The Nation’s Health Check, Cortisol Confusion & Stress Hacks

27:23So it's not easy, but I think batch cooking, that sort of thing also really, really helps. A thousand percent. I think it's the only way. So I think the sooner we get this messaging in that it will take a bit of time at the weekend. I think we have to start, a lot of us say, oh, it takes no time to cook. It does take time to cook, you know, even a five minute, 10 minute. I think if we're just honest and say we just have to put a bit of the work in for it, it's tricky, Ella. Shall we move on to a quick pickup I've got before our next headline? Yes, I didn't see this going to the script. I know nothing, guys.

27:54Tell me, because this is very interesting. Do you know, I only wanted to raise it because we spoke about Botox and how a smile is more effective. And I think Botox in itself has almost become the norm. It's like a norm in a woman, and as we discovered, men's journey nowadays. And it was actually a headline in the BBC that came out on Saturday, so a few days before recording this episode today. And in the northeast of England, 28 people were hospitalized, Ella, after fatal botulism, or potentially fatal bostilism after receiving fake or illegal anti-wrinkle injections posing as Botox. Yes, I saw the headline as well.

28:32It must have been from the same report saying that people are giving it in bathrooms. To imagine. I mean, it's absolutely terrifying because the authorities, including the MHRA and local health teams, they're basically investigating now this illegal supply chain. But this is everywhere. It's a really risky market because it's booming so much and it's becoming the norm. And people think, oh, there's no harm. there's no risk it's just a simple little jab in your face i think just to remind our listeners if you're going to get this done credible credible sources are needed yeah and no judgment any which ways but equally to your point re it's just yeah knowledge is power and remembering your smile is officially more effective and making you look attractive it's quite nice to know

29:17it 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. It'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.

29:58My 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. It'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.

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31:06Sierra also has yoga gear. It might be a good place to find your zen. Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. This next headline, it actually just quite made me laugh. It really stems, do you remember a few years ago, I think it was really when we were seeing this rise of alternative proteins, when meat mimics were huge and everyone was talking about the impossible burger, you know, the veggie burger that bleeds, which I still find really weird because does anyone like the fact that the bleeding part of a burger, like I don't know anyone who has their favourite bit.

31:39Anyway, at the same time, people started putting together the dots between the food industry, which is one of the largest polluters in the world and climate change. And as climate change became more and more relevant, it felt like we were talking about, yeah, this huge impact that the food industry has on the environment, hence the rise of vegan alternative proteins. But in that people kept putting forward bug protein. And I remember being sent, I used to get so many PR samples and packages and things. Yeah. I think read the same. And oh, goodness me, I got sent a lot of bug protein things. It never called to me personally.

32:12I know it's silly, but I always found the idea quite gross. Anyway, turns out probably a good thing that it didn't necessarily catch on or hasn't yet because as it stands, it's not so good. The headline in the Sunday Times ran, hold the insect burger, eating bugs is bad for the climate. Which I find really fascinating because like you, I went through this. I even did TV interviews about this, Ella. Did you? About insect protein. Yep. I was being asked about insect protein. All I could say was, yes, it's a good source of protein because they would be, but you'd have to eat so many of them to get X amount.

32:49And it's very new. We haven't done this before. I personally also couldn't even try one. I know that in some cultures around the world, it's a delicacy. I don't want to be disrespectful to anyone that consumes insects, if that's your thing. I really couldn't get my head around it. I couldn't either. I couldn't try it. It's definitely not my thing. But yeah, so in this research, they were looking at the black soldier fly larvae, which was touted as one of the most promising plant proteins. But basically, the report was factoring in the entire production process, especially the energy that was used in both processing the protein and transporting it.

33:31And actually, the environmental cost was so much higher than expected. And even when the larvae were fed on food waste, which obviously in theory would make it more sustainable, the climate impact was still six times higher than using soy. So obviously tofu, really, which we're talking about here, or tempeh. But tofu is obviously more popular. And as we talked about last week, tofu is really good for your health. But it was also almost double that of fish, which is unexpected. Yeah, but I also think the issue is also what insects do for the planet. Like they have a job to do. And I was thinking about this.

34:06I was watching, you know, the bees in the garden at home and all that kind of stuff and the ants. And I read some weird stat in my son's book about ants and how amazing they are and how they're the healers of the garden or something. And I was reading it to him out loud. And it makes me think about that. And to farm insects at scale, it's such an intensive process. So despite it being, yes, it's a source of protein, why do we have to go there when there's so many other options now and they have to be sterilized or, oh, I don't like speaking about it, boiled and dried and crushed into powders, Ella.

34:37I find that really difficult to, you know what I'm like, everybody listening probably knows now. So where we're told insects are, you know, green, the full life cycle, I think, of that insect tells a difference. And if you take an insect out of its ecosystem, we're losing part of it. What are we replacing to help the job that insect does in the circle of life? And I think interestingly, we were saying, obviously, to your point there, when you've got such good alternatives, like soy in that sense of being six times more efficient from an environmental perspective, they were looking at then again, how do we then compare it to things like beef, pork, chicken?

35:13Insects do have a lower carbon footprint than beef or pork, but essentially the same as chicken per gram of protein. So the article said, which I don't know, maybe it's just really immature and not, it's not funny at all, but it said, unless we actively prefer cricket kebabs and mealworm dishes, there's no compelling reason to introduce them into our food system. Basically, unless you prefer a cricket kebab to roast chicken, I think it's also quite freeing, right? Because there is so much pressure on you should eat this, you shouldn't eat that, you should feel bad about this, you shouldn't feel bad about that.

35:44And I think it's sometimes nice knowing actually as it stands you don't need to eat a cricket bar that's what i saw lots of like cricket energy bars and things like that we would go to conferences and there'd be displays of these new products and they were it was one of those predictions of trends that never happened you know of the future and there were companies doing that when they're creating i remember them being at food matters one year and all these sorts of things but guys you can get that amount of protein on a plant-based diet so it just seems very counterintuitive and we have a more sustainable way of producing food that we can then replant afterwards.

36:18You can't just replant an insect. Its whole chain has gone. Equally, just to add as well in terms of the sustainability aspect, when you're looking at fiber, I don't think insects provide that amount of fiber compared to eating pulses and beans as well. So Ella, I'm glad that this has been kind of debunked. I'm happy that we can say that might not be the future of the planet. Yeah, no. And as you said, for the 90 plus percent of people in the UK who don't eat enough fiber, if you're going to do something more environmentally conscious, adding in beans, for example, you're getting both plant protein.

36:55Obviously, that's really positive for the environment if you're making that swap. But you're also getting the fiber, which we all collectively really, really need more of. So it just feels like a bit more of a win-win potentially. And also an easier swap is popping lentils into a soup for example or into a bolognese or into a stew it's really quite easy or tofu into a curry those sorts of things um you know chuck a can of chickpeas into just about everything basically i love that far more straightforward far more delicious in my opinion i'd love a smoky bean chili any day over a cricket bar crunchy oh don't don't okay the next headline is weird.

37:34First of all, anybody listening, if you've tried insects, can you let us know in the comments? I would genuinely love to know, even if you had a really positive or a negative experience. Okay, Ella, the weird headline next is just very Black Mirror, like you said. Yeah, we love to look at all the papers and magazines every week and see what are people talking about in wellness, what's coming out, what new study has come or new tech or what's relevant. And we try and pick the things that we obviously think are interesting and we want to talk about things that are curious for us all too. And whilst we're curious about obviously things like the state of the nation's health, it's also things like what is the future going to look like?

38:11And obviously the world is changing so quickly at the moment with tech and AI and all the rest of it. And this was mind boggling. Obviously stress is a massive, massive issue. We're going to come on to stress in a bit more detail in our trend section when we're looking at cortisol. So not to do a spoiler, but there was a report I was looking at from the Mental Health Foundation. And it was looking at research from the UK from the last year. And 74 % of people in the UK have felt so stressed they've been overwhelmed or unable to cope. And 51 % of adults who felt stressed reported feeling depressed.

38:4561 % said they felt anxious. Stress is a really prevalent problem in the world today. And a lot of it is linked to our work. And so this was interesting to me. The headline here was e-tattoo could track mental workload for people in high stake jobs. And this was in The Guardian. And it feels like we might be entering some kind of black mirror era. I know. But one that's backed by science because researchers at the University of Texas called this ultra thin flexible device, Ella. They're basically calling it the e-tattoo and it's designed to help people. So it basically uses a brainwave and eye movement data to monitor how mentally overloaded you are.

39:27And I can't get my head around it. The idea is to create a kind of live mental workload decoder that can give you a gentle warning when your brain's reaching its limit. So you can adjust before you make a mistake. I mean, how is this helpful? What about if you're a performer on stage or you're delivering a talk at work and your mental load is going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You can't just stop in the middle of the performance and say, hey guys, I'm having a bit of a mental overload now. I'm going to just take a minute. Yeah, it's so true. I mean, because they were talking about it in the context of very high stress environments, healthcare workers, pilots, they mentioned.

40:05What if you're a surgeon in an operation and then it goes off, boom, boom? I feel like it's more relevant in a way almost within an office environment where you can potentially stop and readjust versus as you said you're halfway through like a heart transplant it's quite great anyway I'm not an expert on that and whether or not you can how much of a break you can take but I just thought it was really interesting that obviously wearable tech is huge that over half of adults in the UK are wearing wearable tech there's more and more coming out all the time I feel like everywhere I look I see someone wearing a whoop an aura ring whatever it is I always stop people and ask them, like, how do you find that?

40:41Because I'm fun. But anyway, and I just was curious if this is the next bit of wearable tech, something that is tracking your brain to tell you, OK, you have too much stress, you need to stop. I think it might be. I do think there's going to be a real big trend for brain everything. I'm predicting brain food for, you know, me and my industry, everything, maybe 2027, 2028. You think that's the next big trend? Because I feel like we've just had gut health as our big, big trend, like a big macro wellness trend. Yeah, I think next year was still fiber. Year after, Ella, just going to predict, throw it out there.

41:15It might be brains. But what's interesting here is they did test using a memory challenge. And this really interests me because I'd love to have a better memory. And they said where letters flashed up on a screen and participants had to spot repeats. So as the task got harder, Ella, that the device picked up the changes in the brain activity, how interesting. And then they fed all that data into a machine learning algorithm. And then it could predict how overloaded someone was just from the brain signals. So our memory must, it must be so exhausting to recall a memory, but we just don't think about it.

41:48Yeah. And I think stress is certainly for me, like if I think about four pillars of health, nutrition, sleep, stress, exercise, I feel like stress is the one that's really intangible for some of us sometimes when we are actually so overwhelmed and we're so stressed and we start to see it come out in our health in you know whether that's hair loss whether that's like poor sleep whether that's irritability anxiety we start to see how often we get poorly or run down more totally but we don't necessarily have a handle on like that's making me feel stressed that's making me feel worried and so I don't know how much does it cost Ella can you tell me how much it cost do you have the what they were saying it was less than 200 so it's very much in line with i think a lot of other wearable tech but i was imagining coming into the office and seeing everyone like strapped up with their like head plaster yeah that's black mirror i think it's very interesting your prediction and i would second it that brain health is if we're on gut health at the moment but to the point it's not working we're all talking about gut health or I feel we are you see big you know brands like M &S talking about it like it feels like it's part of a public discourse in terms of being picked up across the board brands shops campaigns people podcasts shows etc but it's not working because over 90 % of us aren't getting our fiber so we're chatting but we're not helping people do it we're not I think I need to do a new project on that i think we need to we'll have a think guys maybe in our substat we can do a bit more as well about fiber but it's also not helped and i i do read all the comments and reviews and i saw a few when we did our protein episode it's almost very divisive because you see people saying oh why are you saying that we don't need to talk about this it's because guys we are there's no national diet and nutrition survey saying we're deficient in protein it's just not a thing that's such a great point re um and i totally agree and we don't want to be sitting here like on some high horse saying we're perfect do it like us guys because we're so imperfect well i am so perfect i don't want to say that about you i'm sat here with an eye infection wearing glasses i caught conjunctivitis of theodore last week so yeah no imperfect and we don't get it right every day and it's definitely like the whole premise isn't like oh emulate what we do every day or what we every day.

44:11But it's just trying to break down the kind of general consensus of health. And I think it is really interesting that people don't really want to hear sometimes, like actually, you don't necessarily need to do that. There might be an aesthetic goal that you have, that eating that much protein aligns with, and that's okay. But it's almost acknowledging it for what it is, as opposed to being like, for my health, I must eat this much protein, because the data isn't there to show that versus what you need when it comes to fiber, what we're lacking. And to your point that we've just had this enormous national survey that shows how deeply deficient we are in some things and it's not telling us that we're deficient in protein but it makes me sad because i know i said it and i do value everybody's feedback and that's why i want to discuss it and i know for menopausal women and as we age we need a bit more protein i'm not disputing that as an issue i'm just saying that there's a big commercial game when you use the word protein be it on a chocolate bar, be it on a biscuit, be it on a book, be it on a TV show, anywhere you look, it just seems to be such a hot topic and it's detracting from what we actually should be discussing.

45:19I'm going to move on from it, Ella. Should we do our trend in wellness? Because I feel like it links to stress. Yes, it's a very nice segue if we move into what's trending in wellness today.

45:32Okay, so today's topic I think we have been wanting to talk about for a little while and it's cortisol cocktails. I know and before we get into it, I saw an article on Sunday again in the BBC. I was on the BBC website this weekend, Ella, you know, just checking out things in this country because I don't always go there. And we're ahead of the curve, Ella, because we've had this in our brief. Just to give you guys an idea, we had it for the live show. We were going to bring this trend up but we knew with time we could just talk forever on it so we thought nope we'll save it for our weekly episode then everyone gets to hear it as well and sure enough it came out in the BBC and it said stop telling me to lower my cortisol it's making me stressed and that was the headline Ella.

46:11I love that though because I think it's so true it's like life is busy we do our best we try and have active stress managers in there but stop telling me to do it because it is quite it's so stressful when someone says to you you know when you feel overwhelmed they're like oh you just need to have some time out and i'm like yeah i know that right now but it's just not an option so cortisol does feel as a word it is absolutely everywhere people are talking about lowering cortisol i mean i was saying some completely mad stuff about cortisol cocktails in particular on my algorithm that was like i'm drinking a cortisol cocktail and it's literally we'll come on to in a minute, but, and I've lost 20 pounds.

46:52I was like, no, this is madness. But before we go into all of that, Rhi, tell us what actually is cortisol. Let's have a 101 on this big stress hormone. Yeah. It's produced by the adrenal glands. Now, whenever I give talks and nutrition, I kind of hold my fingers in two little circles and I put them on the back of my kidneys. So on your lower back, where your kidneys kind of sit, just above that are your, adrenal glands and they play a central role in how we respond to stress. But that in turn, obviously links to your metabolism, your blood sugar, your immunity, inflammation, how we sleep. And it gets a bad rep, Ella.

47:28I think most people just think cortisol, enemy, bad for us, but actually we do need it. And it's got a natural function. It's all about balance, ideally, and cortisol peaks in the morning because we need to wake up. Without that hormone helping us, it's part of our circadian rhythm. It's part of our innate ability to survive. And I'm sure lots of you have heard of the same analogy, but running in the wild, if a tiger suddenly appeared in front of you and you needed to run fast, cortisol kicks in and it helps you run fast. The hormone has a complete place. But when it happens every day, Dr. Patrick Brady, my psychology lecturer at university used to use this analogy all the time.

48:11He said, you're sat in the classroom right now. And if all you can hear outside is people beeping their horns in traffic and it doesn't stop, that would make you stressed. If you're on your way to work and you're stuck in traffic and you're running late, that spikes your cortisol. You have no control over it. It's just something that happens. And when it builds up every day, it doesn't become acute, it becomes chronic, which means it's forever, you know, it constantly happens. And when it stays elevated at a certain level, that's when we as human beings see problems with our health, you know, we feel more tired, we don't sleep well, we really experience anxiety, it has been linked to weight gain, which is where I think this particular trend has come from.

48:50And high blood pressure, heart disease even cancer i mean my big worry with stress ella is is increased risks of things like cancers i feel like stress is so out of our control that's definitely my concern for sure and i think the other one that always interests me is that too much cortisol for too long also causes nutrient depletion and i think it's this idea we're saying a second ago if you think about the four different pillars of health nutrition exercise sleep stress how interlinked they are You can eat all the broccoli and lentils and almonds you want, but if you're chronically stressed, then ultimately this can only do so much.

49:29And that's why, unfortunately, they all do go so hand in hand. And I think that's really interesting. And it can lead to deficiencies in things like magnesium, omega-3, fatty acids, B vitamins. And those are so important for mood, energy, nervous system support, which is why when we're so depleted for a long time, we feel it both mentally and physically, which is really interesting your muscles will ache like it takes a big toll on your body because you then need to use those nutrients elsewhere so it's like a depletion it completely draws it up and even the gut health imbalance ella so if we discuss the fact you know our gut and brain are so deeply connected that when one's off the other will feel it too so the microbiome the living bacteria they have their own circadian rhythms and if we're disrupting that with our level of stress and how we're sleeping and the interaction between the increased level of anxiety or nervousness that we constantly feel that's when we draw blood flow away from the stomach that impacts our digestion our blood sugar balance the crashes become very extreme when you're stressed you really are very sensitive to those highs from when you consume food and it impacts our hormone insulin our body i described this in the nutrition clinic is like a wheel of lots of different cogs And when one falls out of place, the wheel's broken and it has a knock on effect on everything.

50:49I'd say for me, Ella, it's, you know, when you have a massage, like you're lucky enough to get a massage in life and you really feel things that ache that you didn't know would ache. It's the, not just the physical load, which of course plays a role. It is the fight or flight response. It's the tension in our muscles that we create as a natural survival mechanism. Jaw clenching. you know like I hear my kids grinding their teeth in the night and it's so loud I can almost hear it in the next room and I think they process things by grinding their jaw and I think we still do that as adults it's something that stays with us we become very tense do you find that oh my gosh so tense yeah building a business is is so so stressful and building it through covid lockdowns hyperinflation oh my gosh grief everything that that we've done I mean it was amazing experience but the level of stress that we both felt was so extraordinary I mean Matt didn't sleep last year I reckon he was sleeping four hours a night he just couldn't sleep yeah and it had become really chronic hence why why I became so conscious of it but I think it it is really important but then equally to your point which is that cortisol is really important and it's not inherently bad.

52:02And I think, again, because it's everywhere at the moment, there is this feeling that we should eliminate all course soul and it's actually just we want a more even balance and to not have excessive course soul all the time. And that's not also to say that obviously when you're trying to get to work and your train is cancelled or something like that happens, you are going to feel that sense of stress and that's fine, but then you let that stress go. So it's when you're living with that all day, every day, and that constant chronic stress where you feel suffocated, that's when you start to have issues with your cortisol.

52:37So don't panic that you're like, suddenly have 10 minutes of stress because yeah, these normal things happen and you're going to miss a big meeting or, you know, whatever it is. And it's linked to our own mental resilience, which is a psychological factor that's out of our control, depending on how we're raised biologically, our genes. I think there's so much to be said for our individual predisposition to stress as well. Because you've got some stats here, Ella, that you wrote down from the Mental Health Foundation as well in the past year. Exactly. The ones we were talking about a second ago was just that 74 % of people felt so stressed they've been overwhelmed or unable to cope in the last year.

53:14So if that's you, you're obviously, unfortunately, in good company. like this is so normal. And I think just as much as we've got to get on top of our diets as a country, you've got to get more tooled up with things that will naturally help support our stress. One thing I did think was interesting was particularly for the wellness scoop was 46 % of people said they ate too much or they ate unhealthily due to stress. I am a stress eater. So I really, really nod along to that. And 36 % of women said their stress was linked to how they felt about their appearance. So that's, you know, it's over a third of us feeling stressed because of how we look.

53:54So basically, I think that's just suffice to say, like, it's not surprising that we're then drawn to these quick fixes, particularly when people say, oh, drinking a cocktail cocktail helped me lose 20 pounds. And so if you have seen people talking about cortisol cocktails, not to spoiler alert, it's absurd. It's literally a drink that's made of orange juice, coconut water and sea salt and then sometimes has things like ginger or cream of tartar added to it other people call it an adrenal cocktail and it's just a cocktail i mean it's just a drink it's like mocktail so we break down those ingredients for us but you know guys this is just it it's just like a tasty mocktail if anything it would give certain people on the internet a real like glucose spike chaotic meltdown because if you just break down the ingredients.

54:43Okay, you've got vitamin C from orange juice, potassium from coconut water, which is good. We do need potassium water. Sodium from the salt. I would argue some people don't need extra salt. So yeah, it can offer some basic hydration, but there's no scientific evidence, guys, of course, that it rebalances your hormones or meaningfully lowers cortisol levels. Yeah, I think, as of you saying, it's so normal. And I have been there so many times. I was there in abundance last year of wanting quick fixes to stress. And I think the good news is there are things that are proven, like then there's a huge amount of evidence around in terms of naturally lowering cortisol and better managing stress.

55:24And those are unfortunately just the basics. Number one, move your body regularly, like moderate exercise, walking, yoga in particular is a lot of data on. I know I'm back on my yoga bandwagon at the moment. Or swimming can help lower cortisol, which is amazing. Deep breathing or meditation. Again, there's a lot of research on those. And even just five to 10 minutes, really, really short, that can make a huge difference to cortisol levels and supporting your nervous system. Good sleep, poor sleep in itself can raise cortisol. As we were saying that interlinking of all the different pillars of health, eating a balanced diet, again, really supports cortisol.

56:04Again, it's the boring stuff, guys. and as well staying connected we always talk about this like it's so easy to hyper focus and spotlight broccoli when it comes to health but actually as we always say that connection with people spending time with your loved ones one of the best ways to naturally lower your cortisol and making time for hobbies doing things that you really love maybe that's drawing maybe that's painting maybe that's reading all of these things again really really really proven and again like evidence-based to support your cortisol and your stress levels. So it's really easy to want to make a drink because that takes two sacks.

56:41And I so get it. But ultimately, these things, just investing in de-stressers and making time to move your body, to look after yourself, to spend time with the people you love, that really does make a big, big difference. And stress is, we do need to manage it better as a collective. Yeah. I think the hobbies for me were really helpful. But remember, with 67 % of Gen Z and millennials on TikTok following nutrition trends, guys, and only 2.1 % of the advice potentially accurate. We just have to have our detective hats on. But I mean, how much more effective is it to say, drink this drink and it will solve all your problems than, hey guys, make sure you have a balanced diet today.

57:20Try and go to bed half an hour earlier. Call your mum on the way to work. It's just not very click-baity or catchy, is it? I know. I wish things could be different in today's world and it just seems to be the way it pans out. I think everybody, because I was going to move on now into common foods that act like drugs, but I think we'll move it to next week. Otherwise, I don't think we'll have time for our listener question today. Ella, what do you think? I agree with you because I actually think it taps into a little bit about the supplements thing earlier, but certain ingredients like Brazil nuts really interesting in terms of the impact.

57:51So let's move that to next week so we can give it proper time and attention and take our listener question this week. Yeah, our listener question was basically about what type of fat should I be cooking with? And Dan had read this article that basically everybody's been talking about AI, but ghee has become, Ella, this is your area really, but apparently ghee is a 16 billion industry in the US. Wow. The butter and ghee market is projected to grow from 16.4 billion in 2024 to 57 billion by 2033. Ella, what do you think about that? According to what I'm looking at now, the global ghee market is significantly larger with a 2024 value of 55.8 billion and a projected value of 94.4 billion dollars by 2033, according to one market report.

58:43So ghee is massive business. Obviously origins are in India with Indian cooking, but it's really taking off. And I think the interesting question is basically really like what, what should we be cooking with? Give us a quick overview. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I think, look, we have to remember that when it comes to, I'm going to call it a heritage food because it's such a staple to some people's diets. And that's something that we can't take away from, but it is very high in the fat we don't want, saturated fat. So while it's a staple in most cuisines and Indian cooking, I think we have to really remember that these things should be used in moderation and it's still probably better for you to cook with more unsaturated fats like olive oil, rapeseed oil, dare I say it and get a load of controversy.

59:33We're going to get some comments about rapeseed oil. We do still need to do an extra scoop specifically, I think just on oils and fats. But ghee is in the same category. I would put it in the same category as butter. Coconut oil is also in that category. They're saturated fats. Yes, they contain certain nutrients because fats do contain nutrition, but it doesn't warrant you consuming it above a small amount, I'd say, daily. So as a day-to-day option, you are better sticking with your oils because of the unsaturated fats? A hundred percent. And I can see why Dan was really confused when he sent this over.

1:00:06He was just I think the figures are just astounding but we have to remember that I would say this is an example of where cultural heritage food is seen as a wisdom food does that make sense for sure like beef tallow taking over though as well I think it's also linking into this seed oil debate and everyone's like oh should we use oils anymore and really returning to yeah ghee butter beef tallow all of the rest of it so because it's prized in Ayurveda as well we have to remember that there's some beliefs and cultures and backgrounds around the world that yeah use these ingredients so we're not dismissing that but I cannot take away the science that it's a saturated fat and it's not good for your heart health and if you have poor heart health definitely don't consume a lot of it but also again when we're looking at obviously broad brush here but different cultures the way that we unfortunately eating the west is generally speaking as we've lower in fiber and higher in ultra processed food and ingredients that contain other bits of saturated fat.

1:01:09So if what you're doing is a huge amount of home cooking packed with lentils and vegetables and fiber filled foods, and then you're using a bit of ghee to cook it in, your balance of saturated fat is going to be very, very different. Whereas if you're cooking a lot of meat and you're cooking it in your saturated fats and your ghee, your butter, your beef tallow, et cetera, then you're really increasing it. So I think it's also like any food is looking at it in the context of what else you're eating. And I think we always have to come back to that. A thousand percent, Ella. I think that's a really nice way.

1:01:38It's some practical advice to leave you all with for cooking at home. So I know that's really confusing for everybody. I feel like it's been a very meaty episode again. We've had a lot to discuss. It has. But as always, it comes back to focus on your basics, guys. You've got your four pillars. Think about your sleep. Think about your stress. Think about your diet. Think about your exercise. None of it needs to be complicated. it's a can of chickpeas here a walk on your lunch break there half an hour earlier to bed and something that makes you feel unstressed another fun game for the week try it all every day another fun game Ella everybody thank you so so much for listening and tuning in sharing the podcast is honestly making the biggest difference we are beyond grateful and keep your feedback coming on those because I can see it very clearly on Spotify and Apple and then we can get these questions into the episodes and we might even do an extra scoop just of listener questions.

1:02:30So get them in. Yes, please leave them. We're going to look at doing that maybe next week even. So just chuck them all in after this week's episode. We so appreciate it. Have a great day, guys. Thanks for being here. As we said, we love it. Bye.

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