shows what a study actually shows and what a headline or like the clickbaity element is, is often so far removed. And if you just saw that headline, you'd be like, oh my God, and fab, I bet we keep going. Yeah, it's very interesting. Whereas actually, it's not true at all. Like overall, alcohol increases health risks and like the higher intake of alcohol clearly worsens health outcomes.

25:31There's just no, there's no two ways around that there is just infinite amount of data to show the same. Whereas this is a big study that shows potentially wine is a superior form of alcohol for your health. It is not the same thing. We could be doing a nutrition lecture right now, to be honest. This is the perfect type of thing we would present to students in a lecture theatre is showing those two headlines with the same identical study and how different and fear-mongering, I mean, both are not exactly fantastic, but the sun one there, basically, it's giving people what they want to hear. Like you said, they want an excuse.

26:04You said that with coffee before, Ellie, you know, people want to hear that having copious amounts are good for you. So the takeaway is essentially that, you know, patterns of drinking do matter. What you drink matters, how, why, when, but ultimately we all need to reduce our alcohol intake. Really, just before we go to the next headline, because one of the things they picked up on wine was that it's often drunk. You often drink wine with a meal. Why is that better for your health? It just slows the release of the alcohol and the absorption. So when you've got an empty stomach, you know, your body's just going to kick into action straight away and try and process that alcohol.

26:39But it's almost like pairing, imagine a glass of water and then you fill it with food. you know the food's going to absorb a lot of that water and the same thing happens with alcohol so it just releases ethanol slowly when you're looking at the toxin itself it just slows down the release which means you're less likely to feel the effects you're less likely to binge drink because you're not getting that instant feedback loop being activated the reward of that fuzzy feeling that some people really enjoy when they drink alcohol.

27:11starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times your to-do list may feel endless with new tasks and lists can easily begin to overrun your life so finding the right tool that not only helps you out but simplifies everything as a built-in business partner can be a game changer for millions of businesses that tool is shopify shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S. from household names like Gymshark, Rare Beauty, and Heinz to brands just getting started. Shopify has hundreds of ready-to-use templates that can help you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style and you can tackle all the important tasks in one place from inventory to payments to analytics and more.