That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Tim Spector

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

Tim Spector talks to Gaby about his love of food and the joy he gets from eating healthily. They discuss he new book, some of they recipes.and why we should always try to frame our eating as a positive thing. (you're adding not taking away)You can now watch every episode of Reasons To Be Joyful on our YouTube Page - where you can also access our Friday nugget of joy. We hope you enjoy listening ! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tim Spector, lovely to see you. To see you, lovely. That shows our own. New book out. Every time I see you, there are so many questions I want to ask you. And then I just, I could, is that all right if we do sort of seven hours of this? There's so much I want to ask you. Yeah, you have to feed me and, you know, keep me happy for seven hours.

Out of your recipe book? Feed you out of your recipe book. You can do more than. seven hours from that, yeah, definitely. Do you know what's so interesting is that the minute you say Zoe or you say Tim Specter, people sort of sit up and say, they tell you what you ate. They tell me. And I'll say, so I said to some friends, oh, Tim Spector's coming on the podcast.

And they said, oh, don't tell him what I have for breakfast. As if I didn't know what they were having for breakfast. But do people do that with you everywhere you go? They do. And I've noticed that nobody invites me around for dinner anymore. So even my old friends are frightened It's quite ridiculous I'm not critical of

But they think I will be And I'll be preaching at them And telling them off And it's funny It's by the only bad thing that's happened About, you know Became more successful in this field Is that people are frightened

To have a meal with you Or you know It's like revealing their secrets I love that So I saw you in a restaurant and it was one of those bizarre the person I was with and her brother has known you for years

and is a medic as well and we're coming out and the people I saved this to tell you on the podcast we're just coming out and these people called me over and said Gabby Gabby is that the Tim Specter I said yes he went

if he eats here it's all right to eat here it was the funniest thing and all the people in the restaurant were laughing and said yeah he's come here a few times we go oh it's okay then So you're like a walking medal. They should have a little plaque outside a restaurant. Tim Specter eats here.

And I'll go, oh, it's all right. Our guts will be okay. If we've eaten there twice, that's the key, isn't it? So you can go in there once, but you never quite know if you're going to come back again. Go back again. How did this all start? And I don't mean the Zoe and I don't mean the books and I, you know, you being a medic. When did this, were a child who just when, this is what I want to do.

I want to be an epidemiologist. I want to do this. No, I always wanted to be a cowboy, actually. Did you ever be, were you ever a cowboy? Never made it, no. Did you ever get on a horse? I have been on a horse, but I've also come off a horse a few times and realised I'm not a brilliant horse rider.

Did you ever wear chaps? End of it. Maybe, no, maybe that's what my problem was. Non-slip chaps, that's what I needed, because I always know up underneath the horse as it was galloping. Usually in South America or somewhere very dangerous where you could, you know, they always gave me the horse called Satan, you know, sort of, you know. But no reason other than. No, my family all got nice little friendly animals, you know, daisy and sort of flossy and whatever.

And they just looked at me and I got, you know, Diablo or Satan or something like this. Yeah, so my, anyway, it's that end of my cowboy career. So, yeah, being a doctor was what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure what kind of doctor. I didn't want to do anything really boring and traditional. And I didn't try to not be like my father, who was a, I thought a rather boring doctor because he and he saw dead bodies because he was a pathologist.

Yeah. And really I've sort of spent my career, you know, doing something until I got boring and then changing. Until you got boring? It got bored. I got bored. Okay. I might have been boring as well.

But maybe it was listening to my lectures. And if my lectures were, I thought they were boring, then I'd move on. So I was going along happily, you know, still changing course, doing quite interesting things. First rheumatology, epidemiology. Then I did twin work genetics. and epigenetics and you know pretty happy

until 2011 when these two things happened in my life that changed me one was this scientific aha moment when I found by studying identical twins

the only thing different about them with their gut microbes and I'd been looking for anything different in these clones forever really and so that said wow if that's true that could explain a lot

and started my brain whirring and thinking well if the microbes are different maybe that explains why one gets cancer the other one doesn't why one gets autoimmune disease or one gets depressed and why we haven't been out to explain it up to now because these are clones who live together

have pretty much the same environment and at the same time I then had this rather weird personal health experienced this mini stroke that made me suddenly think about health and prevention in a very selfish way. I wanted to live a bit longer and really thought that nutrition must be a key part of this and I had to suddenly research it and refocus my attentions and, you know, write books on it and really become an expert in that field. Whereas up up to, up,

to that point, it only really dealt with big population studies and obesity and genetics at a sort of macro level. So I really wanted to get down to say, well, you know, how do you actually tell people what to eat? Because clearly the government and the NHS haven't got a clue when you look at the websites and things. And that was really those two events coinciding, you know, within a month or so of each other. Can I ask you about your own, what happened to you health-wise? it's interesting because I've read you speak about it very openly and you've talked about it before

but it's extraordinary how you hear of things like this happening for people and it changes the way they perceive life and I love how you just put it there and that's exactly what it did for you you just I want to keep going

I want to live longer I want to be okay and I don't know You're saying it was selfish. I don't think that's selfish, is it? Well, I mean, people think that scientists always do everything altruistically to save mankind and that's how they get their big buzz. Of course, that's not true because they get fame and fortune and Nobel Prizes

and, you know, that feel-good factor. But I think most people don't say they're going to research because they want to know what to eat themselves. Right, I'm with you. Okay. How to get themselves healthier. So they may do it, but they don't generally admit it. And so I felt they had these two strands going on.

Yes, there was the general scientist in me, the detective, if you like, who was really interested in this, in myth-busting and trying to push the boundaries a bit. But there was also this bit of me that did want to see what I could do for my own health, in terms of lifestyle, exercise, diet, so that I could live longer and outlive my father, who at the time I had this incident, you know, he was already dead, but he'd died at 57.

Far too young. Which was, yeah, far too young. And, you know, I just wanted to make sure that that wasn't a scenario for me. So I think it's that turning point many people get when they switch from being, at what they thought was a healthy middle-aged person with no worries to suddenly thinking about their own mortality as well. So I think, as you said, everyone reaches that point at some heart in their lives.

It can be much earlier or much later. But for me, it all came together at that point. And luckily for me, it also focused around my interests and I was writing books about it. I was doing the scientific studies. and I was also living it myself at the same time. So it worked out well for me. Can we live longer?

Absolutely, but I'd much rather we live better so that at the moment we are living slightly longer, although it looks like our parents' generation may have lived longer than we will. Really? Yeah, it's tipping all the predictions and insurance companies, companies are that we're dying, we're predicted to die a bit earlier than our parents' generation, which is a bit worried.

That's the first time that's happened really, you know, in the last 100 years. Is this because of pesticides, climate change, ultra-processed food, all of that? Is that all layers and layers and layers of that? Probably, yeah. I mean, it's a whole mixture of different things interacting, whilst, you know, we know the medicine's generally got better. So they're these competing forces. And it could be that our parents' generation had the advantage of, you know, good food,

none of these chemicals, and they got the advantage when they're in their last 20 years of life of medical breakthroughs. And we've got the medical breakthroughs, but we've got the best. bad environment that's pushing us the other way. So that's what we currently believe. So I'm not someone who wants to live to be 200, but I really would love to be pretty much disease-free until 85 or so. And then you can, you know, fall off the points. I'd like 99.

I've always wanted to live to 99 and still be working. If that's all right, if you could sort that out. Yeah, well, okay, well, you can, I'm happy with 85. you can have 99. Okay, thank you very much. But it is fascinating. One of the things that, especially with this book, obviously the Food for Life and then Food for Life Cookbook,

which is out now, is that it's not preachy. And it doesn't make me feel guilty or somebody feel guilty. And I've, you know, you and I've spoken many times. And I'm passionate about nutrition because my dad had bowel cancer 29 years ago. And I just thought, right, I want to know everything. Mum had lung cancer at the same time. I needed to know what we were putting into our bodies,

what we were doing, everything on so many layers. So for me it's something I've always been passionate about. But I think back then there was a lot of preach. And over the years, you know, stop, stop, stop, stop sugar, stop, stop, whatever you do. You mustn't, you mustn't, you mustn't, you mustn't. You've got to do this, you've got to do that. I feel that what you do is you discuss it. you know you and the late wonderful Michael Mosley as well

who I know you knew and I was very lucky to know that it's not about this is the only way and this is how we're all going to survive now shut up and get on with it it feels more that it's a discussion do you is that how you want it to be yeah and I think we're always make you know

food is a particular example of where we're making hundreds of choices every day and they're not all black and white and you've got to realize that you know we're in it for the long haul and say what you want is to arm people with the knowledge that most times they're going to make the right choice

and it doesn't mean they have to be saints and pure and never make a mistake and they can carry on So the idea is you can make mistakes and still carry on. And if you're making the right decisions 80% of the time and you do that for decades, you're going to see the huge advantages rather than being this pure saintly person who will do this for three months. And then something happens and they fail and then they feel terrible.

And then they say, well, there's no point in it all. which is the current mentality about how we deal with these lifestyle changes, whether it's jogging in the park or it's, you know, going to the gym or whatever. We feel it's a bit of an all-or-nothing thing. So I very much want to give people this idea that just by making, thinking, in a way it's sort of mindful eating, the idea that every time you're thinking about something, there's a little voice in your head just says,

oh, okay, that isn't the best, you know, I've just made a mistake here. I've just picked the, you know, the donut or the A. Clair. Next time I do that, I'll pick something else or I'll have something else later for dinner without that terrible feeling of guilt and shame and then, you know, you lose the plot completely. And I think this is what we need to do. And it's whether you're going shopping, you know, what particular snack you might want to buy, whether you want to buy a snack at all. I just want people to think about these choices.

But feel free to have, you know, to go on a binge, you know, with, you know, just when, you know, last year, you know, at the end of the year, the big Christmas holidays, everyone, you know, eats terrible things, you know. That's fine. That's part of feasting and fasting and being sociable. It doesn't mean you should never do it. but realized there were other things you could have done

and next year maybe you get a bit, you know, less milk chocolate and more, you know, nuts. I mean, you know. Come on, you're naughty though sometimes, surely. Oh, yes. What's your guilty pleasure? Actually, I'm not going to use the word. I hate that.

Why did I ask it? What's your pleasure of choice of food-wise? Well, I've got lots of, I know what you want to say. So you... No, I'm not... It's a guilty pleasure. No, I know.

An unhealthy pleasure. I'm partial to the odd jaffa cake. Okay, thank you very much. I'm putting... I give you jaffer cake. I'm going ice cream. Love ice cream. Yeah, well, I...

In summer, if you're off on ice cream. For life. Oh, for life. Yeah, it's not just for summer. But, you know, we've all got these... you know, and crisps and another one,

you know, and if there's a big bowl of something in front of me, if we had one here. Oh, no. The bowl I'd give you, though, my absolute obsession, we're going there

and I know they're healthy. Pickles. Anything pickled. I'm, ever since I was little, obsessed with vinegar and pickles. And for years, people go, there's something really wrong with you. No, I love it, love it.

And now, in your book, in and all the other, hello, pickles. and fermented stuff. Do you know how happy that makes you? Honestly, I could just kiss you for that because everyone thinks I'm mad about my obsession with pickles. But they're good.

They're good for us, aren't they? They're definitely making a big comeback, yes, they are. Yes. Although you should try and move away from just vinegar to fermenting them. Okay. The salty ones are oil than the vinegary ones. The salty as opposed to vinegary?

Mm-hmm. But what if I have everything doused in lovely apple-sized? of vinegar and turmeric and thing. That's okay. Absolutely okay. Yes, they're healthy. They're healthy as if you'd fermented it with real microbes and other stuff. How do I ferment at home right now?

Somebody's listening now and they're thinking, oh, everyone? So ferment, actually let's diske them. Fermented foods. What are they and why are they good for us? Because we're talking as somebody, I'm talking about it because I'm obsessed with it. For people who don't know, and there are many people, what are they and why they good for us? Most people have heard of probiotics and probiotic foods. Fentia foods are probiotic foods.

So they contain live microbes that naturally live in that food. So like a yogurt or a cheese or a fermented milk like a kaffir or a sauerkraut. And a kimji. And a kimchi, which is like a Korean sauerkraut. And in each of these foods, they're between three to 30 different species of microbe growing there. And when you eat them, those microbes go into your gut. Enough of them survive to have an effect on the other microbes in your intestine. And it reduces inflammation, your immune system, and you feel good about it.

And we've just did a big study with Zoe, with 10,000 people. I've just looked at the first results. Very exciting. Showing that over 50% of people get an improvement in their mood and energy after increasing to three portions a day of fermented food. Three portions a day? So my kimchi obsession is okay.

Absolutely. Having it with every meal? Yes. No, that's why you're so. Hi, you're hot. Completely high. I've even had pickles with ice cream. So there we go.

Pickles and ice cream work. So if your family want to calm you down, they just, you know, wean you off the kimchi a bit, and that will wind you down and you can relax and go back to your bovrole or whatever it is. You know what? It's so funny is that I have my daughters. They do that. That's so funny.

I'm so embarrassed. Last night, I was, had the kid. Come on. girls. I have some kimchi. They're going to take it. And they were taking it away at the table. Don't you take my kimchi away. That's how much I like it. Okay. I'm going to pretend you didn't say that.

It's your security blanket now, is it? I love it. So for people who want to make it at home, it is relatively easy to make, isn't it? Yeah, I would start with sauerkraut, though. Okay. Which is the baby form of kimchi.

Baby They've got both made from cabbage and so there's different types of cabbage so you get any old cabbage would red cabbage be really good because that's it's colourful and part of the rainbow and everything isn't it? Yes it works well you have to

ferment it a little bit longer but it's really good get any cabbage you've got chop it up weigh it weigh it okay I've got a red cabbage at home that's why I'm asking Okay, so I weigh my red cabbage. After I've chopped it up.

Yes. Okay. Because you want to throw away some of the bits. You keep the outer leaves. Yes. Keep them separate. Putting everything else into a big bowl. You weigh it and you do your maths, 2% salt.

Oh, wow. Okay, 2% salt. Sea salt, good quality salt. And you massage that in. Massage it. I've got to massage my cabbage. You have to massage your cabbage. With a 2% salt.

It's good fun actually. Okay. Don't knock it until you tried it. Okay. All right, I'm there. I'm massaging my red cabbage with the salt. Okay, doing it. Yeah, I'm there.

And then it will start to give off lots of fluid. So basically the salt lets, breaks down the cells and all the natural water and sugars come out of the cabbage. So we don't, we'd have to do it in a bowl. doing it in a bowl. Yeah. We keep the fluid. Do we keep the fluid? Yes, you keep everything.

Okay. And then you put it into a jar. I use a kilner jar, which is one of those ones with a lid and a clip. But you could just use any old big jar. Okay. Like a one litre jar. And you stuff it in. Okay.

As hard as you can. I'm stuffing it in. Okay. With your fists. Fist. There's no air. There's no air there. Okay.

No air. You push it down. Keep pushing it down. And then at the top, you've got a little layer of water so it should be under submerged under the water you put your cabbage leaves so you add a bit of water

you shouldn't have to okay this is the natural water that's there okay but you may have to add a bit of salty water if you need to but generally you've got enough and then you close the lid you should have an inch or two at the top you wrap up those leaves you left from the outside of the cabbage

close the lid what do we do with those leaves we put them in the top yes They're like a stopper, a wait, to keep the rest of the cabbage under the water, the good stuff. Okay. We don't have to massage the big ones? No. No. They're just boring ones that you're just using temporarily.

Yeah, but you're going to eat them after you don't want to waste. Yeah, but you might want to, when you see them afterwards, you may not want to eat this one. Oh, okay. They served their purpose, right? So everything has a use in life. and then you basically keep it there for about five to ten days and you start to see bubbles coming and it's fermenting and then you eat it.

So it doesn't get much easier than that. That is easy. Now you can add if you want to be fancy, you can add caraway seeds, you can add fennel seeds. And that's part of our plants, isn't it? Because herbs and spices are because you talk about 30 plants a week but that doesn't just mean the plants. it means the herbs and the spices as well, doesn't it?

A plant is a herb. It's a fruit, a vegetable, a spice, which is just the root, it's the concentrated plant, the root. Then you've got the herbs which are often the leafy bits, but again, highly concentrated, so that's where all the flavours are. Then you also don't forget you've got mushrooms and you've got nuts and you've got seeds. all of these things together, even when they're different colours of the same species count as a different plant. And that's where it's so easy to get these 30 plants

a week in your diet if you just think more outside the box. So a different colour of the same thing is a different plant? Yes, as far as your microbes are concerned, which is, you know, we're talking about eating for your microbes. So it matters much, more to them these subtle differences because they're really fussy. There might be a microbe

that only eats your purple carrots, for example, and not your orange ones. They are fussy, aren't they? We've found one that only eats coffee. That's all it does. It's waiting there in your gut for you to have a cup of coffee.

And we just discovered this guy. It's called Lawsonabacter, and that just gives you a little glimpse. It's a great name. Yeah, after, well, after Dr. Lawson. Yes, I imagine. And this bug waits, it's a hibernation until you actually have some coffee in you.

And then it comes to life and, you know, it suddenly reproduces, has lots of sex and babies and goes crazy eating coffee. And then produces chemicals that probably allow that coffee to be good for your heart. So that's how fussy these microbes. This is, first minute, please have a sip of your coffee. I feel bad. I will. I just sitting in with your coffee getting cold. But they've all, so that's just, that's just blown my mind.

Okay. So what happens? I don't drink coffee. Does that mean that little micro is just annoyed? Will it do something else? Interestingly, you've got it because you're probably surrounded by other coffee drinkers. And so, you know, over the years. Yes.

Oh, you've been snogging coffee drinkers. My husband drinks coffee. There you go. Oh, that is incredible. So everyone has it in this country because coffee, you know, over half the population drink coffee. Therefore, there's coffee everywhere and there's just enough that those microbes get transferred with it.

Oh, my word. There's so many questions. As I said, it takes hours and hours to sort of break it down. But I think in the simplest of terms, you know, what can we all, I remember talking to you when, during COVID. We used to speak a lot on the radio. And it was incredible being part of that app and being part of that study. And I did it religiously every single day. And you taught me so much.

And then over the years, I've interviewed you about your various books. But what is the, and I know everybody asks you this. But for somebody who is sitting there at home and I really, I hope that we don't make. make somebody feel fearful or guilty because there's so much surrounding food. We know there's a lot of issues surrounding food. What would be the one thing that everybody can just simply, apart from making lovely sourcrack, but what's the one thing that everybody could do just now? If you said, it's that simple.

If you did this, you're stepping towards feeling better. Well, I don't want to move towards the idea that there is a miracle cure. No, I don't mean cure. I just mean just feeling a bit better. There's so many people out there on social media say, you know, you just need to do this one hack. Yes, no, I agree. I agree.

So. Yeah. I don't mean it like that. What I mean is how can we just simply feel a little bit better? And I agree with you. I get really annoyed when I see these people on social media saying, if you do this, you will, no, it's not quite that. Because nutrition is complicated.

It isn't just about excluding one thing from your diet. It isn't just about. eliminating this and then, you know, you get rid of fats or you get rid of lectins or you get rid of gluten or all this nonsense. It's about understanding much better what food really is made of, all the different chemicals, interaction with your gut microbes. And that's why in the book, there are six key principles of what you need to do to improve your health and think about. So I don't want to just, okay, you could pick one of the six and say it's slightly more important than the others, but I think the key is to understand, you know, that there are a number of things we can all do.

And even if you did just one of them, yes, you're right. You will feel a bit better. You will feel a bit better. And the one we've discussed, try and eat more diversity of plants, because that way you then get all the fiber and nutrients you need. That's the 30 plants rule. Okay, that's an easy one to remember. May not always get there, but it's better than the eight or nine that people are probably doing at the moment.

The second one, eat the rainbow. Easy to remember. That sort of, that has captured people's imaginations. And every, any, you know, so many people say that. You know, they're looking to play, oh, I'm eating the rainbow. But that's great. It's captured people, has it. Yeah, and now, but it was around that 20 years ago, eat the rainbow.

We didn't really understand why. It turns out that those colours represent chemicals, which are again really good for our gut microbes. So the science has caught up with the sort of old wives tale, if you like. The third one is eating fermented foods, as we've discussed. You know, try and get as many portions you can. Small amounts regularly is what you need. The other is pivot your protein. There's a big thing about at the moment about everyone being obsessed with protein.

All the adverts, the algorithms seem to send me is, you know, they obviously think I'm too puny, so I need to be beefed up with various protein drinks and things. And we're not deficient in protein. We're actually deficient in fibre. We get more than enough protein for a vast majority of us, 90% of the population. But have less meat. because that allows you to get more plants on your plate and switch as a protein source to beans and legumes and all that family.

It's called the protein pivot. Give your gut a rest overnight. Don't late night snack. Improve your gut lining by having 12 to 14 hours overnight when you're not eating. Is that intermittent fasting, as people call it? It's more time-restricted eating, which is a type of intermittent fasting. But it's less restrictive and it doesn't mean you're reducing calories. You're just reducing the time window in which you're eating.

So is that just purely to give your gut a break? To say... Yes. Yeah. And it allows it time to repair and it allows your microbes to sleep normally. We all need a good night's sleep and so they do as well. It's just making sure that everything, your body is back in sync. So when it's supposed to be working, it's working.

I mean, it's supposed to be resting, it's resting. You don't confuse it. So, you know, middle of the night, you don't suddenly start eating because it's, oh, what's going on here? You know, Tim's awake now. I've got to gear up, you know, and change my hormones and do this stuff. That's so fascinating. That's such a fascinating way of looking at it.

So does cheese, you know, everybody goes on about eating cheese at night gives you bad dreams? So is that because the microbes, they're in there just saying, Oh, come on, we've got a hard work. And the hard work then goes to your brain and it says, right, why did you eat cheese last thing at night? I couldn't. Or was that an urban myth? I couldn't find any hard evidence that cheese actually causes bad dreams.

You couldn't? Sadly, no. I mean, there are some people who have some interesting allergies to fermented foods when cheese is a fermented food, some histamine allergies. It's probably people are eating late at night. And what do you have with cheese? normally have red wine and various bits of alcohol that they're the ones that might be disrupting the sleep more if you have a disrupted night's sleep you're going to dream more

and that's probably where this association's come from so you've got an answer for everything you know everything I've got every yeah I'm very smug I've got the answer to everything and before I forget the final one the number six was let's reduce our intake of ultra-processed foods and it doesn't mean zero it means you can still have the occasional ice cream. I can still have the occasional jaffer cake, but we've got to get it down from these levels of 60% of everything we're eating being ultra-processed.

60% is more, our children have the most ultra-processed food of any Western country, including the US. And how has that happened? Because famously, America was meant to have the, you know, the worst. But how has it happened that we now have that? We're at that level. Well, the influence of big food. They make 30 billion a year profit from us. They bribe our politicians. They have their own research agendas.

They've got many academics in their pockets. They have huge advertising budgets. And they can make unlimited claims. and you just got to look in the supermarket aisles to see all these absolute crap products covered with health claims about amazing vitamins and low fats and low calories and dancing thin people all over the place.

But low fat is something that we've heard now that that was a sort of... So we... That was a con. I mean, the stuff that they put in. Yeah, they take out. It's much... They like big food, love the low-fat campaign because actually it's cheaper to replace natural fats that you have

to grow up in farms with animals and dairy and things with fake produce that you can make in a factory much cheaper or it doesn't involve manual labour. So a lot of these, they've found fixes for all these natural products and reproduce them at each time improving their margins. so their costs go down and they make more and more money and we get sicker and our children get more mental health issues and more problems

and we've been doing nothing because the lobbying has been going saying there's nothing wrong with it or if you try interfere the lobbyists start talking about nanny state and all this kind of nonsense so that's where we've got this problem

I'm optimistic You are optimistic about it all? I think we've reached the bottom. I think, you know, the UK can't, we're the worst in the world, so we can't really go much further. But we do, there was a Lord's report that came out at the end of last year, which is the first time any government has acknowledged that ultra-processed food is bad for us.

And up to now that's been blocked by the food industry. that's going to government and early this year we should be hearing whether they're going to do something about it seriously so I think there's enough people now talking about it

not just me, lots of people Yeah there are a lot of people talking about it thank goodness so let's go back to your book there's Miso I'm mad about Miso what does it mean? I will see that's another thing MISO look

MAD about MISO sounds a good film title doesn't it? Every time I open your book, look, that was it. I didn't have it marked. It's open to miso spinach eggs. Miso. I love miso. I love miso. Now, until we started working on this book,

I was using stock cubes all the time and I'm now completely switched and just use miso paste instead and suddenly realized you've swapped an ultra-process, very convenient thing that I was using for years, nothing particularly wrong with it because, you know, very practical to something that is really a natural fermented product, which most people don't know. Miso is fermented soybean paste that if you don't boil it, you know, it still has some live

microbes in it, but it's, whether it's live or not, it's still got an amazing taste flavor and depth to it that adds this umami to all your meals. So I've even been brave enough to start making my own now. You've made your own miso? Yep, just started. Are we going to see Zoe miso? Well, you could work. I'm going to wait until I taste it, though, before I start inflicting it on the public.

But, yeah, it's not that hard to do. But, you know, I just find it fun. Everything's an experiment, really. I love that. I love that. So the recipes in the book, as I said, they're not pretty, and they're really, they're simple. And I love that it tells us exactly how many plants. So simple. There, coconut spinach, spinach, lentils, 11 plants.

Mushroom and leek to, I'm now, okay, this is what I do to people when they have a cookery book out. And it's like with your children, you can't choose a favorite child, but when you have a cookery book out, you have to come up with one that is your go to that you think, yeah. And I, It's not being cruel to the other recipes. They're not listening. It's just that one. Which is your favourite? Go.

I'll go for Juno's lasagna, which is sort of dedicated to my mum, who used to make an Australian version of lasagna. And it was very good. She usually forgot about it, so it burnt. But I didn't mind that because the burnt cheese on top. that was the best. The crispy bits were always the best.

And we've basically taken the traditional recipe and zoified it and used whole wheat pasta and instead of the bechamel layer, we've done a mixture of butter beans mixed with a bit of soy. Really, you know, it's a delight that texture and knowing that it's

incredibly healthy as well. And instead of the mints, we've got some lentils and mushrooms and plenty of miso. And, you know, you can throw anything into it as well. So whatever you've got in the fridge, you can sort of add to this dish. And again, lashings of cheese all over at the top. So it's still got the crunchy lovely bits on it. You still got the crispy bits. Yeah.

So that's always going to be my favourite. Okay, you get that one. I'll give you that one. And actually it's utterly, the recipe is really simple to follow, which I have to say. So congratulations on this book, another book, many, many books. I'm sure there are many more to come. Ooh, sticky maple and cinnamon nuts. So I'm just now flicking. Curry cashews. Oh, look, okay, you can just talk amongst yourselves, everybody. These are just wonderful. As I say, congratulations, but also there's no preachingness and no guilt involved, which is I'd really, really like that. We're just talking about, because obviously this is 100 recipes created with Zoe. You were saying to me before we started recording that you've got a new part of the Zoe app, which is AI now. So we don't have to put everything in manually of what we're eating. This is all now, you just point and press and it tells us what we're eating. Yes, for the listeners who did Zoe a year or two ago, they had to manually enter what they were eating in order to get. you know, the right scores of things.

Now, you just simply take a picture of it or take the barcode of the product and you'll get all the ingredients and you'll get your personalised scores from that. And it just saves so much time and it's actually probably more accurate than logging it directly because, you know, I know what I was doing

and I used to make mistakes and bypass things but this AI just doesn't miss a trick and, you know, it's really, You know, certainly, you know, nine and a half times out of ten when I've tested on some very exotic recipes. And it's only going to get better it because it learns all the time from its mistakes and improves and improves. Don't we all?

Yeah, well, not as quickly as they are maybe. That's for me anyway. So, yeah, I think this is a real game changer. And it makes it more fun. You know, just taking photos at the table and saying, well, you know, who's got the healthiest dish? you know, what's in it. And I think making it fun and interesting

rather than a sort of, you know, a chore you have to do on your own is another way of, you know, getting the conversation going around, you know, the fact you can have tasty, delicious, and healthy food at the same time, you just got to know what those combinations are and how you can add more stuff into it.

You know, how can you add kimchi to all your dishes without upsetting your family too much. And, you know, what are the other swaps you can always do? And this is what intuitively these AI programs will do increasingly as they, you know, become part of our life. But hopefully not too intrusive, you know, so that we can still enjoy those nice meals. Have conversation and have meals together and everything.

Yeah, but talk about all the ingredients and all the fun things and, you know, adding more diversity of your plate, which is what it's all about. It's not about restricting things. It's about adding it. I love that. See, that's the line, isn't it? It's not about restricting.

It's about adding. Tim, thank you very much. Lovely to talk to you as always. It's my pleasure. It's been too quick.