Eat This for a Healthier, Happier Brain
Today, we’re talking about food and your brain. Sure, we’ve all heard how food affects your weight, your energy, and your gut, but what about your brain? It turns out, the connection between what we eat and how our brain functions is pretty incredible—and maybe even life-changing.
We’re joined by Dr. Uma Naidoo, Harvard psychiatrist and author of This Is Your Brain on Food, to explore the foods that boost brain health, improve mood, and sharpen cognition. From combating anxiety and depression to supporting focus and memory, we’re breaking down the science of what to eat—and what to avoid—for a healthier, happier brain.
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Juna Today we're talking about food and your brain.
Eddie You know you're not. I'm actually kind of fond of my brain.
Juna You like your brain?
Eddie I do.
Juna You find your using.
Eddie It while you be the judge of.
Speaker 3 Diet.
Juna It's working well for you. Yeah.
Eddie Well, so far.
Juna You know, when we think about food, we're always thinking about, like, our weight and our gut and our energy. We never think about how food actually also affects our brain.
Eddie Right. And I think how your brain functions I'm going to put out there is maybe the most important thing, like, would we be doing this podcast if our brains weren't working well? Again, listeners write in and tell.
Speaker 3 Us about.
Eddie We're looking for some feedback here, listeners.
Juna Do you think that our brains are working pretty well? I don't know.
Eddie Do you ever hear this thing that perhaps the most complicated thing in the entire universe is the human brain?
Juna Yeah. That makes so much sense.
Eddie Well, unless there's something out there that we're not aware of that.
Juna What are you talking. What are you saying? Okay. Well, you know, I was a cognitive neuroscience major, so we were always being told like, Yeah, this is the stuff we're learning that we know so far, but we basically don't know, like 95% of it.
Eddie We don't even know what we you know.
Juna We don't yeah, we don't even know like what's going on. Like in most of the brain, we have no idea what it's doing. So today we are learning how to eat our way to a healthier brain. So if you feel like your brain isn't quite what it used to be.
Eddie You mean like someone in this room is getting older and may not be as mentally sharp as they used to be?
Speaker 3 Maybe I would never see such a thing about you. You're so sharp, Eddie. What are you saying? I would say. My God. Eddie, focus, please. I'm here.
Juna I'm here. You really need this episode, Eddie. Actually, I changed my mind.
Speaker 3 Yeah.
Juna Or if you're struggling with anxiety or depression or PTSD or ADHD.
Eddie Or if you just have a brain.
Juna Then this episode is for you today. Or diving into the foods that are good for our brain, our mental health and our cognition. And the ones that probably aren't. I'm unit.
Eddie And I'm Dr. Eddie Phillips, associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
Juna And you're listening to Food. We Need to Talk. The only health podcast that has been scientifically proven to exponentially improve your brain health and cognition just by listening, because they'll basically be trying to keep up with us because we talk so fast, right?
Eddie That's how it works. That's how it works.
Juna First, let's start with our favorite part of the episode, the review shout out. And this one actually also has a request in it. Right, Edie?
Eddie And this is from Kelly Bibby Hands down, my favorite podcast, exclamation point. I recommend it to everyone. So fun and informative. I have a topic that I would love to hear. Eddie and you and his opinion. What age is too old to go to medical school? We have not wrestled with this question.
Juna All we have is.
Eddie The listener is about 37. I've taken prerequisites a dozen times over the years and always wanted to go to medical school, but life now feels out of reach. In addition to medical school, what are some other career paths for folks interested in healthy living, lifestyle, medical? If you weren't doing what you're doing right now, what would your career alternative be? What health and wellness fields for career switchers and people interested and inspired by this podcast. Thanks for listening. Wow, You know, what are you going to do? I have some answers to this.
Juna Well, you should go first. This is your expertise.
Eddie All right. So let me let me take a first swipe at this. First off, I have spent several decades as a doctor and I've enjoyed nearly every minute. There are some challenges. Medicine is not an easy career, but remarkably rewarding. However, Kelly, if you have done the prerequisites, consider or look at alternatives like physicians assistants.
Juna And I can.
Eddie Say, my gosh, we work with them so closely. Where I work at the VA are very oriented towards lifestyle and everything that we're talking about. They love this stuff and you get to be a doctor like, you know, to serve in that role. But you're a physician's assistant.
Juna Your schedule is way better, right?
Eddie My gosh, their schedules are much better. I'll just tell like a really quick anecdote. I met the dean of a major a school who looked at the top ten applications from the A's and called up each of them and said, you know, your qualifications would get you considered very seriously in the medical school here. Would you like me to walk it across the hall for you? Most of them turned him down. Which made me conclude, as I said, to the dean. So now we know that guys are smart enough to be doctors and smart enough not to be doctors.
Juna Likely, I think the schedule is way better. I have a couple of friends in medical school, too, Kelly, And like, it looks like a nightmare. I mean, God bless everyone that goes through it. But like the years and years and years of sleepless nights, like I feel like it's tough on their bodies and they're like in their 20s. So part of me is like, it's never too late because I do know people going later into medical school. But I also think you should just think about the type of lifestyle you want because I think it can look glamorous from the outside, but the reality of it is like crazy long hours and like a lot of debt. And so I'd say talk to other people in the fields, maybe talk to some PR, talk to some doctors and kind of ask them like, what is your day to day life like? And then decide from there if that's what you want to do.
Eddie And also look into the world of health coaching.
Juna I would say health coaching.
Eddie Yeah. Remarkable. It's it's a really coming a new profession. We've spoken to folks on the show last.
Juna Year Kaley there's an episode on health coaching with Margaret Moore you should look up which is a great thing for somebody that loves health and is interested in this type of stuff. And with that, thank you so much for the review. Kelly Thank you for the five stars. Remember, guys reviews, help us find other listeners and they make us feel good. And we're almost 2000, so please.
Eddie Come support.
Eddie Us, be the thousand review. And these are not just ratings. These are people who've taken the time to write. So thank you so much. And just another little shout out. Let's say you're listening to you and I. We're going to have a wonderful guest today, as we often do. And you're saying, my God, I should be writing these things down. I shouldn't be listening at 2.5. And where are the notes? Guess what? You could subscribe to our newsletter. We will send you sort of the highlights, a breakdown and links to the studies that are mentioned. And all you have to do is go to food. We need to talk.com forge slash email and you'll join it. We are not spammers. We are not going to be selling you anything. We're just going to share what we've discovered talking to the guests with you. And this is a good resource. Great. If it's not, you know where to reach us.
Juna And now to the episode. Welcome to the episode. Today we are joined by Dr. Umair Naidu. And the first thing I want to ask you was for you to tell us a little bit about your background, because I just think it's so interesting and unique. So can you tell us how did you get here interested in this topic and what you do?
Speaker 4 Thank you for that question. It's a bit of a long answer. How different? How different? Because I'm going to go back all the way to childhood. I didn't want to go to preschool because I really loved hanging out my grandparents. My mom's a now retired physician and she was in medical school. But rather than go to preschool, I wanted to hang out with my grandparents because they were so much more fun.
Juna Yeah, of course.
Uma My grandmother would cook most delicious meals. She had a fresh vegetable garden and I would like to hang around. And pick vegetables and, you know, shovel peas and do little tasks because that's really little. But then they would also spend time with me and I learned yoga and meditation from them. So it was much more fun than, you know, being in preschool. And then my parents would take me home at the end of the day. And I didn't realize until later in life how much that form identity around food and healthy eating and just a sort of a holistic practice. When I began to learn psychopharmacology, I knew that I wanted to be a psychiatrist. But, you know, when I was learning about the medications, I really didn't understand why we were prescribing things which had side effects, like all medications do, but no one was having the conversation about, Well, this is what you should do. Can you improve some exercise? Can you, you know, through encouraging someone? And early on in my career, I had a light bulb moment because the patient I had was in junior resident pretty timid and learning the ropes. And a patient kind of called me up and said, you know, you caused me to gain weight and really wasn't the medication which had only been started a week before. It wasn't SSRI. But it was already a little heavy. And I could see that both from his medical record and all of that. But he was drinking this massive, you know, favorite coffee in Boston, the Dunkin Donuts, of course, of 20 ounce. Yeah, a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee. And I said just intuitively, I said to him, well, I understand you're upset, but let's just talk about what you're eating. What did you put in your coffee today? It was more than a quarter cup of ultra processed creamer and a teaspoons of sugar. So he said, well, you know, as much as I'm not a huge calorie counter these days, I said, Well, let's just break this down. And I showed him how many empty calories he was consuming before he even had breakfast. And, you know, his eyes lit up because he saw that I was teaching him something. And it really changed the tenor of our therapeutic relationship. He wanted to do more. He wanted to learn more. He wanted to. Just simple habits. Even just switching off the coffee habit to a healthier habit during coffee with you prepared ingredients in it motivated him to want to do more. And for me, I understood the power of some kid translating simple information to someone, and it really inspired me to want to learn more in the nutrition space because that's a huge gap. I always say to people, I learned my nutrition in culinary school that I did in medical school.
Juna My God. Yeah.
Uma And it's true. It really inspired me along the path of putting these pieces together, because I see that in addition to medications which are lifesaving for many of my patients, nutrition and lifestyle are huge impacts too. And now we understand more about metabolism. So factoring that in as well becomes key to really someone's holistic health for mental well-being.
Eddie I'm picturing this 20 ounce cup of coffee thick with with with the sugar and the ultra processed creamer. But maybe take us beyond. I'm sort of channeling the listener saying, well, yeah, I'm not going to have that, but maybe take a leap from the most wonderfully titled book that you wrote. This is Your brain on food to talk about not just what we, you know, shouldn't eat, but the things that we might add to our diet.
Uma So I think some of the simple things that we're missing as Americans is that many people are eating what we call the sad or Western diet, the standard American diet, and that is rich in foods that I know, you know, are not that good for us. Ultra processed foods, junk food, fast foods, you know, seed oils, artificial sweeteners, lot of fried foods, and a lot of unhealthy fats like trans fats and hydrogenated oils. And that tends to be what is in our everyday food. For example, I've kept many of our ketchups minimal storable pasta sauces. Even our store bought oranges as added sugar. So one of the things we want to do, I give people in your morning and I ask them to stop with one of these three things because all of the time, kind of doing this work, I've understood it can be overwhelming. So I'd like them to choose from when they called. So SJW s is for swap. So swap one unhealthy habit. You might have picked up an ice cream habit during Covid and it was. It's been hard to let go of that bowl or two of ice cream at night after dinner. Maybe you can make a fruit based ice cream that gives you your food saving for the day, plus the fiber and other nutrients that come with the food. The A is full and and in simple things to your diet. Can you add on more servings of vegetables, more beans, more nuts, more seeds whole again, so more protein. Maybe you not having enough protein from chicken, from grass fed beef or maybe you eat tofu, whatever that might be. And the W is walk, which symbolizes movement because we know this is for a large body of evidence and. Sighs, improving mood and movement, improving mood. So whatever it is you can do, if you can start walking and walk to get a cup of coffee, walked by the newspaper. But then slowly get into, you know, can I get on the treadmill? Can I build up to real exercise over time Because someone who's depressed or super anxious may not be able to do that. So you've got to meet them where they're at. For the swap and the and the foods I like to talk about are and not surprising, the colors of the rainbow, adding in the diversity of vegetables of different colors, which bring the phytonutrients and flavonoids to your foods. So you know the anthocyanins from blueberries, the leafy greens, the correct notes from carrots. One powerful thing that leafy greens has is folate. Well, there have been studies of low folate being associated with low mood that well, the study used the supplemental form of folate. It helps us understand that simply by eating lots of greens every day, you are improving all you are contributing to folate levels in the body. Another thing that people sort of don't eat enough of in the US is fiber. Again, you get fiber from those vegetables, fruit beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, all of that. You don't really get fiber from animal proteins of seafood. So make sure you loading in those veggies on your plate along with everything else that you eat. It may go to things like fermented foods. The study had shown that adding fermented foods to diet actually helps lower inflammation in the gut. So that's important to understand by introducing if you don't eat fermented food like kimchi would show for whatever your preference is, Almost every culture has implemented foods to choose from. You know, maybe start adding that in in small amounts. Then we go to sort of the prebiotic fiber, which again you can get through food. Garlic, leeks and onions. An easy way to start healthy fats like avocado oil or olive oil or even just actual avocado. If you actually get the fiber and the magnesium from the avocado as well. So sort of talk about these different groups. And in my first book and this is your brain on food, I go through the different conditions, the foods to add in and the ones to step back from. And in my second book, Calm Your Mind with Food, which was really inspired by the earlier the pandemic, heightening the level of anxiety in the world by 25% as published in The Lancet, it was a reason to really help people. I designed a anti-anxiety shopping list, a protocol, and then recipes to match so that you can choose from these foods like sulfuric acid, which vegetables like the cruciferous vegetables, you know, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts. All of these are not only low in calories, if you prepare them in a healthy way is a way to go. And another large group of just fresh herbs and spices not only do these being flavor, but they bring many other nutrients.
Eddie So Uma, I'm really fascinated by well, I'm not really fascinated by the rise in anxiety because it's awful. But all of the positive changes that can be made and these could hopefully be small changes that add up. How does that actually change what's going on in your brain and your perception of how anxious or depressed you are by the foods? What's what's the connection there?
Uma So one of the ways to explain the mood food connection is the gut brain connection. So people have heard words like gut microbiome, but it turns out that the gut and the brain originate from the exact same cells in the human embryo. They then divide apart and form the gut and form the brain, and then they're connected by the 10th cranial nerve, the Vagus film, which really allows bi directional messaging of neurotransmitters between these two organ systems. So I like to unpack it a little bit more by saying to someone, When you have a headache, what do you do? Usually my patients roll their eyes and say, Well, you know, I usually take headache tablets and I ask further, Well, what do you do with it? You dissolve it or break it up and rub it on your head. And they say no, you know, laughing and kind of thinking, I'm being absurd. I swallowed. And, you know, you have a support and I swallow it. But what happens ten months later, the headache goes away. Well, why are you swallowing something? But it's actually going to work in your head to keep your headache. You know, it's meant to have them think a little more deeply about when we eat food. It's not just going to our gut just like that pull. There may be other ways in which it affects our bodies. Then I start to explain that the trillions of microbes in our gut microbiome that actually did help us when we take care of them is like a guest in your home. You know, you wouldn't expect them to sleep on the floor without a pillow or not give them something. A cup of coffee in the morning. Good people treat them well. So just like that, these gut microbes, when we feed them fiber, when we feed them, those foods we just talked about, they are nurture, they're nourished, they function, they help with vitamin production, hormone production, immunity, sleep and circadian rhythm, our mental well-being and many, many things more so. Unfortunately, when we don't feed them well and we start to eat that fast food, ultra processed food diet rich in artificial sweeteners and unhealthy fats, the breakdown products of the food are more toxic polysaccharides, and these start to damage the single cell lining of the gut. And over time can penetrate and cause leakage. And this is a condition that people refer to as leaky gut into startle ability. And that really is when you start to see an uptick of symptoms, because once these toxins are in the blood system, in the second choice system, you really do see an uptick of worse mood, increased anxiety. Well, this over time. This is a marathon, not a sprint. So these symptoms can be improved over time. But one of the things that you really are working on is improving your gut health, the inflammation in the gut itself. So this is this is one of the mechanisms that sort of explains it and helps break it down every time you eat that healthier food. Every time you swap something, when you add in more fiber rich vegetables, which are rich in phytonutrients, you add in great sources of protein. All those things nourish the gut and they help. They help the gut. And over time, you can reverse some of this chronic insidious inflammation by changing your eating habits and lifestyle habits.
Eddie How fast could someone feel the difference if they. I mean, there are certainly places where you can go for kind of like a healthy makeover or sort of a residential program that addresses chronic illness and these dietary changes. When you walk in, there are happening all at once. What's in your clinical experience for people that are living in the community? They're seeing you periodically and they're taking on this advice. How fast do they and how do you help them understand that the blueberries are leading to them being happier and less anxious?
Uma I think that firstly, the patient, let's say the person who wants to use this method or use these ways to feel better is someone who actually believes that there is a system of more holistic and integrated care, that alongside medications, other forms of treatment can work. So it is partly their belief. I think the people who struggle the most are those who come in with what I considered to be orthorexia. So healthy habits that actually have let them astray. In general, I sometimes see some improvement in, say, for example, sleep Within about 7 to 10 days I'll have someone contact me and say I'm sleeping better. I've noticed that I'm sleeping less restless. Something like that. Usually I give in because we know that the gut microbiome takes approximately about a month to really start to heal. I usually give them between 2 to 4 weeks to start to notice things. But what I find very powerful is the moment that first it might be the sleep, it might be waking up with less anxiety, it might be feeling less anxious at work. I had this beautiful note from someone who read my book who wrote and said to me for the first time he was able to take his teenage daughters to a concert. He followed the anti-anxiety protocol. He made the recipes. He and his wife made the recipes. And his goal had been to be able to accompany his daughters to the concert because he had been too anxious to do that in the past. But so and he said, you know, he it made a difference. And this was such a powerful thing in his life because he achieved something that he never thought was possible. And his family was extremely excited. But that took him a good 2 to 3 months of following, then anti-anxiety protocol, eating those four things and starting to feel better. So it can be, you know, outputs of of the month. But I start to see improvements within 7 to 10 days. Usually it's different for each person, but often I've noticed that it's either sleep or just waking up because inside you.
Eddie Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more from Dr. Uma Naidoo. And if you know someone who would benefit from learning about brain healthy foods, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And we're back with Dr. Uma Naidu, diving deep into the world of food and mental health.
Juna So I have a question for you. All the time. When we hear people say things like this, food helps with this. A lot of time it's misinformation, right? Like people say things like, I don't know, eat carrots for better vision or something like, yes, if you were deficient in vitamin A, having carrots would help your vision. But it's like in most Westernized countries, we're not deficient of vitamins. It's not going to help your vision. So I just, like, really want to break down the science of how these foods are really helping your brain. Can you talk about what do phytonutrients and flavonoids, what do they do in the brain that actually helps to improve your mood and improve cognition and like just improve mental health in general?
Uma So things like anthocyanins from blueberries and see curcumin in Cermak, which is the active ingredient and to make these have very powerful antioxidant anti-inflammatory properties. When you develop inflammation in the gut that I described earlier, because the gut and brain are connected inflammation in the gut and lead to inflammation in the brain. Now many conditions in mental health, depression, anxiety, cognitive disorders and more, including things like ADHD being seen as having an underpinning of inflammation in the form of neuroinflammation. So the more that you can target, lowering inflammation in the body becomes very powerful to also helping ease those symptoms. You may not kill them. A person may still need some medication to help them, but you may think lower medication, you may over time under the care of a psychiatrist, be able to taper off the medication. But you're really targeting the information with these anti-inflammatory and antioxidant ingredients. So I think that the way to explain it to people is these are mechanisms that are unfolding. The science is evolving and the research is evolving all the time. But this is what we know. This is what we see clinically as working. That's helping people. So certainly I think it's it's a way to get people started on this path.
Eddie So we in our house occasionally get these meal kits where you put together your meal and it encourages me to cook. And one of them recently sent a piece of turmeric. So I looked at it and I started peeling it. And there wasn't a lot left over there. And I dutifully chopped it up along with the ginger, put it into the dish, which was quite yummy. My question, however, is how big a piece should I be eating and at what point, if you're talking to me, would you just say, you know, you could get curcumin pills and, you know, get this same stuff into your body? Is it that you want the full food going in or is it the active ingredient or or some combination?
Uma And then it depends on the person with curcumin. You really need very little each day. Certain cuisines, like Indian food, has a lot more because it's it's a basic ingredient of a lot of curries. But a quarter teaspoon with a pinch of black pepper, which activates the human to make it much more by available to the brain and body, is a neat tip that you should always do. Know what I say to people is dry spices. If you can get an organic spice, those are usually better sourced. And if not just, you know, dry spices actually concentrate because it's I want to make it easy for people to get these things into their diet. Now, I'm glad that you worked with Cook Human, but as you know, the stains counters and stains your clothes. Yes, a little bit tricky even to have. And so if you do have that like a tiny piece, like a quarter of that little pad would have been fine.
Eddie Wow. Okay.
Uma Color flavor your food. And if you put in lots, it's certainly in that one meal. It's not going to harm you. You know, one of the things I'm really working on is food dosing and helping people understand how much you need of each ingredient. With dry spice, it's super concentrated. So compared to the fresh spice, you need very little. So say you had dried oregano and fresh, right? You need, you know, about half the amount of the dried oregano, but they both have the nutrients and the antioxidants in them. I think if you have access to a farmer's market or you're getting a food and you get these fresh ingredients, by all means. That's why I think they're not better. But for a lot of people, they can't access that. And I think, you know, we want to make it low hanging fruit for everyone. I only suggest a supplement to a person because I do feel supplements full and nutritional gap that we have. If I've tested them and they have seen the Northeast low vitamin D, which we know is pretty common, there's a level of sunlight that might be an appropriate thing to supplement. I'm not against, but I do think they're very important. But I would rather people easily get it from the food they eat. Like you made the dish and. Coleman just and he'll cook human costume and can be added into, you know, a chai tea, a golden child and more.
Juna Yes, I love that.
Uma A soup, a smoothie, anything that you make. And by way of making it easy for people, I just want them to start to add it. And if they really don't cook and don't want to be anywhere near that much food and yeah, by all means a cooked human supplement, but one that contains purple rain in it.
Eddie So previously on the show. We've had several chefs, right? Yeah. And one of the questions I asked was, okay, I'm a sous chef. I help my wife extensively. But if I want to take the next leap, you know, what should I do? And was this Kenji? Yeah.
Juna Kenji.
Eddie I said, What do I do next? He said, Lean into a certain just choose a area type of cuisine and kind of like master that before you go on. Like, don't flit around and be a dilettante. So I guess my, my question is, would you flat out recommend as you were exposed to Indian cuisine as a place to start? If I were.
Juna The spices are so good.
Eddie If I were. First off, love, love, love Indian food. And yes, I was simultaneously trying to improve my mood and my brain health and. Yeah. Is there something superior and you could answer personally and channel your grandma if you want.
Uma So I actually started cooking later in life because as a child, everyone else cook and I hung around the kitchen eating and tasting and helped with little tasks. But really in an extended family system, that's kind of how it works. So I observed a lot and therefore it was easiest for me to borrow my mom's recipes and my grandmother's recipes and start to try that out at home. But culturally, I was used to the spices, I was used to the flavors. And I think that for me, cooking just became really peaceful space that I would look forward to. So I would encourage people to start the type of food they enjoy. Maybe someone else likes Mexican food, someone else likes Indian food or something else, like, you know, taking potatoes. It could be whatever that person is drawn to. Maybe learn an easy recipe to get that. You can find some recipes on the internet and ways and methods to cook things, but start with something that is simple and easy to accomplish. Even getting a meal delivery box that helps you get the ingredients and it's right in front of you that you follow the recipe. That's a good way to stop cooking, actually. And then as you gain that confidence, you can start ordering your groceries and making the same recipes that you got in the box. I'll often suggest that to people, if you like the serving recipe and these ingredients for easy to work with, then just repeat that and start expanding your repertoire of recipes. That way the time to you don't have much time. You're trying to get the box, so it's variable. I'm a big proponent of meeting someone where they're at, so they tell me, you know, I like Caribbean food because that's what I grew up eating. All I have. That's my favorite restaurant in the neighborhood that I go to. It's a new cuisine that I never tasted before, but it's delicious. Then my role is to try to help find those recipes for them. And how can you get in those delicious greens? How can you get into those delicious spices but make it something you can do at home? So get cooking is the first step to do it in a way that suits your palate because you're going to be more likely to eat it and go for something easy and simple that you can accomplish. And that way you build your confidence in the kitchen.
Eddie I'm running out of excuses to not be cooking, No.
Eddie So for more reasons not to cook.
Eddie You made it simple. And I love the push for just get cooking. We know that anything you cook at home is healthier than eating out in a restaurant, etc.. So. All right. One less excuse not to cook. Okay. All right. Moving on here.
Juna The last question that I wanted to ask you is, for someone listening, what do you think are the biggest things that they can change in their diet if they're just like the average listener? I'd say we have a more well-informed listener. So I'd say that probably people are eating a little bit better in the American diet, but like what is like the easiest thing that they can add that you think most people aren't adding that could make a big difference.
Eddie You want to make it like top three, bottom three?
Juna Sure. Yeah. What's your top three?
Eddie So it's top three things to add. Top three things to eliminate.
Uma All right. So the top three things to add, adding more servings of vegetables, easy, not high in calories and be talking, you know, colorful vegetable, leafy greens. We're not talking only potatoes and sweet potatoes is certainly delicious, but those are going to bring in different C mechanics and other factors. So I'm talking satiating vegetable, cruciferous vegetables. That's one. The second is add on those spices. They're not going to make your food really flavorful. They just going to build in without adding calories just by pure spice instead of. Blend because blends have added sodium, which you don't need. And, you know, spice is pretty much low, very low if no calorie. The third thing is think carefully about the group of fermented foods or adding in probiotics that could be through dairy or nondairy yogurt. That's plain could be through kefir, which is dairy based, but fermented. Think about different ways you can add probiotics. And this meant it foods because these are just going to be gut healthy things for you. Yep. The bottom three. So I would say that many of us are making natural errors that are kind of brought on by how the food industry advertises. Things like we know blueberries are healthy and we know yoga is generally a healthy food if you consume dairy. But fruited blueberry yogurt can have upwards of 6 to 8 teaspoons of sugar. Right. So understanding that four grams of sugar is one teaspoon and converting that on any food label is a really helpful task because if you add a half a cup with, you're not going to be adding six teaspoons of sugar to that. Yeah. So a better way to go is to swap that with plain yogurt and add in fresh or frozen blueberries. And cinnamon is actually a great sweetener. So honey or, you know, sprinkle with cinnamon and you are saving on a lot of sugar, empty sugar and calories that another one is you know, it's hard to avoid packaged food in the world that we live in. Yeah that doesn't from the back of package but we can also vote with our dollars meaning you can choose a better brand that is paying attention to more healthy principles, has removed those unhealthy fats, is trying to make it with fewer ingredients and look at the label and try to switch out. You know, some of us have some some habit that we want to improve. I mentioned ice cream earlier. For some people, it's, you know, eating lots of pretzels and chips or snacks that they just used to having at work or used to having in the cafeteria or some offices keep, you know, keep these snacks. Is there a way you can switch that out because those ultra processed foods, the less we eat have them, the better we are. And the other thing I'm going to say is, you know, try to move away from soda and diet soda and juices because plain water, even, you know, sparkling water with berries can be interesting or citrus or mint. There's so many ways to make it interesting that doesn't have to be a juice that's store bought that has a ton of added sugar or doesn't have to be a soda or a diet soda because of the diet sodas the artificial sweeteners of damaging to your gut. So that's a habit that you know people for example, I had a patient who loves iced tea, but she wasn't doing it at home. She was buying bottles of iced tea, which was sweetened. So even though the idea of having the tea and and all of that was that was unhealthy on its own, it was the way that she was eating. And same thing with the patient was having different fruited yogurts every day because she felt she was getting a serving of fruit and her yogurt that it was telling her to do it. You always have to break it down. It's like the patient who told me that Pizza and Coke is a vegetarian diet. I don't sure he heard it, but he was like, well, you know, you asked me to bring in more vegetables. Doesn't that work? So it's always worth taking a step deeper and explaining or breaking it down for some.
Eddie I appreciate that. In the second part of your answer, you didn't just say, don't eat this, but try this. And that seems like that's sort of flipping towards something that is modestly healthier if not much, much healthier is is great while still being permissive. That it's a it's a process.
Uma It's a process. Thank you for saying that. Because, you know, when you say eat this or not that and stop eating something, which I just find the people I work with just balk at that. And the other thing is, in a principle, and when you think about principles of psychology and eating, you know, when you are restricted from something, you want it more, so you just eat less of it. You know, have that piece of cake on your birthday and you might, you know, because you know, the rest of the time you are trying to eat healthy. You're trying to bring in those healthy foods. But don't don't restrict yourself in a way that you feel unhappy.
Juna Totally agree. And that's a great note for us to end on. If you want to hear the rest of this conversation, we're about to head over to the patrons to do the bonus episode. But before we do, where can people find your book and what do you have on your website? You have other resources and stuff for people.
Uma Yes. So check out my website when I do M.D. dot com subscribe to my YouTube channel, which is new and me building it, but also sign up for my weekly free newsletter where you will get tips on different food each week. And you can find that on substack or right on my website. And I ended up coming on to find my course on my books. My new book is Calm Your Mind with Food, all really to help people know that anxiety. So you might have a friend or family member who might want some help with that. But thank you for having me. It was great.
Eddie Let me let me spell that out. Also Uma Uma Naidu and a i'd o tor.com.
Juna So edmonds.com you once.
Eddie Again, like I said, Uma Naidu, M.D. uma and a d o m d.com.
Eddie Thank you, doctor.
Juna Thank you.
Uma Thank you. Thank you so much.
Juna Thank you so much, Dr. Uma Naidu, for joining us today. If you want to hear our bonus episode with her, you can go to food. We need to talk.com/membership or click the link in our shownotes. You can find us on Instagram at food. We need to talk. You can find me on Instagram at the official Euna and Euna Jara on YouTube and Tik Tok. You can find any.
Eddie That's all right. No. The brain. The brain.
Eddie I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to be adding some new spices to my food after our discussion today.
Juna Food We Need to Talk is a production of PR X.
Eddie Our producer is Rebecca Sydell.
Juna And our mics engineer is also Rebecca Sydell. Food We Need to Talk was co-created by Kari Goldberg, George Hicks, Edie Phillips and me.
Eddie Remember, for any personal health questions, please consult your health provider. To learn more, visit food. We need to talk e-com.
Eddie Thanks for listening. I think I know my brain.
Eddie One, two, three. Thanks for.
Eddie Listening. Okay, cool.
