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Diet and Mental Health- Processed Foods Are The Problem · Millennial Mental Health Channel

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Just because we share the information does not mean starting right now with your very
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next meal, you have to change every single thing that you're doing. This
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is Millennial Mental Health Channel. I'm doctor Justin Romano, a child adolescent psychiatry
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fellow, and I'm Medi Koreo, a licensed clinical therapist. Our podcast is
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here because we wanted to start a much need conversation about mental health. Our
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goal is to teach you as much as we can by sharing our own experiences
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and interviewing experts in the mental health field. We will discuss topics like mood
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disorders, psychotic disorders, substance use, personality disorders, and many more.
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Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone. We hope you enjoyed today's episode.
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MMHC is a production of Speaker from iHeartMedia. I Heart Happy Mental Health
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Awareness Month. Whoo whoo, whoo whoo. Hendie, how are you celebrating
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my man? Damn man, I think I'm celebrating by being here with you
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to record another great episode. I celebrate for the most part in private,
1:04
but for this will I will take the time to celebrate with you. Well,
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you stole my answer. That's exactly what I was gonna say if you
1:11
were gonna ask me, h, we're here. May first, Mental Health
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Awareness Month. Happy Mental Health Awareness Months. Everyone who celebrates. I think
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it is just we can just take this opportunity to just talk about how important
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it is that it is a month that, like the American Counseling Association and
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other entities celebrate and acknowledge gives us an opportunity to continue to knock down the
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stigmas against mental health. The more we're able to talk about and normalize it,
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the easier it gets for everyone. So yeah, Happy Mental Health Awareness
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Month. So to celebrate, you could leave us a five star review.
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If you feel so inclined, you could share this podcast with your friends.
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You could subscribe to the show. All these things help us grow, help
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us learn about mental health. Also, if you like a really good mental
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health podcast, I've been listening a lot to the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Podcast for
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my CME, my Continuing medical education. Man, it's so good. I
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love that podcast so much. Doctor Peter, Yeah, doctor Peter, it's
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just yeah, he's a man. I love that guy. He's a friend
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of the show. We follow each other on Instagram, So definitely do it
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the show. I'm a top fan on his Facebook page. Two I'm that
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I'm that guy who's like, I have something to add on your posts.
2:34
Do you ever defend him in the comments? Oh? Yeah, well no
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one would dare take a shot at him, But that's true. That's true.
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So today we are talking about diet and how it impacts mental health,
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and this is a topic that is super important to me. This is something
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that I'm really glad we are talking about because many people still refuse to believe
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that the body and the mind are deeply connected. They think like it's kind
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of a social cultural thing where they want to keep it separate, like,
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oh, it's all in your head, it doesn't actually have anything to do,
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there's no real connection. But we want to further emphasize that, yes,
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there is a huge connection between the body and the brain in so many
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different ways. The bloodstream connects the body and the brain and transfers a lot
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of neuro hormones chemicals. The nervous system also goes down into your body and
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connects the body and brain, primarily through the vagus nerves. There are so
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many connections here and it impacts your mental health. So we wanted to talk
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about it. Maybe it's because we don't want to acknowledge it. But one
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thing that does really impact our lives are A big lifestyle factor that contributes to
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poor mental health is our terrible Western diets. I see it all the time
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on TikTok on Reddit, social media if you get if you ever see people
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arguing and then they start talking about where each person from. We get shitited
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on, like as Americans for like the way we eat and like what's available
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in the country, and like what's just all around us, Like it is
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it is like a well known thing that people will use against like Americans on
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social media. So it's something that's out there, something that's well known,
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but it's not really something that gets like fought against, Like it just kind
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of is and it just kind of sticks around. I feel like diet and
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religion are the two hardest things to get people to change. And I get
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a lot of parents asking me, like, oh, what supplements, what
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can I add that is going to help my kid with their depression, their
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anxiety, their ADHD. And it's so hard because, like the supplement market
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is largely not regulated by the FDA, and a lot of the studies that
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they have are self funded. So I say, like, oh man,
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it's so hard to say what supplements may or may not be helpful. But
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one thing that is super helpful is diet. And we have lots of studies,
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we have lots of evidence, lots of data showing that this does make
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an impact. So even now more than ever, this is one thing that
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you can change because this is a holistic field. It's not just pills,
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it's not just therapy. It's a lifestyle. Really, the two main components
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with our diet in the United States and just kind of in general, highly
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processed foods and then plant based foods. And I know Justin is I would
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consider him an expert on plant based foods and how they impact us as a
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whole, as a whole person, and our mental health. So I'm going
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to learn a lot today and we're all going to learn together. And now
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I'm no doctor Michael Gregor, who I would say is, I don't know.
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He seems like one of the foremost leaders on plant based diet. He's
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got nutrition facts dot org, which is a really cool website where he goes
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through a lot of the diet and nutrition data and breaks it down tries to
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show you the bias and a lot of the research too. But I am
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a big believer in the plant based diet, and that doesn't mean that I
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think everyone should abruptly stop and switch to a completely plant based diet completely cut
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out all animal products, because that's just not sustainable. That's not really doable
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for everyone. A lot of dietary changes have to be slow and progressive.
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I do want you to be aware of my bias before we get going,
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because I do tend to eat more plant based, although I did make chicken
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and vegetables for my family tonight, so it's important to have some flexibility too.
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So for me, being more plant based has been a sustainable way for
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me to eat less processed foods. So we'll try and explain what a plant
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based diet is and why it can be good for your physical and mental health.
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But I want you to be aware of my bias because I care about
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you, the listener. As we transition into story time, we're going to
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focus on how diet impacts the way we feel, how the types of food
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we consume or things that we consume impact the way we feel. In preparation
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for today, one thing that I thought about was and we've kind of talked
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about caffeine and the pas, but just how much like caffeine. There's that
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fine line of like good caffeine and like bad caffeine. And I remember we've
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talked about this, but back in the day when banging energies for energy drinks
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first came out, they were like they were all the rage because they were
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like zero calories and they had like bceaa's or whatever and it, so all
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these days they were like, hell, yeah, this is like not that
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bad for me. And I remember specifically one time drinking it, and I
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was in my office at my job and just immediately feeling like my muscles were
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like constricting, or like my heart was just like beating way faster than I
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was used to. And at that point that was probably the last time I
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drank one, and I started to really reevaluate my relationship with caffeine other stuff
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that I've thought about in preparation for today. It's just how much like don't
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eat a ton of fast food. We try not to. We if like
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Hevian, I eat somewhere out, if we eat out, we try and
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like go somewhere like a sitdown restaurant or something not necessarily like a fast food
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restaurant. But there are times that we've had it, like at work or
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like we want to eat it for something, and I definitely feel different.
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I feel like slow and sluggish, and I feel like it's time to take
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a nap after work and it's only like one o'clock. You kind of know
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how you're going to feel after you eat it, but you still just end
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up eating it. And it's almost like that idea and knowing how you're gonna
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feel after is not enough to stop you from eating it. But now that
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I say it out loud, maybe it will help me kind of rethink the
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next time it comes up. But those are my two main things. My
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relationship with caffeine and how that changed and trying to just have like a good
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caffeine, and then how things like fast food really have a big impact on
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something like your mood, how you're feeling, the speed at what you're thinking,
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and just like this overall sluggish feeling that it brings about. Man,
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you're so right, because fast food is literally just trying to make as much
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money as possi, so they get the cheapest food sources. Like the meat
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is the lowest quality meat. It's really high in fats. They usually highly
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process a lot of that. Stuff like chicken nuggets isn't whole chicken breasts by
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any means. It's a conglomeration of all these weird chicken parts and then made
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into something that kind of looks like food. So and they try and sell
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it for as cheap as possible. So all of this stuff is just set
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up to try and make you eat as much as possible. They don't care
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about how healthy you are. I know, for me in terms of story
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time, when I was sixteen, I went vegetarian for a whole year,
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and mostly for moral reasons, a little high end mighty who wanted to not
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kill animals just for the sake of eating, less for health at the time.
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Also, being vegetarian and a place like Wyoming is super hard because there's
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just not a lot of vegetarian options. And one of the things I remember
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the most was like the holidays were really hard because my mom wanted me to
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feel included and wanted to take care of me, and so she would try
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and cook things that like I could eat, the whole family could eat,
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but it was really hard. I felt like I was putting a lot of
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extra pressure and a lot of extra stress on my mom to come up with
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these meals just so I could be a part of the family and eat with
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the family. Plus I wouldn't say I ate any healthier as a vegetarian.
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Back then. It was a lot of bread and cheese and like highly processed
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foods. So I did it for more moral reasons, but it didn't really
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I didn't really have the right mindset, and I don't think I was actually
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eating any healthier. So that's one thing where we'll talk a little bit more
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about today of like what we're actually going for what actually is a really healthy
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diet, because you can't eat you can change your diet and still not really
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eat that much healthier. I think of things like and not to like bash
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on anyone's like food choices are what works for them, and and I know
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like a lot of like diets and food choices are greatly tied to like your
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financial status and like how much win I have and how much like money can
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spend on food. But I referenced TikTok a lot. But I know when
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when keto was like a huge thing that was getting talked about, and maybe
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I just hit not interested enough on TikTok that they just stopped showing up.
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But for a long time he was watching people like talk about being keto,
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and I'm watching them like a stack of bacon and like butter, Like I
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don't want to like what is this? What is this helping? Also when
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you so when you talk about and it we'll get to it. But like
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processed foods, I think about how you hear of people who go to like
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a foreign country. They'll go somewhere like Japan, they'll go to Europe to
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Italy, and they'll talk about how much, Oh, I only ate rice
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and pasta and bread and all these things, and and I came home and
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I like lost weight, and like, I just I don't I don't know
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how that happened. I was just eating so many carbs and all this stuff.
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And you got to think about it. The food quality is different.
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It's not as processed as the food that we eat here. Granted, if
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you're traveling and you're going to a foreign country, you're probably walking a ton.
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But the other piece to it is the food that you're eating is interacting
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with your body differently, and it's I don't know. You can correct me
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on my science. But it's just like not sitting in your stomach as much
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as being able to be broken down. It's like it's just different and it's
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not food that we're used to having here. Yeah, and carbs have been
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villainized a lot by Akin's Diet, by Keto Diet, by Paleo Diet,
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all these diets that are trying to sell you a diet for you to buy,
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and oh, carbs are the villain. But in the right quantities,
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carbs are a good thing. And especially if carbs are coming from vegetables like
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or grains like rice, corn, potatoes, potatoes without a bunch of butter
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and sour cream and like a bunch of added and adds to it, they
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can be really healthy and useful for your body. So it's important to keep
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all of this stuff. And the whole diet industry is just rife with false
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information because people are trying to sell you something. They're trying to sell you
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a product, so it's so hard for people to know what is right and
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what is wrong. Our whole system is just so backwards and not helping anyone.
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That's just set up to make money instead of making people actually healthy.
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So what causes mental health disorders everything. Yes, short answer is we don't
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really know for sure, like there are not Like we know some things about
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what's going on in the brain, but we can't say like this causes this,
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this is what's going on. There are a few different theories as to
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what causes a lot of different mental health disorders, and one of the most
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popular theories and one that I think has some good backing and good evidence for
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it, is the inflammation model. So we know that some mental health disorders
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are impacted by the amount of inflammation in the brain. So in theory,
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if we try to lower our inflammation, it will help decrease the total inflammation
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in our body and our brain and hopefully help decrease the amount of mental health
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issues that we have. I remember I learned the statistic a long time ago.
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I can't cite where it came from, but it said that in the
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United States, about seventy five percent of the diseases that we seek treatment for
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are self induced by our lifestyle choices. So our diet, are smoking,
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our drugs, our alcohol. So if we could reduce our medical burden by
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seventy five percent just by living healthy lifestyles and diet, is the one that
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I feel like is the biggest one that everyone is impacted by that it's hard
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to make any progress on. It's actually ingrained into the culture, like the
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society, just like the kinds of foods that are available. And I will
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acknowledge that the This is definitely one of those times where it's like I will,
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I will say all of the right things, and I will get to
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repeat the great research that Justin has had and done for the episode. But
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that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm making all the correct choices or anybody's making their
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correct choices, Like I can. I can acknowledge we love Trader Joe's in
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our house and the frozen meals are great. Are they probably pretty processed?
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Probably? Are they the greatest for us? Not always? But it's it's
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what we eat, it's what we enjoy. So I guess I say all
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that just to acknowledge, like it's one of those things of like just because
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I'm trying to give good information or the best information, doesn't mean that I'm
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always taking the best information. And You're right, like I say, like
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religion and diet are the two hardest things to change in your life. Because
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we've been doing it this way for so long, like your diet has been
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ingrained in you since before you were even aware, before you were conscious.
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In America, we are bombarded with advertisements for highly processed foods. When we
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go into the supermarket, all of the cheapest, most readily available foods are
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all highly processed foods that are terrible for you. Talking about inflammation, going
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back a little bit, but one of the biggest sources of inflammation for people
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is through their diet. So because we do tend to eat a lot of
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food that's not healthy or the best for us. And when we say healthy,
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it's not just that, like healthy does not just mean one thing.
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We're experiencing a lot of inflammation because of the foods that we eat and because
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of the foods that we are just so ingrained in eating and used to eating,
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and highly processed foods also increase the amount of inflammation in the body.
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There is a paper in JAMMA in twenty twenty one that found that sixty seven
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percent of calories in kids diets came from ultra processed foods. That's two thirds
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of the calories that kids are consuming are coming from ultra processed foods. That's
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terrible. The ultra processed foods have been linked to a lot of negative bad
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health outcomes, including high blood pressure, cancer, type two diabetes, and
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early death. So why is processed food so bad? We'll tell you They
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basically and they literally take the good parts out and leave in all the bad
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parts. So the process takes out things like water, fiber, vitamins,
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and minerals. And one thing I've seen on TikTok a lot is that a
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lot of people are deficient in fiber. And I think this is accurate.
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Right. I want to be careful about the information that I'm getting from TikTok
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professionals, but I think I've heard it enough and seen it enough and probably
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read it enough that I think it is true. A lot of people are
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deficient in fiber. So if we're eating a lot of foods that don't that
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should have fiber, or just don't have fiber in general, and we're not
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making an effort to get fiber in our diet by eating whole foods, leafy
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green vegetables, fruits, things like that, we're just not going to have
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fiber, and then our whole, our gut, our microbiome, everything is
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just not working. The right way, and then that leads to other issues.
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Anyway, the next point related to fiber and water. They help you
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feel full faster, so it tends it's taking out. By taking it out,
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you tend to eat more. That's not good. Fiber also feeds your
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gut biome, and it's the bacteria in your intestines to help you digest.
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I kind of said that already and now I'm going back, but we'll say
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it in a nicer way. And then finally, the bacteria in your gut
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has also been found to feed on fiber to make short chain fatty acids,
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which is a natural anti inflammatory. Yeah, so the fiber is not just
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about pooping like everyone always thinks, like, oh, fiber to poop,
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but it feeds that bacteria. It helps your gut microbiome, and even switching
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to like a plant based diet, within a couple of days, it starts
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to shift the gut microbiome, which specific species of bacteria in your gut are
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taking over and they tend to lower the amount of inflammation in your body.
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Well, why is the food situation in this country so bad? And I
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hate to say it because we've had a whole episode on this one specific topic,
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but it's capitalism, and we talked a little bit about this earlier.
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But food companies are only concerned with making a profit. They don't care about
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your health. They make their food as addictive as possible, then specifically alter
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their chemistry to make you consume as much as possible and give them as much
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money as possible. From the time children are born, they are bombarded with
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ads for sugary cereals, candy, and highly processed foods, so they grow
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up thinking this is the norm. Food companies also have a ton of powerful
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lobbying groups that prevent the government from making any positive changes. The whole food
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pyramid was a joke and heavily influenced by the food industry to promote their products,
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and this is still a problem today. The food industry has the financial
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power to influence what the government says is good for us. So we'll link
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an article from Time magazine that explains the dietary guidelines from twenty sixteen. How
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we think we were kind of past that, but they were still full of
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misinformation. That was that was largely influenced by corporate influence. So we're not
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beyond this yet. We're still in the middle of the fight one that I
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think of two, then you can correctly if there's like different information on it.
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But like milk was a big one too. We might have talked about
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it before, Like everyone's supposed to drink milk. Got milk. You got
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Shaquille O'Neal with the fucking milk mustache, making me think that if I drink
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milk, I'll be able to grow to seven feet tall and dunk. But
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milk, it's actually like a inflammatory, right, Like it's not the greatest
20:45
on our bodies. And I think as I've gotten older, there's certain dairy
20:48
products fro I'm like, yeah, I I gotta just kind of watch what
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I'm gonna eat. I don't need to be eating like cheese at work or
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something. Yeah, Because the thought process was bones have calcium, milk has
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calcium, so milk must be good for your bones, right, But a
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lot of the long term studies of milk consumption showed that milk actually decreased your
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bone density. It was not good for you. So wonderful they got us.
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They got us a wonderful advertisement campaign that was incredibly successful, but not
21:26
based in any sort of science. Bamboozled again again the advertisement campaigns man looking
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at research, we'll take a look out of papers, so laying at all.
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In twenty twenty two, they did a meta analysis, so they did
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a study of studies on the impact of highly processed foods and mental health.
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What they found was that ultraprocessed foods were associated with increased rates of both depression,
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which had a forty four percent odds increase, and anxiety, which had
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a forty eight percent odds increase. This was a study that was based on
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the seventeen observational studies and fifteen cross sectional studies. We show that the more
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process food to eat, the more likely you are to get mental health issues.
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So some discussion questions, so what can people do to improve their diets
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for their mental health? What do you think, Eddie, Let's see,
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Well, one thing you talked about earlier was like, just because we're going
22:36
to give you this information doesn't mean starting tomorrow you need to eat only whole
22:40
foods and go through all your pantry and your freezer and just dump everything out.
22:45
That's that's not what we're what we're saying. And like any change in
22:48
habit it takes time. I was talking with a student recently of trying to
22:52
practice the checking the facts and like reframing our automatic negative thought. And I
22:57
had to keep reminding the student of like, it's going to take time,
23:02
it's going to take practice. They came in to see me like a week
23:06
later, and they're like, it's not really working, like things aren't getting
23:08
better, but they're not getting worse. And I'm like, WHOA. I
23:11
think I might argue that things are improving a little bit. Because if you
23:15
think we're staying about the same and you're practicing, that's good. It's slow
23:18
steps, it's baby steps. It takes the time. So to tell you
23:22
back to what we're talking about, it takes time. There's building of a
23:26
new Habit does not just happen tomorrow. It takes some time. You take
23:30
some slow steps. The other piece to it is you want to make changes
23:33
that you can actually stick to life long. I think back to back when
23:37
I used to attend church regularly. I went to a service right before Lent,
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and I remember the priest was saying, if you're going to give something
23:45
up for forty days for Lent, if it's going to make you an angry,
23:51
upset person, don't give it up. So basically saying, if you're
23:53
going to be shitty without drinking your coffee, you should just drink coffee.
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It's totally fine. So kind of in a similar similar idea, choose something
24:03
that you feel like you'll be able to stick to and not just give it
24:07
a shot for a couple of weeks and then you kind of go back to
24:10
where you were at before. Another idea is to cut out process foods.
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What are some examples of process foods? Justin what are some things that we
24:18
can look at to be like, Okay, let me find an alternative for
24:22
this, or let me try something. My favorite line for this is if
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it grows on a plant, it's good. If it was made in a
24:27
plant, it's processed. Ooh okay, there you go and go, I
24:36
know it so quick, good catchy. Yeah. And then one last thing
24:41
is just to incorporate more plant based food. Try to do things like making
24:44
substitutes in the meals that you make. I've seen people who try to pick
24:48
a night or two every week to do something that's not meat related and that's
24:52
more plant based related. Just to give you an option and try something different.
24:56
Yeah, Eddie mentioned that make changes that you can stick to life long.
25:03
And that's so important because in this country, in this corporate society,
25:10
we have been taught to be on the diet yo yo. It's like,
25:14
Oh, you want to lose weight fast, do something extreme, lose a
25:18
lot of weight quickly, and then go back to what you were doing and
25:22
gain more weight back. Oh and then I don't know what, We got
25:25
another diet for you. Oh it's very similar but just a little bit different.
25:29
You got to pay for this one too. That's so unhealthy. And
25:33
the diet yoyo has been shown to increase the total amount of weight gain over
25:37
time. So that's what we mean when we say lifestyle changes. Do things
25:42
that you want to actually stick to, because if you're on this yo yo,
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it's just going to get worse and worse. Okay, I have to
25:49
ask you because this gets brought up, like anytime people talk about diet and
25:53
changing the foods that they eat are things that they consume? What about diet
25:57
soda? What about as I remember watching this thing when I was a kid,
26:07
where like this guy was at a drive drive through and was like,
26:11
yeah, I'll have three double Chief burgers and two large orders the fries.
26:17
Then you know what give me a diet coke because I'm on a diet.
26:19
It's like, oh okay, But no, diet sodas are not really that
26:23
much better for the weight gain aspect of things. So some studies have shown
26:27
that diet soda makes you eat more calories in food. And there's there's a
26:33
reason for this too, is that artificial sweeteners, a lot of them are
26:38
insolinogenic, so they make you release insulin because your body tastes the sweet,
26:45
it thinks sugar is coming. In order to absorb that sugar, it needs
26:48
to release insulin, so it tricks your body into releasing insulin. If you
26:52
release too much insulin, then it actually drops your blood Sugars makes you hungry
26:59
because if you get angry from too much artificial sweet artificial sweeteners. So we'll
27:04
put a link in the description of this episode that talks about some more of
27:10
the evidence on this. But yeah, diet sodas don't really make you lose
27:14
weight, and if anything, are you gained just as much weight with a
27:18
diet soda. Good to know, Anie, What are some of the pitfalls
27:22
in your diet? You mentioned a little bit about fast food, which is
27:26
so hard because it's it's tasty, it's readily available. But what do you
27:29
think, what are some of the biggest areas that you could work on?
27:32
Shit, probably the diet soda. It's could every once in a while.
27:38
It's like a treat you don't get all like the full calories of a regular
27:41
soda. But that's that is helpful. Okay, this is what I'll say
27:45
that will be helpful in the future to think of. The other one was
27:48
fiber and like trying like to the more that I heard that everybody is like
27:53
deficient and fiber. The more was like, huh, that probably means I'm
27:57
defision and fibers. So like, oh, yeah, I've tried to make
28:00
an effort on that, and I feel like it has been helpful just in
28:04
general. And like this is not and I will be completely honest, this
28:07
is like in the last three weeks type thing like this is not like a
28:11
fucking working on it for a year's revelation type thing like this is fairly new
28:15
for me. So I would say those two like right off the top of
28:19
my head, what about you? And with the fiber thing, yeah,
28:22
I've heard that, Like I can't remember the number exactly, but it's like
28:26
ninety five percent of Americans are deficient fight it's like an overwhelming majority. We
28:30
don't because we eat so many processed foods without the fiber in it. They
28:34
take the fiber out. Yeah, the biggest pitfalls I would have, I
28:37
would say I have is probably eating out. Like I find that when I
28:42
go to restaurants they're vegetarian options, and their healthy options suck. Like I
28:49
go to like I was just in Arizona with my wife and we were visiting
28:53
her family and they had like black bean enchiladas on the menu, and I'm
28:59
like, that sounds awesome. So I got the black bean and enchiladas.
29:03
Everyone else at the table got like, you know, steak fish and chips.
29:07
Mine comes out and it's like this tiny little cast iron skillet of like
29:14
two tiny little black bean enchiladas, and everyone else's is like this huge plate
29:19
with a fried fish with French fries, and they're having these giant meals and
29:23
I'm just like, God, damn it, this sucks. Like I have
29:30
a pretty big appetite. I tend to be a big eater, so I'm
29:33
like, man, I just spent a ton of money on this meal and
29:37
I'm still starving. And that happens all the time when I go out,
29:41
When I try and order something healthy, it's never enough. It's never as
29:44
tasty as the other food. There's never nearly as much emphasis on the healthy
29:48
food as there is on the easier, highly processed food. So I just
29:53
feel like our whole society sets you up to fail when going out to eat
29:57
the other pieces. You probably pay more versus like a regular meal, like
30:03
your black beans, Probably like three dollars more than regular food. Yeah,
30:10
Like on some restaurants, like it's twelve dollars for a burger and fifteen dollars
30:14
for a salad. I'm like, what how does that math add up?
30:17
Or like the impossible burger, the beyond burger, like the black bean burger.
30:21
Yeah, it's more. Yeah. Well, and he asks someone who
30:25
works in the schools, what do you think about school lunches? All right,
30:29
I'm going to give a shout out to the Sherwood School District Cafeteria Food
30:33
Nutritional Services. Okay, this is what I'll say. I have gotten lunch
30:38
there before five dollars. If I didn't bring something in whatever, I have
30:42
gotten it. They make really good salads, like they make a good taco
30:47
salad, a good caesar salad. And every time I go the ladies of
30:51
oh it is super sweet, super nice. And she always tells me that
30:53
I can get whatever I want from the salad bar as well, like to
30:56
add to it or whatever. And I will say, it looks like everything
31:02
that they have out is pretty good. Like they'll have like a bunch of
31:04
fruit. They will have milk, right, that's the kind of the iffy
31:07
thing, but that a bunch of fruit. They'll have stuff that you can
31:10
add to your salad. They have extra vegetables, all that kind of stuff.
31:14
That all looks pretty good. And they actually started doing sushi at school,
31:18
like shrimp sushi rolls. Yeah. And I think the rice is like
31:23
this, like whole grain, right. Yeah, So I'll shout out our
31:30
school district. The lunches look pretty good. That sounds a lot better than
31:34
Wyoming. I'll tell you that they put in work over there. Awesome.
31:40
Good for them, that's all. And it goes a long way. Yeah,
31:45
I want. One of the last things we wanted to talk about too,
31:48
was like, what's the difference between vegan and plant based? And vegan
31:52
just means no animal product. Plant based actually means you're focusing on like a
31:56
whole food plant based diet, less processed food, eating things in their natural
32:02
form, cooking things in their natural form. So I've actually met a lot
32:07
of people who identify as vegan and they still eat a ton of processed food.
32:12
They'll go to Trader Joe's and they'll see something on a box that says
32:15
vegan. They'll throw it in the air fryer, they'll put it in the
32:17
microwave, and it's not really any healthier. So that's why I like the
32:22
emphasis on plant based foods, because you're getting at a lot more vegetables,
32:27
fruits, nuts, legumes, whole grains, and they're less processed so that
32:30
they're better for you. And I think that's a big important difference. That's
32:35
good to know, because honestly, I don't know. If I knew,
32:37
I wouldn't have been able to answer the question. Yeah, maybe there's some
32:42
celebs. So one is Lizzo. She has said that she didn't go on
32:46
a plant based diet just in twenty twenty just to lose weight, just that
32:51
she more did it so that she feels better. We do also want to
32:53
acknowledge that she's had some recent had some recent run ins in the news recently
32:58
about maybe not being the greatest person to the people she worked with, But
33:00
that's okay. I think it is important to share someone who is like an
33:07
icon or someone that is really helping try to lead as a celebrity with like
33:09
body positivity. That moving to plant Base wasn't a thing to like just to
33:14
conform to society. It was more to wanting to feel better, and I
33:19
think that's cool. That is pretty cool. Yeah, I like Lizzo in
33:22
a lot of ways. I wish she wouldn't, you know, abuse her
33:23
dancers, but other than that, she's been pretty great. Up next to
33:28
we have Woody Harrelson and luckily auto correct changed it to Worry Harrelson, so
33:32
hopefully that's a nickname that goes forward. He's actually been a vegan for thirty
33:37
eight years. That's pretty unbelievable. And he has a quote that we wanted
33:40
to share that says it's not just about me not eating meat, it's about
33:45
not using animals for any purpose. So it sounds like he did it really
33:50
for moral and ethical reasons, that he didn't want to just abuse animals for
33:54
the sake of eating meat. Next up is actress Sadie Singh, who I
34:00
knew was Oh shit, this is She's from fucking Stranger Things. I see
34:05
you on your phone? Are you looking it up right now? Hell?
34:12
Yeah? I love Stranger Things. Good for you, Sadie. She's been
34:19
interviewed before and she's talked about her choices and has said that at first for
34:22
her, it was an intimidating change to make, but that every little dietary
34:28
change counts, kind of further emphasizing the fact that makes slow changes like these
34:32
things, you don't have to change everything all at once, Just do little
34:36
things you feel like are attainable and obtainable. Yeah. Up next. I
34:39
don't know if you know about this one ed missus Ariana Grande. I believe
34:45
it is how you pronounce it. Never heard of but she went plant based
34:49
and it mostly stems from a love of animals. So I noticed that a
34:52
lot of celebrities tend to do this for less health reasons, more for ethical
34:57
moral reasons. So yeah, go Ariana. I'm a big fan. What
35:00
a voice? Oh my gosh, Like, if I could, if I
35:04
could kill for one voice, I'd have hers. You wouldn't have to kill
35:10
her, would you? No? If I didn't just kill anyone I would
35:15
kill. That makes it better. Next is Natalie Portman. Uh. She
35:22
said when she was filming Thor, Chris Hensworth wouldn't eat meat on days with
35:29
kissing scenes, so this was this for her sake. Yeah, okay,
35:37
well that's nice of them. I thought that was a little weird but cool.
35:43
I mean, is it bad that I didn't know she was in Thor?
35:47
I don't know who anybody is, so that's that's the biggest piece.
35:52
She was the leading lady, she was the love interest in Thor. She
35:55
probably was. Yeah, and she did not have any meat on set.
36:00
But speaking of Hanks and meat man Chris Hemsworth, you kidding me? The
36:06
guy is he's a maam Up. Next we have Billie Eilish and she was
36:14
actually raised vegetarian and she also went into it for moral reasons and also to
36:20
help combat climate change, and a lot of studies have come out showing that
36:24
eating more plant based is one of the most important things you can do to
36:28
reduce your carbon footprint, just because the meat industry is a huge contributor to
36:32
greenhouse gases for a lot of different reasons. We won't go into the deep
36:37
details of that, but yeah, the nitty gritty, but go Billy.
36:45
We'll finish up today with some take home points. I think one that I'll
36:47
emphasize and we talked about earlier, is that just because we share the information
36:52
does not mean, starting right now with your very next meal, you have
36:55
to change every single thing that you're doing. If this is something that you
37:00
think would be helpful for you and can be impactful for you, trying small
37:04
steps, trying to just do it a day at a time, and trying
37:07
to make changes that are sustainable, I think is really important. We don't
37:09
ever want to shame anyone about their diet because that really gets us nowhere.
37:15
We have just noticed, or at least for me, plant based diet has
37:19
been the easiest way for me to eat more healthy foods. And there's lots
37:23
of labels, lots of names out there. Maybe I'm a cheegan or a
37:28
cheating vegan or a flexitarian who's more flex There's a lot of really dumb names
37:35
out there, but it's okay, you don't have to stick to it.
37:38
It feels like a lot of the diet industry is all or nothing, Like,
37:44
oh, if you're a vegan, you can't eat anything meat based for
37:46
the next couple years of your life. It's like, that's ridiculous. Don't
37:51
think about it in black and white terms. Just make slow, consistent changes
37:57
and try and be healthier overall, do what's right for you. Do it
38:00
feels right for your body too. And I hope you learned something today.
38:05
And I want you to be more mindful of the foods that go into your
38:07
body, less processed foods because they're not good for you, as studies show
38:13
that, and they play a big role in our mental health too. Shout
38:16
out to doctor Justin for all the knowledge bombs today. We appreciate him.
38:20
We appreciate you all. I will take us home. On social media,
38:23
you can find us at Millennial MHC on every podcast streaming site, Apple Podcasts,
38:29
Spotify, whatever else you use. We're they're feel free to leave us
38:32
a five star review. We'd love you for it. You can leave us
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a comment too. You can also find us at MILLENNIALMHC dot com. Thank
38:39
you for listening. Thank you as always, and remember take care of all mentals.