Healthier holiday eating with smart food swaps | Dr Federica Amati

0:00Welcome to Zoe, Science and Nutrition, where world leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health.

0:15T 'was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Well, actually, Aunty June is rummaging through the biscuit tin again, and I'm in the store cupboard on the hunt for some salted nuts. Because while Christmas is a time of celebration, where friends and family enjoy eating together, many of us overindulge, which leaves us feeling tired, bloated and guilty. And we often feel we've undone all the good work we put in during the rest of the year, putting us back at square one. But it doesn't have to be this way.

0:52Today I'm joined by Zoe's head nutritionist, Dr Federica Amati, a scientist at Imperial College London and author of the best-selling book, Everybody Should Know This. According to her, Christmas doesn't have to ruin your hard work. And even more importantly, you don't have to go without or feel restricted. By the end of today's conversation, you'll have the tools that you need to keep your gut healthy and happy well into 2026 and beyond.

1:23Federica, thank you for joining me today. Hi, Jonathan. I'm looking forward to today. So I don't need to tell you about the rules. We are going to do some quickfire questions. are you ready to go? Yes. Is it bad to have a massive festive meal with all the trimmings? No. Can I indulge for a month and then just fix it with a month's detox afterwards? No. During the festive season, can you look after your gut and enjoy the fun? Absolutely. Are the extra treats worse than the extra alcohol over this period? Oh, that's a really good one. It depends, but probably not. Do Brussels sprouts really contain more vitamin C than oranges and orange juice?

2:06Yes. And finally, tell us, what have you asked Santa for this year? I asked him for more time away with my children who are at that age now where it's magical to go on holiday with them. So planning a few special trips. And has your boss said yes? I'm about to submit that request. For many of us, the period from late November to Christmas is a time when we cut loose. We eat more sweet treats than we need. I overindulge on the mulled wine and tend to graze on snacks all day long. And I think it can feel like we're undoing the good work we put in throughout the rest of the year. Federica, I know you've come along to share some recipes, some smart food swaps, but also some strategies for a healthier Christmas this year without having any less fun, which I think is important because I definitely really enjoy this time of year and I want to keep enjoying it.

2:57But first, I want to get an idea of how bad Christmas really is for our health and for those microbes in our gut. Yes, there is a danger with the overindulgence, especially if you already have an underlying condition, Jonathan. So if you're somebody who's already struggling with maybe a heart condition or perhaps you already have type 2 diabetes or you're someone who's living with obesity, then actually overindulging in a really major way can actually pose a health risk. So we do see this very clear signal in the data that people tend to have more heart attacks right around Christmas. More heart attacks.

3:33Yeah, so it's definitely to do with Christmas itself and these festive periods where we tend to overeat, essentially, and overeat the wrong kinds of foods. So if you're already at risk, you do actually have to be quite mindful not to put that kind of stress on your body. If you're somebody who's generally healthy and you're spending three days with your family and you might eat something different in those three days and eat more than usual, then it's likely to be okay. It's 1 % of the year. So what's much more important is how consistent you are most of the time. But I think we do need to reframe this idea that around Christmas or any kind of festive period, you can go absolutely overboard.

4:12There's really no need for it. And I think part of the reason we do it is not for family or friends or for tradition. It's actually commercial. So we know and we can see everywhere that the food industry puts out these like special Christmas foods, special Christmas snacks that don't exist any other time of the year. And it's this really strong commercial push to make us buy foods that frankly don't have a place in our table at all. So I think there is something there. That's really interesting. I had always thought about Christmas as quite commercial, but really through the lens of presents. But I never really thought about it as being important for big food companies.

4:51Yeah. Well, they're a retailer too, and they want you to buy even more food at Christmas. Now, of course, the origins of Christmas and of lots of these other religious festivals is actually about giving to the community and sharing special occasions together and coming together as a community. So it's less about giving things and more about giving your time and affection and looking out for those who are maybe less fortunate. But food industry is also a retailer and they have this amazing opportunity to sell you products that are uniquely designed to tap into this idea of like special holiday moments.

5:25And I think it grows year on year. So you see more and more bizarre products come to market, which never existed before, and which are designed solely to capitalize on this moment in time in our calendars where we tend to be at home. We have more public holidays. So whether you celebrate Christmas or not, you get a couple of days off extra to stay home. So you see this big increase in Christmas-specific, festive-specific foods that are then purchased. You can look at household expenditure. It's much higher for food around this time compared to the rest of the year. So are we talking about just Christmas Day or are you talking about buying all of this stuff really from like the beginning of December that you start eating?

6:06Yeah, so it does start sort of mid to December when you have Christmas parties and you start buying for Christmas, for Christmas Day celebrations. And then, of course, leading up to New Year's Eve. And is this commercialization of the food of Christmas, you know, something very new? It's fairly new. It's something that's really grown a lot in the past 20 years or so. And what's bad about it, unfortunately, is that the foods are generally high risk processed foods that are extremely good for profit margins and don't have any real quality ingredients going into them. So unfortunately, a lot of these foods tend to be high in salt.

6:41As I said, high risk processed additives that we don't need, very high energy intake rate. So one tiny little sweet or confectionery or bite of sausage and something has a lot of calories per bite. And then also they're hyperpalatable. They have lots of sodium, salt, sugar, fat, so that when you eat it, it tastes delicious, but it really isn't doing any favors for your body. It's really interesting, Jonathan. There's a whole period of time around August when the major retailers showcase their latest Christmas and festive food offerings. So food scientists spend time in the earlier part of the year pulling together new concoctions that are even more delicious and even more bizarre to then bring to market, showcase them to retailers in August and then bring to market for Christmas.

7:28It's calculated and it is absolutely one of the ways that big food makes more money. So I'm a bit shocked by this because I think I naively think about Christmas as being somehow this traditional meal. And I know that people listening tend to have very different traditions about exactly what they eat on Christmas. So I think about that as being very traditional. But here you're talking about something like incredibly commercial, trying to push something that I'm going to buy, I'm going to spend a lot of money on, but where they've really focused on sort of the worst sort of processed food. Christmas does have a very commercial history, though, Jonathan.

8:01Coca-Cola is the best example. Do you remember the Coca-Cola truck advert with the lights and the jingle? I remember it throughout my whole childhood and early adulthood. It marked the start of Christmas. and famously it was Coca-Cola who dressed Santa Claus in red. You are surely pulling my leg. I do not believe that Father Christmas was green before Coca-Cola made him red. Father Christmas is based on Santa Claus who is a traditional German figure and he wears green, he does not wear red. And so this was like 100 years ago or something? Yes, about 100 years ago exactly turned Santa Claus red and it has stuck.

8:39That is extraordinary. I did not know that. How much does it matter if I really indulge myself for a day or two? Because in my mind, somehow there's this big difference between what I might do for a day or two and what I might do if I basically let loose from the end of November. you know listeners in America are obviously doing Thanksgiving but you know for everyone around the world that's sort of when all the Christmas parties and all the food ads come on so letting loose for really that month what does that look like for our health and indeed our gut health are they both bad? The one or two days within reason are likely to be something that we can recover from quite quickly a full month of eating in a way that really doesn't support your health and doesn't look after your gut microbes, you're going to feel the effect of that for longer, obviously, and it will take longer to go back to a baseline where you feel good again.

9:33Let's just reframe it. It doesn't have to mean eating so much that you feel sick. It doesn't have to mean drinking so much more alcohol than usual that you have a stinking hangover the next day, right? Why don't we focus on really enjoying the flavours, enjoying the foods that we love, being mindful around how much we put on our plates, and then enjoying the company and the actual spirit of Christmas or whatever festival you're celebrating, which is this really awesome opportunity to come together and to share favourite foods. So can I harm my gut microbiome if I eat all the things that I don't normally eat on Christmas Day?

10:10And then what about if I do that not just for Christmas Day, you know, it's for the whole of December? At this time of year, many of us focus on supplements, quick fixes, or food fads to stay healthy. But one of the most powerful tools we have is something much simpler, sharing food with other people. The science is really clear on this. Eating with others naturally encourages us to slow down, which supports better digestion. People also tend to choose more nutritious, balanced foods when they eat together. It's one of those simple habits that makes a real difference to our well-being, especially at this time of year.

10:44That's why we've created the Zoe Holiday Hosting Guide. Our free guide is filled with cozy recipes that are perfect for sharing, hosting tips, and go-to-dinner party dishes from our scientists and nutrition experts. Think warm, relaxed evenings with the people you love, sharing delicious, nourishing meals that makes you feel good from the inside out. To download your free guide, simply click the link in the show notes or go to zoe.com slash holiday guide. That's Zoe.com slash holiday guide. Yeah, so there's a few foods and drinks that really harm our gut microbiome the most at this time. So it's things like processed red meats, sausages, salamis, all that sort of thing.

11:29Alcohol is so detrimental to our gut microbiome. It's very pro-inflammatory. Now, of course, having a glass of wine with your meal and perhaps a sherry after dinner, that's going to be okay. your body can recover from that. But if you find that you're drinking consistently several glasses for the entire day, that will actually really harm your gut microbiome and you will feel it the next day. So those are the things to really watch out for, as well as foods that are particularly high in added sugars and fats. So here we're talking about the commercially produced confectionery, the commercial ice creams, commercial cakes and pastries.

12:04Our gut microbes really don't like being flooded with these types of fats. Think of your gut microbiome as having layers, right? So the very top layers, every time you go to the toilet, they leave your body, right? So that's very superficial. They go with the rest of the waste. Then the middle layers are more stable, but they're influenced by the food you eat, the things you drink, the medications you're taking. And the very bottom layer is the cornerstone species. They're the ones that you have since childhood. they're very difficult to change. They're the ones right by the gut lining. So when you eat or drink for a couple of days in a way that's not helpful, your top layer is going to suffer.

12:40So those guys can't make the helpful metabolites, the helpful chemicals that usually help you. And they tend to make things that are more inflammatory. So that pro-inflammatory environment does affect the middle layers a bit. But if you do that for a whole month, then the top layer is really suffering. The middle layer starts to also create pro-inflammatory chemicals, and it can actually affect the bottom layer, where then you start to see that your intestinal barrier and the mucus that's supposed to protect you starts to separate and break. And then you can really have more serious effects such as inflammation in the gut, symptoms of things like IBS, and just discomfort.

13:19And we do know that this kind of inflammation in the gut doesn't just stay in the gut. When you have inflammation in the gut, it travels to the rest of your body. It's what we call systemic. so we need to support our gut health especially if Christmas for you is in the winter months because that's when we have the highest rates of viruses and bacteria. And so is your story therefore just don't indulge in order to protect your health? You can have delicious foods that are also good for you. You can indulge in foods that support your health and that's why I want to reframe this idea that you can only have had a proper Christmas if you were drinking Baileys all day and, you know, eating a variety of pastries.

13:59But what about, let's say, I'd really like to have some cake. In the UK, we often eat these things called mince pies. They're definitely not healthy for me. Like, I know that they score really badly on my Zoe app, but I would like to have some. Do I have to give them up? No. So especially if they're homemade mince pies, they're going to be much healthier for you than ones from a supermarket. We look at the dietary pattern all together, right so if you're enjoying mince pies but then you're also having a wholesome roast with lots of root vegetables delicious seasonal fruits and nuts that is going to be a really lovely balanced healthy day of eating including the mince pie absolutely so i'm italian and panettone is an absolute staple in my house every christmas i choose to get one that is made by a baker with a sourdough.

14:48It's like really special, which also means we only get one. And we enjoy it so much only at Christmas, but it's absolutely part of our diet for that time. For that whole week, we have penitone in the house. We love it. So that's brilliant. So I think you're telling us, which is nice to hear, that we don't need to worry too much about having a delicious meal on Christmas Day. Just sort of think a bit about what we actually want to have there. So before we go on and get some delicious food tips from you, Federica, because I know you're going to give us some actually things that we could do. I would like to then bust some common Christmas food myths because we had a lot of questions from listeners on this.

15:22And let me start with the one that I thought was most fun. Does turkey make you tired? Yeah. So there's a belief about turkey making you tired. And there is a lot of tryptophan in turkey, which is an amino acid, which is involved with the production of serotonin that helps with sleep. So that's why people think there's science behind it. But actually, there's not enough tryptophan in turkey to induce sleepiness. So it's more to do with how much you ate than the turkey and its chemical properties. Got it. So I could swap the turkey for beef. I'm going to be just as tired because basically I ate an entire day's food in like two hours in one meal.

15:59And a good way to combat this is have portions that feel right for your body. So don't stretch it. And a good Christmas walk has lots of benefits. Does sugar make kids hyperactive? So this belief is really ingrained in society's sort of psyche, but there's plenty of trials and meta-analyses that show that it doesn't. It doesn't? No, sugar does not make children hyperactive by itself. Children in randomized controlled trials, they're fed extra sugar. And interestingly, they've done this sort of study in neurotypical children as well as neurodiverse children. And sugar doesn't make children hyperactive.

16:35It doesn't result in hyperactive behavior. There's some data that shows that high-risk processed foods with specific additives may increase hyperactivity in neurodivergent children. So there is some evidence and some clinicians really believe that reducing these kinds of foods in children's diet can make a big difference. It's not the sugar, but it could be all of these additives in these sort of high-risk processed foods, which you tend to have all wrapped around the children's parties or whatever. That might be what is making them hyperactive. That could actually, in not all children, it's a percentage of children who have neurodiversity, really, really do feel hyperactive after consuming these foods.

17:17You want to be mindful of children's health anyway. We need to teach good dental hygiene from a young age. and i have to say as well sugary drinks are a big problem around christmas there's much higher consumption of sugary drinks generally people tend to consume more sugar sweetened beverages whether it's eggnog or alcoholic drinks like baileys that also have sugar and that is problematic your blood fats go up a lot after christmas so you should never have your blood test straight after christmas by the way because there's this like false blip where pretty much everyone has increases in their triglycerides, which are directly related to how much sugar you've consumed.

17:53So we do generally eat so badly around the Christmas period that like our bloods are worse in like the week or two after Christmas. At a global level, you see this real unusual hyperlipidemia straight after Christmas. It's slightly terrifying. It does rather suggest that overall they're... We're not doing very well. We're not doing very well. And just finishing on the sugar. So if it doesn't make kids hyperactive, why is it still bad to be giving them lots of sugar? Lots of sugar, so bad for their teeth. And sugar, it's not nutritive. So it doesn't have any nutrients with it. And children are very, especially young children, are very good at regulating their appetite.

18:29So if you're giving them energy in the form of sugar, they will then have less appetite for more nutritious foods. So if you give them loads of candies that are high in sugar but don't have any of the nutrients that you actually want them to get, they'll have less space to then enjoy the foods that are actually nutritious for them. And also, you know, children are very resilient in terms of the metabolic responses, but we still don't want to challenge children's metabolism from young age with loads of sugar. It doesn't set them up for success later in life. This isn't about not letting children ever have sugar, right?

19:02We need children to grow up with a healthy relationship with food. So it's about helping them to understand that certain foods like candies have a place, but they don't give them the right kind of energy. They don't help their bones grow strong. They don't help their muscles grow strong and they don't help their brains think quickly. So it's all about helping children to understand the role that each food can play in their health and making sure that throughout the day, most of their food is naturally flavored in the sense that it's a whole food flavor. So avoid, for example, always using ketchups or sweeter sauces with children's food so they can enjoy the different flavors in food.

19:38I love this. And I know you're extremely impressive with what you get your kids to eat. I am always rather embarrassed as, you know, co-founder Zoe here, how hard it is to get my daughter to like eat the food that I would like to eat. And we talk all the time about like supporting your gut microbes, but she's about as stubborn as her parents. So it's probably not totally surprising. Kids love feeding their gut microbes. My children love Ziggy. If you explain to them that you have this trillions of microbes and you can show them pictures, Ziggy is a great example. They will really engage with that.

20:11So I should explain to anybody listening who's not a Zoe member and doesn't have the app that Federica is talking about using the app and there's his character Ziggy. And the answer is that my daughter loves it. When I snap a photo of my breakfast, she almost always takes it away from me and wants to take a photo of hers. You're absolutely right. and she really likes the idea of feeding Ziggy with what's eating. So I think that does work. I'm going to move back to Christmas, however, because I need you to answer this question. Is eggnog bad for you? And could you clarify for those of us who don't know what eggnog is, what's exactly in it?

20:44So eggnog is a very traditional drink for Christmas and it's egg yolks whisked with a lot of sugar. A lot of egg yolks, I might add, like eight egg yolks whisked with a lot of sugar. Whipping cream or double cream. milk, vanilla essence and alcohol. It's not sounding super healthy at this point. No, it's not a healthy drink. You know, it's one of those things that I think when people had very little food and very little access to high energy foods, this would have been a real treat because it is actually super nutrient dense from the egg yolks and it has a lot of fat, a lot of sugar and alcohol is optional in some recipes.

21:23We talked earlier about people who are already at higher risk of things like heart attacks. Eggnog would not be a good choice. It's a kind of a no from me, unless it's something that is such a part of your family tradition. Having a small amount will be fine. I went to Montreal in the winter for the first time a couple of years ago. And I don't know if you've ever been there, Federica, but they have like a diet where everything is layered in huge amounts of cheese and enormous deep fried stuff. And they're saying like, this is very much the traditional cuisine of their ancestors. And Montreal is in Canada.

21:57It's incredibly cold. And they were saying, well, look, like our grandparents would like go out and work all day in the freezing cold winter. And so then they burnt off all this energy. And so you come back and eat all of this. Once upon a time, this was a treat. You didn't eat anything like this for a month. And you're doing all of this physical activity. Now we're actually surrounded by too much of this sort of food all the time. Yes. Now we live sedentary lifestyles in very climate controlled conditions. And most of us are not doing manual labour. And we have an absolute overabundance of fat, especially fat and sugar.

22:33It's everywhere. Should we all do a detox after Christmas? This question comes up a lot. There is this belief that if you just hit the reset button with a detox, it might help. Now, unfortunately, most commercially available detoxes are things like teas, pills, drinks. Some of them can actually be very dangerous for health. We have to remember our lungs, our skin, our guts, our liver and our kidneys do a fantastic function of detoxing for us. So if you feel like you need to hit the reset button because you have gone too hard, just support your body to do its job properly and it will be able to detox for you.

23:10There are ways of doing this that don't include buying any detox products online. Have a really gut-centric diet. Lots of fruits and vegetables, 30 plants a week. Make sure you're getting enough fiber. And, you know, some people might actually consider switching to a plant-based diet for a few days because that can really help to just give your body a bit of a break if you've had a lot of animal-based fats like cheese and perhaps turkey or beef. And also make sure you're not drinking alcohol. It is a toxin for our bodies, so that will help you feel better. But I would steer clear of any products.

23:44that sell themselves as a detox solution. I think you're really clear that any of these detox solutions are just bad and can be positively risky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So some of the detox teas and detox pills can actually see you end up in hospital. They sometimes contain diuretics or other chemicals that have an actual effect on your body. So all these concoctions are pretty unregulated because they tend to fall under supplement. And they can actually have very negative effects on health. So every year we see reports of people who are maybe drinking five detox teas a day and then, as I said, end up in hospital with dehydration.

24:17Or sometimes some of the pills that people buy cause diarrhea to help you flush out. And that can obviously make you feel terrible and lead to complications. So don't do it. Just don't buy them. So we obviously ran the Big If study at Zoe, the biggest study on time-restricted eating. and we do see that people who have a fasting window overnight of between 12 and 14 hours feel better. Our snacking study showed that eating after 9pm is detrimental for our metabolic health so maybe rain it back, 9pm cut off, good 12 to 14 hour overnight fast. These are evidence-based ways to help your body get back to feeling better and the fast mimicking diet is gaining traction as a well-respected short five-day intervention where you really reduce your food intake for five days but you have to really do that with the supervision of someone who knows how to do it.