7 snacks for a longer & healthier life | Prof Sarah Berry

25:41Even if they are processed whole grains, the evidence still shows that they can be healthy for us.

25:48Sarah Berry:And so does that mean that if I have something that is high in sugar, I still need to worry about it, even if it's not got all sorts of weird things on the ingredient that I didn't know? I mean, is that still, you know, that's definitely how I was sort of brought up. If we're talking about pure sugar, table sugar, yeah, you should worry about it. It's going to cause these big sugar peaks, these big sugar dips. It's associated with inflammation, hunger, excess calorie consumption. not many of us just eat table sugar if you're talking about whole foods that are high in sugar dried fruit other foods i absolutely would not worry about that and actually we're seeing a little bit of a concerning trend amongst some influences out there and on social media actually demonizing food because of the sugar content we know that if you're eating that fruit as a whole food you tend to absorb that sugar more slowly into your circulation and whole foods packed with so many other amazing chemicals like polyphenols, which are these wonderful bioactive chemicals that act on anti-inflammatory pathways and antioxidant pathways and so forth.

26:58And so you've got to think of the food as a whole. So if you were to take a fruit or a piece of dried fruit and think, oh, it's got this amount of sugar, I can't eat it. No, that's not the right way to look at it. Think about how you're going to digest that fruit, which will be slowly, how you're going to eat it, which will be slowly. but also think about what are all the other wonderful chemicals and nutrients that are in that fruit.

27:18Sarah Berry:What about all these sort of pastries and cakes? So I think wherever you're getting that cake from, whether it's from a cake that you've made at home, so you know the ingredients, or a cake that's been processed in such a way that it can sit on a supermarket shelf for months, either way, yes, it's going to be low in fibre, low in protein, high in unhealthy nutrients like sugar. yes the one that you're getting from your grocery store is going to be worse for you probably because it's also got these other chemicals added to it but just because something like that cake is not processed i is homemade doesn't mean that it's automatically better for us but jonathan you know we all need to eat for pleasure we need to get the joy in the food that we're having if you want that afternoon cake and the rest of your diet is healthy have it enjoy it just don't eat it all day long.

28:11Sarah Berry:I love it. I'm still thinking through this idea that there's like nothing in the corner store that you can eat. What about all the cereal bars? There's been this explosion since I was a kid and a lot of them look really healthy, right? And they have normally tons of labels on them telling me that they're high in protein or whatever. Are they, you know, rare example of the good snacks that you were talking about to me earlier? I would say beware of two things when it comes to cereal bars. Firstly, that not all cereal bars are created equally. The difference in the health effects of one cereal bar versus another is absolutely huge.

28:53The other thing I'd beware of is health halos. So cereal bars are particularly susceptible to this where you have a cereal bar that says high protein, high fiber. Now, it could be full of absolute rubbish, but just because it meets that protein target or that fiber target, it can still say high protein, high fiber. And so this is what we consider like a health halo. Doesn't mean just because it has that claim that it is bad for you, but I would say be a little bit cautious. So when you're looking at your cereal bar, again, I would look at how much added sugar is in it. And often this isn't in the form of actually sugar.

29:28It might be treacles that are put on top, you know, syrups, those kind of things.

29:32Sarah Berry:So when I turn it over on the back, will it just say sugar and that will make me realise that it's full of sugar or is it sort of hidden away? So there's two different parts of the label you can look at. One is the ingredients. So let's say it's an oat-based bar. It will tell you the proportion of the ingredients that come from oats, the proportion that's from sugar, you don't want your sugar to be up there at 20, 30 % of the bar, then I would start to worry. As well as the ingredients, you also have the nutrient information. This is a legal requirement for everything that's sold to have both the nutrients and the ingredients.

30:08The nutrient information will tell you how much fat is in it, how much carbohydrate in it, how much of that carbohydrate is sugar, how much fibres in it, and so forth. So if you do want to look at the label, and I do think it's really hard to interpret the labels in order to make a decision of whether that snack is healthy or not. I find it difficult because of the way foods have been processed. As a rule of thumb, you want something that is higher in fibre, something that's lower in sugar and lower in salt. A lot of these cereal bars, even though they're sweet, actually are packed with salt as well.

30:39And so I would be a little bit cautious about any of these bars that are high in sugar, low in fibre and high in salt. When you're looking at the ingredients as well, again, look at the ingredients in terms of what proportion comes from nuts, what proportion comes from seeds, what proportion comes from oats, you know, from these kind of whole food starting point. And then what's all these kind of added bits of syrups and powders that are put in?

31:04Sarah Berry:I understand that we actually wrote an article talking about all the different ways that you as a food company might hide the fact that sugar with all of these different ingredient names which ultimately really are sugar. Could you explain that to me Sarah. Yeah, so sugar is a kind of slightly complicated one. So there's sugar that we think of in the typical way we think about sugar, which is white sugar granules. At the end of the day, that is processed in our blood to what we call very simple sugars, in particular glucose. And we know that big elevations in glucose, and particularly the dips, may be detrimental to our health.

31:43And there's lots of other forms of sugars that are then processed into these simple sugars. So you've got syrups like nectar syrup, you've got honeys, or often if it ends in Ose, O-S-E, then that's an indication that it's a sugar because we know sugar, for example, is called sucrose. Fructose is another kind of sugar. So most sugars end in Ose, glucose, fructose, sucrose.

32:11Sarah Berry:And so that means that I could have in my ingredient list, as I understand it, sugar actually appearing like multiple times, but with different names? Absolutely. So you can have multiple sources of different types of sugars in the ingredient list. On the nutrient profile, on the back of pack of your labelling, it will list it just as sugar. It will come under carbohydrate and then under sugar. But in your ingredient list, yes, you could have five or six different types of sugar sources. So if I really want to know how much sugar is in this, I really need to look at that ingredient list where it says sort of carbohydrates of which sugar is, you know, 25 % or something.

32:48Sarah Berry:But whereas when I look at the ingredients, it can be really hidden to me because it's sort of broken up into all these different things that are sort of like make it impossible for me to tell that actually it's like half sugar. Absolutely. And having some sugar in there is absolutely fine. You know, our bodies are so clever. We've evolved to be able to process fat, protein, fibre and carbohydrate, of which sugar is one of them. So don't be too worried if there's sugar. I think the point here is that lots of snacks tend to be high in sugar. And it tends to not be obvious unless you're looking at the backpack labelling.

33:22Sarah Berry:Brilliant. And we'll put the link in the show notes to that article because when I read it, I was amazed. I think there were like 42 different names for sugar that food manufacturers can use, which is quite extraordinary. Well, I think you've come prepared with seven top snacks for supporting health. Is that right? I have. So having told me about all these things I should avoid, I'd like to understand what I could snack on instead. So why don't you start with the first one? So there's lots that you can snack on. I want to give you a really simple, old fashioned, accessible and cheap snack. An apple, the humble apple.

34:00That saying that I was brought up with, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, I should have paid more attention to. and the reason is firstly it's so easy just to have one in your bag they're long lasting they're healthy for you because assuming you you keep the skin on they're full of fiber they're full of other healthy nutrients nutrients that we would consider antioxidant nutrients like vitamin c for example they're also packed full of polyphenols so when we think about polyphenols which are these colored pigments that are found in fruits that we know have these bioactive properties that we know very beneficial for our gut microbiome but also wider for our health because of their anti-inflammatory effects.

34:41We typically think of berries when we think of polyphenols but actually apples have an enormous amount of polyphenols as well and when you eat a whole apple despite the fact that yes it's got lots of sugar in it you eat it in such a way because of the texture of the apple because it's typically very crunchy that you eat it quite slowly as well so you also get a really balanced blood sugar response and there's been studies looking at this that show also that you don't get that dip despite the sugar load that you would if you were to have apple juice, for example. So I think apple is a great one and it ticks all the boxes for me.

35:15And you know something I'm really passionate about is making sure what we recommend is affordable for everyone and accessible. It's one of the cheapest fruits that's out there.

35:23Sarah Berry:It's really interesting you say that eating it as the whole apple is the key. I can't have it as like apple juice or a smoothie. I have to actually eat the apple. So ideally, you would eat the apple. There has been research comparing the health effects of the whole apple versus apple smoothie versus apple juice. So if you consume a whole apple versus apple smoothie, they're nutritionally identical. So same fiber, same everything. What you see is the speed at which you eat them is really, really different. So you will eat the apple puree about four times more quickly than you will the whole apple.

36:00what does that mean it means that you get these bigger peaks but more importantly these big dips in circulating blood glucose blood sugar that cause you to be more hungry later on and we know that eating a whole apple versus apple puree or smoothied apple actually keeps you a lot fuller for a lot longer strip out all the fiber then you've got apple juice well that's like having kind of pure sugar that might have a few of the other benefits like some vitamin c in but absolutely go for the whole apple.

36:29Sarah Berry:So I had an apple yesterday. So today I would like something else. So number two is chickpea. Now it might be slightly more difficult to get on the go, but there's lots of different ways you can eat chickpeas. And the reason I recommend this is because we're not eating as a nation and it's the same in the US and many countries, enough legumes, enough pulses, enough beans, which is basically what chickpeas are. And I think there are garbanzo beans for our US listeners. Okay, garbanzo beans. Thank you. I've learned something new today. And they're so healthy for us. They're high in protein, they're really high in fiber.

37:05You know, they are such an important source of slow carbohydrates as well. And, you know, there's good evidence to show the more we can incorporate these kind of beans and legumes into our diet, the healthier we are. You can have them lots of different ways. You can actually just have them straight out of the jar. Lots of people might not like that. I know many people that do munch on them out of a jar. The other thing you could do is you could try roasting them. So you could roast them with your favourite herbs or spices. A great way to make it even healthier because we know adding herbs and spices to your diet is really important in improving health.

37:41And again, we've got an entire podcast on this.

37:44Sarah Berry:So some people like paprika sprinkled on them or turmeric or something. And if you roast them, they last longer. You can put them in a jar. So it's something that, yes, you do need to pre-prepare them. So there is that downside. But if you make a big batch, then they should last for a reasonable amount of time and you can put them in a jar, carry them around with you. And I've seen people starting to sell roasted chickpeas. Would that still be good? Depends. So there are some on the market that are in quite a pure form that have very little in terms of unhealthy additives or chemicals added to them.

38:19They might have some nice added herbs and spices or a very small amount of salt, in which case, yes, you're still getting all the benefits. But I have seen some there that actually have a lot of the structure of the chickpea broken down because they might be converted into some sort of chickpea style crisp or chip. and they often have lots of added chemicals as well. So for the shop-bought ones, I would look at the back-of-pack labelling.

38:46Sarah Berry:What's number three? Number three is nuts. I'm a huge fan of nuts. And again, I know we've done a podcast talking all about the health benefits of nuts. Nuts is fantastic. It's like a powerhouse of nutrition. Nuts are packed of fibre, protein, heart-healthy oils, and loads and loads of micronutrients, vitamins and minerals and polyphenols. they're so good for us and they're really easy to carry around as well and because of the balance of the nutrients the fact that they're high in protein the fact that they're high in fiber and the fact that they're high in healthy fats they also keep you fuller for longer so they're not giving you that kind of quick sugar fix and dip so you will stay fuller for longer and i've actually done a study looking at giving people nuts as their snacks versus people having typical us uk snacks I asked people to either consume 20 % of their energy from typical UK US snacks that we designed and actually provided for them or 20 % of their energy from almond nuts.

39:49We said keep everything else in your diet the same. Don't change anything else. This is all you've got to do. Just change your snacks. We monitored them over six weeks. At the end of the six weeks, those people who were consuming almond nuts instead of the typical UK-US snacks had improvements in blood cholesterol, in blood vessel function, in so many different health parameters that actually equated to a 30 % reduction in cardiovascular disease risk just from changing their typical snacks to nuts.

40:16Sarah Berry:So firstly, that seems like a mad level of improvement just to make one swap. Aren't nuts really high in fat? So if you do that, won't you end up putting on weight? No. Despite nuts being very high in fat, people who are nut consumers do not have greater weight compared to people who are non-nut consumers. Randomised control trials, so clinical trials, also show if you increase people's nut intake, they do not increase their weight. The reason is, is because of the structure of the nuts. And I've done lots of trials on this. So the structure of the nuts, this food matrix that I talked about earlier, is very protective in terms of when you consume a whole nut, what happens is, is that actually about 30 % of the calories are excreted.

41:04And so you're actually not absorbing all of the calories from that nut. and that's because nuts, like all plant foods, have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cells. The cells are surrounded by a cell wall, which is what fibre is. This cell wall, particularly in nuts, is very rigid, is very difficult to be broken down. So the point at which you swallow a nut, the particles pass through your gastrointestinal tract and some of the fat is released from these cells. But actually a lot remains intact. It remains intact, it reaches your gut, So 30 % of the calories are excreted, but more importantly, you're providing a feast for your gut microbiome as well.

41:43Sarah Berry:Is the microbiome part of this story important in your view? We think so. We've again done studies looking at microbiome following nut consumption. And also at Zoe, with our Zoe studies, we see a really strong signal in those that are consuming nuts. We see an increase in many of the beneficial bacteria that we're particularly focused on at Zoe. So good food for us and good food for our bugs. Absolutely. Today we've been learning the true power of snacking and how getting it right can significantly improve your health. So if you have anyone in your life who likes a snack, why not share this episode with them and spread the word about how they can improve their health through what they eat.

42:25Sarah Berry:All right, what's number four, Sarah? Number four is yoghurt. This is a slightly unusual one because I don't think people would typically think of yoghurt as a snack. It depends on the type of yogurt, but if you're consuming the right type of yogurt, and by right type I mean a yogurt that is in its purest form. So I mean like Greek yogurt that doesn't have added sugar, sweeteners, fruit flavorings added to it, or another kind of natural yogurt. That's so healthy for you. It's high in protein. It's full of gut-loving bacteria as well because it's a fermented dairy, so we know that that's also good for our gut microbiome.

43:05What I would say is be very cautious of the kind of yogurts that have the added sweeteners, have a lot of sugar added to them or have these fruit flavorings because they tend to be a lot less healthy for us.

43:18Sarah Berry:And what about low-fat versions of yogurts? So what do I need to have there for this to be healthy? if you're going for low fat you need to go for low fat again of the pure form so low fat greek yogurt low fat natural yogurt what i'd be really cautious about is a lot of the yogurts that are branded as low fat in order to make up for the fact that you don't have that lovely creamy texture that the fat brings to the yogurt they often have lots of things added in that we know might impact our gut microbiome in a negative way or they might be a lot higher in sugar. One of the reasons that many yogurts are marketed as low fat and have had the fat removed is because firstly this fear about calories and fat being high in calories and you know this is something that we talk about often that we need to move away from thinking about the quantity of calories and think about the quality of calories.

44:13The other reason is is because dairy fat is typically high in saturated fat. Saturated fat generally we know is really bad for us, particularly bad for our heart health. But what we now know is that fermented dairy, so this is yogurt and this is cheese, something changes in that kind of structure of that food that seems to actually negate, so prevent the saturated fat that's in that yogurt or that cheese from actually having a negative impact on our health. And so that's why I would say that yogurt is a great one, whether it's full fat or low fat, as long as it's not got any of these additives, these sugars and these kind of imitation fruits added to them.

44:54I think it's a great option. But I think high fat is just as healthy as well.

45:00Sarah Berry:Brilliant. What is number five? So number five is popcorn. This might surprise lots of people. You're surprising me. Popcorn. I think about that as like I'm at the movies and I eat this enormous tub. That's my healthy snack, is it? It can be. So just like yogurt, it depends on what type of popcorn you're having. So let's assume it's a popcorn that you're making at home or even in one of those bags that you can buy that you put in your microwave. Often those pretend to be quite low in salt. If you're making them at home, you have the option of what you want to add into them. So pure popcorn is a great snack because it's actually really quite high in fibre, surprisingly high in fibre.

45:41So if you're making at home as well, it's a great snack that can be made very, very quickly. It only takes three, four minutes. It can last for a reasonable amount of time, provided it's sealed. I mean, it can go a bit soggy, but you also have control over what you add to it. And you can actually make it an even healthier snack. So just like we talked about with the chickpeas, you can add herbs or spices to it. There's some wonderful recipes out there for popcorn with different spices and cinnamon if you want a sweet one, or you can do savoury. So you're really kind of boosting the fact that you're having a high fibre snack with having the benefits of all of these spices.

46:17Where I'd be cautious, again, the ones that are often pre-made that you get in the supermarkets or what you get also when you go to the cinema, like the toffee ones. Absolutely not. That is not a healthy snack. It's packed with sugar and goodness knows what else. some of the salt and sweet ones again that you see in the supermarket they do have quite a lot of salt and quite a lot of sugar it's up to individuals to look at the back of pack have a look you know you should be aiming for less than about one and a half grams of salt per 100 grams of popcorn there are some brands out there that have salt at that low level if possible i would try and make it at home what's number six so number six is a slightly left field because i don't think we would typically think of this as a snack and this is avocado and the reason i've chosen avocado is because i think it is an incredible fruit to consume it's so high in fiber it's so high in heart healthy oils and you can actually carry it around if you do have it in you know a plastic container or something it will keep you full for long as well because of the fiber because of the heart-healthy fats in it.

47:26And again, you can spice it up a bit. You can add some extra virgin olive oil. It's going to make it even healthier. I like it with a little pinch of salt, not too much salt, but a little pinch of salt and some extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, or you can put your herbs and spices on it. So you can change it to each day, you know, to be a really versatile snack.

47:44Sarah Berry:This is one that you've really sold me on. I never would have thought about doing this before, Zoe, but now if I'm at home and I'm suddenly hungry, I have got in my mind that like, oh, I could open an avocado. I can smother it in extra virgin olive oil, put like some salt and pepper, some spice on top of it. I mean, that's like 60 seconds I've described. And it's delicious and feels incredibly indulgent, I guess, because of all the fats that are there in it. Oh, absolutely. You know, fat is what carries the flavor of food. Fat is what gives the creamy and that lovely mouthfeel of food. And so something like an avocado, I think, is a perfect example of where you can have your cake and eat it because you've got that beautiful flavour, you've got that beautiful texture, but you're getting all the fibre and it's healthy fats as well.

48:27I also think avocado is a great example of how we can think outside the box. We always think of snacks as in these prepackaged things or a bit of fruit, for example. Actually think about all other ways that you can get snacks in your diet. Have you got leftovers from the night before from your meal? A snack is just an eating event between a main meal. So think about things that you wouldn't typically think about. Boiled egg. for example. These are all great examples of thinking outside of that traditional snack kind of criteria.

48:59Sarah Berry:All right, we are on to the last one in the list. What have you got for us, Sarah? So number seven, Jonathan, you are going to love. It's chocolate. Oh, I do love chocolate. Again, it depends on the type of chocolate. Dark chocolate, so chocolate's got at least 70 % solids we know can be really good for our health. We know that it's packed full of these magic chemicals called polyphenols. And again, we've done a whole episode on this at Zoe. And these have really beneficial effects on how our blood vessels function. It varies from one person to the other. Some get greater benefits than other people.

49:37So it can affect everything from our heart health to our brain health. Now, I wouldn't say, therefore, you should go and consume endless amounts of chocolate. But if you're buying this dark chocolate, you'll find that actually you tend to feel quite full and more satisfied from a dark chocolate than you would from a milk chocolate like Hershey's or dairy milk. And that's because in Hershey's and dairy milk or these other milk chocolates, they tend to also have a lot of sugar added to them. And so it's a lot more easy to over consume those. And they don't have the added benefits of having the right amount of these chocolate solids that give all of these heart health and brain health benefits.

50:17Sarah Berry:Bringing us back, I guess, to the start of the show, you're saying that although it could be a healthy snack as part of my diet, if I'm eating this at sort of nine or 10 or 11 o 'clock at night, you know, in front of the sofa after dinner, it's still not a good thing to do? Even though it's a healthy snack, I would still avoid snacking on any of these healthy snacks late into the evening. Now, nine isn't a hard cutoff, but it's a cutoff that our data shows after which it seems to be having a negative impact. You're eating out of tune with your natural body clock. Try not to snack after eight or nine in the evening.

50:58Sarah Berry:Thank you, Sarah, for bringing like these seven sort of magical snacks to replace what I've done before. I'd like to finish by just understanding what might happen if one of our listeners has been eating the way that you said three quarters of people, you know, even in the Zoey database are doing, which is their snacks are much lower quality than the rest of their meal. And they switch, they swap it out for like your seven, like what health benefits will they get and how quickly will they get them? So I think if you are a snacker, who's typically getting 20 to 25 % of your energy from snacks, and you're snacking on typical UK US snacks which are not very healthy and you swap to any of these seven it's not limited to these seven so any kind of healthy whole foods you will see quite immediate benefits you might see an immediate benefit that day from not having a high sugar snack that's causing a sugar crash for example that causes you to feel very hungry have a low mood have low energy you should start to generally feel better after a couple of weeks and this is something that we've looked at a lot at zoe is how quickly do people start to say oh i feel generally more energetic generally have better mood you should start to see an improvement in other health outcomes in two to four weeks and so again our own research that i've done at king shows this that you should start to see improvement in your blood lipids so your cholesterol levels you should start to see improvements maybe in blood pressure after four to six weeks in your glucose control and so forth so you should in the moment feel better either that day or certainly within a few weeks and then within weeks to months you will start to see a benefit in some of the clinical measures as well now it depends on your starting point it depends on how much energy you're getting from snacks it depends on when you're eating those snacks and it depends on how healthy those snacks that you're going on to eat.

52:59I think it's really important at this stage, Jonathan, to say I am not in this episode encouraging non-snackers to go and start snacking at all. What I'm saying is if you are a snacker and as long as you're not snacking late at night and you're snacking on healthy foods, then that's okay as part of a balanced diet. And actually empowering those people who are snackers to say, do you know what, just changing your snacks is one of the most simple, single dietary strategies that you can do tomorrow to improve your health.

53:34Sarah Berry:Thank you so much, Sarah. I'd like to just try and summarize. So my biggest takeaway is you don't have to give up snacks if you want to be healthy. There is such a thing as like a healthy snack. And even if you are someone who's having multiple snacks in the day that isn't necessarily bad for your health and something that you need to stop doing, despite what my wonderful grandmother said to me. And if I'm eating those healthy snacks, actually, that doesn't mean that I'm going to put on weight versus if I'd given up the snacking. So I think that's really surprising for many of us. However, three quarters of all the snacks that people are eating are unhealthy.

54:18Sarah Berry:and that for the vast majority of people, the quality of their snacks is much lower than the quality of their main meal. So although in theory you can eat healthy snacks, most people, like their diet is sort of getting pulled down by their snacks. And you said it's like higher in salt, higher in saturated fat, much more likely to be this sort of high-risk processed food, higher in sugar, lower in protein, lower in fiber. So it's sort of like all the bad stuff and none of the good stuff. So you do have to be really thoughtful about what you're eating as a snack. And it's very hard to find good snacks if you're just out and about, which is also a challenge.

54:57Sarah Berry:So it sort of requires some preparation. One thing that came through really strongly in your research, which is really new, is the timing of snacking looks like it's really important. And 30 % of snackers are eating after 9 p.m. in your research. and that had a bad impact on like their belly fat on their health so even if what you're eating is a healthy snack that timing does still matter watch out for like what the snacks claim because if the snack is claiming for you it's really healthy it's probably what you describe as a health halo and it's probably not real so if you've got this cereal bar and it says like high protein then you know you actually think that's almost a watch out for the ingredients and it's probably high risk processed food you know interestingly i think almost none of the seven snacks you describe you know it comes with a health halo funnily enough my apple just tends to just like have nothing on it or like a little sticker that you never know what it means so um they need to get better marketing yeah but i would like to cover it doesn't mean all of those packaged snacks are bad that carry a health halo.

56:06Sarah Berry:And as I'm thinking about when to eat, I think the other thing that I was struck by is you said, if I'm going to have these snacks, again, the evidence suggests that like a mid-morning snack is likely to be better than a mid-afternoon snack. I'm more likely to be able to cope with that. And that's particularly true, maybe if it's a bit of an indulgence. So if I'm going to have my cake or my pastry, I'd actually be better off doing that, you know, between breakfast and lunch than I would do in the middle of the afternoon. Yes, although the difference is quite small. So if you really like it in the afternoon, don't worry, just have it in the afternoon.

56:42Sarah Berry:I love it, Sarah. You're always the person I think of when I crack open the cake. And then you shared like these seven snacks. And just to summarize, started with the apple, which you said, you know, deserves its name for keeping the doctor away. The second which was really a surprise is chickpeas or garbanzo beans as they're known in the US. And this idea you could just take them straight from the jar, but actually like you can roast them with a bunch of spices and take it with you. And actually that you can do that. It's a bit like sort of your batch preparation. Third one, nuts. Despite all these fears we've had about how it's going to make you fat.

57:16Sarah Berry:Actually, they're like this magic rocket fuel for your microbiome. The next is yogurt, where you have to be really careful about getting a real yogurt rather than something which has been super processed and hidden. But if you can get a real yogurt, particularly a Greek-style yogurt because of the higher protein you were describing, that actually could be a great snack. And Jonathan, by real Greek-style or natural yogurt, I do mean the quite standard ones that you get in your grocery store or supermarket. I don't mean you've got to go to a farm where it's just all been churned. One of the funny things is often these are the cheapest yogurts I find.

57:53Because it's unadulterated. It's just simple yogurts. It's just come from milk that's been left out in simple terms. And it's yogurts that's come out of it. It's not how to go through all of these other processes and have all of these fancy ingredients added to them.

58:08Sarah Berry:That's brilliant. The next is popcorn. Also a huge surprise because I would have thought about that as being bad for you. But it needs to be without added sugar. it could have added salt but you need to take a look at that and make sure that level is not too high and then if you're making it home then you can add like herbs and spices and all this sort of fun stuff but you know again this feels like it's a treat but actually you're saying it's healthy the next is avocado which i know has a special place in your heart sarah with all of those healthy fats and i love this idea that potentially you could actually take that with you you know if you've already cut it open then that's something that you know you could take with you into work.

58:47Sarah Berry:You described it as just being this amazing powerhouse. And then last of all, I think most surprising for many people will be chocolate. Chocolate can be a healthy snack, but it needs to be dark chocolate. You said more than 70 % actually coming from chocolate and not from sugar. And then because of all of these amazing polyphenols and other things that you talk about, actually something so delicious could actually be good for you. absolutely but don't over consume the chocolate i love it and i think you know the thing that i'm always left with when i talk with you sarah is that ultimately food is meant to be enjoyed don't feel that you can never have like a cake or any of these sorts of things think about this within the construct of your entire diet and i love this idea that you therefore if you are eating a really healthy diet then absolutely it gives you this opportunity to you know have some cake have whatever these other things are, and you're saying, I'm going to be okay.

59:47Absolutely.

59:49Sarah Berry:As you can imagine, hosting this podcast, running Zoe, juggling family life, it all keeps me pretty busy. So I try as best I can to stay energized and show up well in all those parts of my life by fueling my body with the right food, by exercising, and by adding a scoop of Daily 30 to my meals every day. If you haven't heard of Daily 30 yet, it's the gut supplement designed by our gut health scientists here at Zoe. It's made of over 30 high-quality hand-picked plants, including seaweed, fungi, and different types of fiber. Better yet, it contains ingredients that support gut health, digestion, and energy, which is ideal for packed calendars and busy lives.

1:00:32Sarah Berry:Simply add one scoop a day to any meal for an extra boost of fiber and plant diversity. And because it tastes delicious on just about anything and adds a satisfying crunch, it quite quickly slots into your life becoming a daily healthy habit you'll always have time for. By the way, whenever we talk about Daily 30 as a good source of fiber we're required to say that it contains four grams of total fat per serving. Obviously, that's all amazing healthy fats from plants. So, order yours today at zoe.com slash daily 30. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

1:01:12you