The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 148 - Plant-based living with Happy Pear’s Dave and Steve Flynn

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

In 2004, Dave and Steve Flynn started a fruit and veg shop, with the aim to create a happier, healthier world. The Happy Pear now has vegan food products in nearly 1,000 stores in Ireland, 2 cafes and a farm, and their five cookbooks have all been no.1 bestsellers. The Happy Pear online health and lifestyle courses – in which they partnered with plant-based experts from across the globe – have helped over 50,000 people from 120 different countries. In this episode, Dr Louise Newson chats with Dave and Steve about how they came to realise in their early 20’s that eating plant-based and whole foods would transform their own lives and those in their community. The lads energetically describe the different ways in which they have helped others turn their lives around, reduce risk of heart disease, feel happier and lose weight. Dave and Steve’s 3 tips to improve your diet and future health: Try to eat more whole foods, if you don’t like many vegetables, start with fruit. Be more intentional about your food choices Find your community, create an environment around you that will support you to make healthy choices. For more information about the Happy Pear cookbooks and lifestyle courses, visit https://thehappypear.ie/

Hello, I'm Dr Louise Newsome and welcome to my podcast. I'm a GP and menopause specialist and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre here in Stratford-Bron-Avon. I'm also the founder of the Menopause charity and the menopause support app called Balance. On the podcast, I will be joined each week by an exciting guest to help provide evidence-based, information and advice about both the perimenopause and the menopause. So today on the podcast, I've got two lovely gentlemen in front of me. I'm very excited to introduce to you the quite famous duet called the Happy Pear. And I was actually first aware of them when I went around to one of my friends

for dinner a few years ago now. And she said, oh, I've just found this most amazing cookbook. These two are just incredible. So we had this lovely meal and that was it. And then I was very fortunate to be invited onto your podcast a few months ago, which I really enjoyed. So now you're doing me a favour by coming on to my podcast. So thanks both for coming. Oh, but we're honoured. We love your work. And that was genuinely one of both of our favourite conversations. Well, it made it into our best at 20-21. It was like, it was one of my two picks. So there you go. That's so much menopause and you had an impact on me. So thank you. That's great. But this time last year, if I'd invited you on to a menopause podcast to talk, would you have accepted a one?

what would you have thought? Probably wouldn't have known what I assumed it would have been about vegetables. I'm talking about eating plant-based or whatever, so I don't know. No, especially work from a family of four boys and went to all-boys school, so it really wasn't a conversation, anything to do with female anatomy beyond the sexual function, we knew nothing about it. So, you know, highly ignorant, even with our mother, you know, we used to kind of, as she struggled through, we didn't know how to support her, and I think it's just a reflection on society

at large. So for us, I think your work and the sense of society gathering around women more is just so important. Absolutely. So for some of you who don't know these lovely, I was going to say a pair of twins are not, one-set twins, you might hear that they've got an Irish accent. And actually in Ireland, things are neglected even more when it comes to women and the menopause, actually. So some of the stories we hear from Ireland are even more distressing than the stories we hear from England. So things are changing over across the water.

tall if you don't mind introducing you one at a time and just talking about the work that you do because i think it's really pivotal in making people think differently about diet and nutrition and being happy actually it's not just about eating to get through the day it's eating to enjoy and feeling healthy as well as being happy isn't it so do you mind just talking about what you do of course so we're identical twins this is stephen speaking now and my twin brother also is David. I'm more identical twin. Men now. We were boys, but now we're men.

We must confess. We're 42. So in terms of our work, we, just to give a little small backstory, we grew up in Ireland and a standard meat and two veg diet, you know, went to university, studied business, did degrees and masters in that, and then finished and we're quite confused. We kind of really bought into materialism. And it was only true, we decided to go away traveling and experiment with our diet and lifestyle and to try to find our place in the world where we found a sense of meaning.

And on that journey, we found out that we were fascinated with how we ate and how it affected how we felt. So we came back and I remember calling Dave up one day and go, Dave, Dave, I have this dream. I was starting a health food revolution. Will you join me? Yeah. And Dave at the time was in Central America and he thought we were going to be kind of, you know, doing revolutionary stuff like storming the parliament or doing something, you know, kind of anarchistic.

But it was like, Dave, do you want to start a vegetable shop? And Dave was like, wow, vegetable shop in revolution. Not sure how that lines up. But lo and behold, 2004, we started a vegetable shop with a dream of using business as a vehicle to create a happier, healthier, more connected world. And it was really that we had changed our own diet from as Stephen said, meat and two veg and points and burgers and chips and not thinking it all about food. And at the time we were playing semi-pro rugby, we were both playing off scratch and golf. So we were like, good athletes. but we never saw the combination between what you ate

and how it made you feel. And while we were away, we changed a plant-based diet when we were 21. And we ended up giving up alcohol, just, I don't know, we just ended up doing it. And then we came back two years later and we started this vegetable shop. And we left us these semi-pro rugby playing jocks

with big tick necks and swelling points. And then two years later, we came back as these two vegans that were into yoga, that were starting a vegetable shop. People thought we were a weirdos. What do people say? Did they take you seriously? I think they thought like you'd see them walking in the street and they'd almost cross the road

because we had long hair and plaid pants and Stephen used to paint his fingernails and we were like we really were kind of trying to physically express that we had changed and even here's like I remember with some of my mom's friends you'd hear them go I bet they're selling drugs out the back of that vegetable shop you know and it was that kind of like people thought we'd really lost her way but like for us we had found food like changing adopting a diet based around plants like whole plant foods had changed, had catalyzed our life in a direction we never realized in terms of energy, in terms of our own health and well-being, our vitality, that it was like, okay, well,

let's see if we can inspire, like if a sugary drink called Coca-Cola can be sell worldwide, why the heck can't vegetables, why can't we make vegetables sexy? Why can't we get people to eat more healthy? This was 17 years ago and we were really, we started with a little fruit and veg shops so 17 years ago and it's kind of grown to where there's many different arms and legs in the business now. And it's such an adventure. but really at the root of it is the same dream of trying to create health and happiness and build community. And it's, you know, I think especially more than ever, I think community is more of what we all need because in essence, you know, wellness. If you look even at the etymology of wellness, the first two letters, it's we.

And you look at illness, the first letter is I. And I think, you know, they're reflective that where inherently exists to belong to be part of a tribe to look out for each other. And with that, we tend to breed more help. Yeah, it's so important. And it's often when we haven't got our health, We realize how much we take it for granted, but sometimes that can be too late, aren't it? Because some people have gone down a path of self-destruction too quickly, or they've just done it

in complete innocence. I've had so many patients when I was a GP who came to me and they had raised blood pressure or diabetes. And you sit down and talk to them about their diet. And you realize for the last 30 years they've been eating rubbish, but they've thought they've been eating well because they've been having meat and vegetables or ready-made food. I've often had a takeaway coming up. home, but they say it's only once or twice a week. And, you know, then they're drinking. And, you know,

you say about these sugary drinks, but also now there's the local, isn't there, there's a zero sugar. So everyone thinks they're really healthy, but it's just chemicals. How can chemicals be healthy in our body? So there's this massive mismarketing, isn't it, that's going on? So it really feels misunderstanding. So I feel really sorry, because I think a lot of people are really trying with their diet, but they're doing it wrong, aren't they? Yeah. I think it comes back to be all come the products of our environment. And if you look at the current food environment nowadays, if you walk into the average supermarket, 95% of it could be packaged junk foods made by food companies to make money with sugar, salt and fats. And that's the environment we live in. And

even if you look at the UK, 55% of all calories consumed are ultra-processed foods. So say that once more, 55%. So that's over half. And that's over half the calories. And that's over half the calories. And that's ultra-process. That's like your corn flakes, your croissants, your energy. bars, your lucasades, your red bulls, your wine, your chocolate bars, all these things. That's more than half of the calories. About 35 to 40% are animal-based foods. So your, you know, your meat, your chicken, your fish, your dairy. And then less than 10% are whole plant foods.

Whereas if you look at the longest people in the planet, you know, as per the blue zones, where it's the most amount of centenarians, their diet is made up. They aren't vegans. They aren't vegetarians. Well, some of them are. But 95% plus of their diet is whole plant foods. So we're kind of, our current culture is kind of inverted. Like it really is in terms of our food choices.

And we wonder why illness is so prevalent. And even just in a story on that, like as Stephen said, we kind of started because we wanted to start a health food revolution, which sounds like something out of a Walt Disney movie. Back 10 years ago, he was working the kitchen cooking and I was working in the bed shop. And I remember a lady came in and it was Mary Cal and she said, Jesus, lads, you've never guessed. I've lost two stone on Weight Watchers. And I was like, oh, brilliant. That's great.

And Steve happened to be there. And he just says to me, says, like people love. measuring the improvement in their health. It was like, okay, great. And at the time I was reading a book by Dr. Dean Ornish. He was a doctor in the US that he had showed in the lifestyle heart trial that he could reverse a lot of the indicators for heart disease. And I was reading this book and Steve says, geez, I wonder like could we come up with a course where you could show people could, you know, put a plant based diet to the test. We put it in test and see if it reversed heart disease, the biggest killer in the world. And would it work in Ireland, in Greystones,

above our vegetable shop? Yeah. So we, that Monday morning, we walked down to the local doctor, Brennan Cuddy in Bryce towns, we knocked on his door. He said, Hey, we're brand, you know only nurses? We're looking for a nurse to measure people's cholesterol, white and blood pressure. And he said, Jesus, lads, if you knock next door, Angela, is usually there to Monday. So we call into Anjana, we go, howie, Angela, where the lads not repair? We want to reverse heart disease. Will you help us?

She was like, jeez, what an opportunity. Oh, my goodness. No, she didn't. She said, how much would pay us? We said, 50 euro, and she said, right, deal, I'll be there. This is 10 years ago, so it's pre-social media. So we literally put up posters around the town saying reverse heart disease, skinny, sexy, delicious, free, and put them all around the 10, and we had 20 people sign up to our experiment.

It was an absolute experiment. And they came along, and the first night, Angeon measured evidence, cholesterol, weight, and blood pressure. They came upstairs to us. As chefs, we thought them out to cook. So it was just regular Irish people that eat meat and two veg. We were going, right, the experiment is, well, we didn't call an experiment. We said, it's four weeks on a whole food plant-based end people, whole food.

What's that? And we were like, okay, it's pretty much just eating porridge for breakfast, it's eating vegetable soup or salads or pad thighs or chilies or dazen. I don't know what that food is. We used to pass the food around and they'd taste and they go, what's this little stuff? I've never had. That's not bad.

Why, how do you cook that? And literally it was almost like a meeting of tasting food. It was almost like a pot look and we put on videos of doctors in, you know, to give a bit of validity to it. And they came once a week before weeks and we had been telling them, oh, it's going to reverse your cholesterol, your heart disease. You're just going to be, it's going to turn back the clock.

Skinny, sexy. Yeah, we'd been promised everything. And the last night, Angela came back and measured everything to glass to weight and blood pressure. And we didn't really. know it was going to work. Like we honestly were totally taking a punt on it. But amazingly, there was an average drop of cholesterol of more than 20% across the four weeks. People's blood pressure regulated and they all lost on average 3KG. So it was hugely, and it was just a total experiment. And I guess on the back of that, we ended up doing more of them and then the local newspapers

and the national newspapers wrote articles. And then we built an online courses 10 years ago before people like to put their credit card into the internet. And now we've had, you know, more than kind of partnering with a lot of kind of medical professionals like gastroenterologists, cardiologists, bariatric GP. And created all sorts of courses for most body parts. Like, you know, we've got the gut and the heart and the skin and the shape of the mind. And they all come back to the same basic things. Whether you want to heal the gut or the heart or the mind or the skin or the shape,

it's the same principles because that same body, like no matter what system you're trying to heal, there's basic interrelated. They're all, you know, it's one organism and what you eat has a massive impact. and that's really been a huge component of what we've been doing. Yeah, and it is so interesting. And I think what's great that you guys just make it so easy as well, I was looking at one of your books the other day, just for inspiration. I've got so many cookery books, but I'm always wanting inspiration.

But you just make it very easy that you can just layer things up. And, you know, for people that are scared of making a salad or something, you know, you can just start with, you sort of say the different spices that you can add or the different vegetables, different ingredients. So it doesn't matter if you haven't got all the first. fancy ingredients. You know, I cook a lot of Otolengi food and he's a real hero for me, but sometimes I don't have all the herbs and spices and all the, you know, ingredients that he sometimes has. But you guys are very easy. And I actually, I'm not vegan. I do eat dairy and I do sometimes

eat fish, but it's very easy to adapt your recipes very easily. But I think people don't realize how easy it is because when you're having very processed foods, very sugar-rich foods, then to actually go onto your diet straight over, can actually cause some withdrawals almost, can't it? And people can feel really awful initially, I think, changing. Yeah, it's often as well, fiber. Like, the recommended daily fiber intake

is typically 30 grams, whereas the average one in the UK and Ireland is somewhere between 15 and 17 grams. So we're getting, and if you suddenly go to a whole food plant-based diet, your fiber intake will be around 45 to 60 grams. So it's a huge shift. And that's what people can often feel bloated, can feel

kind of, you know, just not as well. as they could ideally. So often what we recommended, and we've a happy good course with a consultant gastroenterologist, so that's a digestion doctor. And we found that a low FodMap approach, which can send like a big fancy word, but in essence, it's reducing foods that cause gas and cost, you know, simple carbohydrates that are more susceptible to bloating. And even I was going to answer the question another way, I was going to say that this concept. Good work. Oh, thanks, Steve. Doug Lyle's, doctor, he can have this concept where he called it the pleasure trap. And he said that we've evolved over millions of years where there was no processed foods.

You know, like that's for 99% of human existence. And over in the last 150 years since the Industrial Revolution, like, as I said, 55% of the calories we now eat are all to process. And if you think about it, our mammal brain has evolved over millions of years looking for fat because it's got more calories in it. And it's looking for sick of sugars because you get glucose into your system, your brain functions better. So our hardware is looking for these type of foods.

And now over the last 100 years, we've created a food system, which is based, around these simple sugars and fats, which really don't do our long term. Like previously we couldn't find them. Like it was really hard to get, you know, if you're in a tree, an almond tree, geez, it'd take you all day to get like a handful of almonds like. Whereas now you could go down the supermarket,

drink a bottle of lucid, eat a packet of biscuits, and have two chocolate bars, and you've had two and a half thousand calories, and you aren't even full at all like. You haven't even got going. So it's almost that we've got this concept of a pleasure trap that our hard wire, our brain is still looking for simple sugars and fats. But our whole system is set up to give us so much of it that it makes us still healthy.

So what's the answer, babe? The answer is really awareness. I think the first thing is going awareness, being aware that the system is set up. Like if you look at, you know, we've got friends that are, they've got brothers or sisters that are special needs. And these people are like, they're just product of the environment. They aren't using their basic day-to-day intelligence to make decisions. So they're just really getting whatever the environment gives us. And the current food culture is not set up for us to be healthy. So it takes intentionality. So it means going, okay, I realize I should change. I should take charge of what I eat.

And unless you are intentional, sorry, I'm Steven saying I'm going on a rant here. But I really think intentionality is so important. And it could be just starting with your breakfast and going, I'm going to start by optimizing my breakfast instead of going, and I'm going to start eating parrots instead of cornflakes. Or I'm going to, for lunch, instead of eating a ham and cheese sandwich and a croissant, I'm going to make vegetable soup this week.

And it's going to take forming habits because most people have about four dishes which they rotate and it's a spaghetti bolognese and it's a pasta carbunar and it's a chicken curry or whatever it might be and it's going okay well you've got to learn something new if you want to change it so we've got more than 500 recipes on our website where they've got more than 40 million views and there's loads of them are five-minute dinners like so we really have tried to make it simple for people to eat more plant-based that's not about vegan or vegetarian because those words are you know they're cultish and people run a mile from them and some people are attracted to them but it really is about eating more whole plant foods because most of what we're eating nowadays

is ultra-processed foods and animal foods, which is not the best for our short, long or medium-term health. No, and it is so hard sometimes. People find it all very overwhelming and then they go back to the basics and think, oh, this is what I'm used to. But even adding something different, you know, I do a little of batch cooking for my children and my bolognese is varies depending on what vegetables I have in the fridge and I'll just chop them up really small. They've got no idea that they're eating celery and quixettes and peppers and all this food that they would never eat if they were just on the side of the plate. So it's never the same, but it's just adding in or adding in a handful of lentils actually makes it a cheaper dish because I'm not using as much meat for them. But actually,

they would never experiment and have lentils on their own. But it's having the confidence to do it actually because a lot of people think, oh, lentils, how do I cook them? Do I have to soak them? Do I have to cook them before or whatever? But once you see how easy it is to do things, and certainly that's what you're doing all the time, then it will give people more confidence. But it is scary. I get really worried about children and younger generations. I was my husband's birthday last week, and we were going down to London, and we had an hour to wait for our train. And so we just went for walking the local park beforehand.

And there was children going to school having their Coca-Cola and their crisps. And that was probably their breakfast. They're just sitting, you know, playing in the park for 20 minutes before they went to school, was great. They were outside. They were doing some exercise. But I looked and thought, gosh, when I was growing up in the 70s, we didn't have crisps in the house. And if we did, they were very small packets. You know, I thought this is awful because they can get away with it when they're younger. They physically will look the same and everything else. But it will creep up on them, won't it? And their gut microwave is just going to deteriorate with those sorts of diets. But it's

getting messaging out because people will say, yeah, but those drinks are really nice. They're really and then they become addictive, don't they? And so it's really hard to change perceptions, isn't it? Like, I'm changing perception, but HRT is safe, whereas everyone's grown up thinking it's dangerous. And you're doing a similar thing with food, aren't you? But you're going in a big circle. Same as me, because in the 70s and 80s,

people used to be prescribed HRT all the time because it was so safe and it still is so safe. And you're doing the same. You're going back to a basic diet, really, aren't you? But how do you change perception? because I think that's really hard to make a change in people. I think it starts with experiential once people experience it for themselves. They go, wow, this cost me less.

I feel healthier. And it was actually really easy to do. Wow, why didn't I ever try it? And it's better for the planet and it's better for all the aspects of your health. Like I think we're all selfish creatures. So first and foremost, most of us want to have more energy and feel good. And look well. Yeah, and get skinny.

Like, you know, most people want to get skinny rather than get healthy. So it is the most effective way to lose weight and sustain it as well. You know, we've had more than 20 days and people through a happy shape course. And that's really like it's a no calorie counting, no portion control, whole food plant-based diet. Like it really is. We say, eat as much as you want, like just don't be hungry. And we need it. And we've had so many thousands of people through it.

And it works every time. Like it's just hugely effective because. So Steve wants to say. No, I was just going to say in terms of solutions. I think it's first of all, it's obviously ignores. the passion that it really works. And then the other thing that sustains it is community, that we all, in the blue zones,

so for anyone who does know what the blue zones are, there are five areas in the planet where there's the longest living population. So most of them are meant to centenarians, that's people who live over the age of 100. And these people typically don't live long, healthy lives because of super genetics. They do because the environment forces them to make the healthy choice.

So the more we can be part of an environment that forces us to exercise, forces to spend on outside, forces to have community around us, forces to eat predominantly a whole food plant base as much as possible, but not vegan or vegetarian, but just most of what they eat are whole foods, the more you're going to be naturally healthier and happier.

Because many people don't realize that 70% of your immune system exists in your microbiome. And your microbiome, the number one thing you can do to, according to the American Good Project, to improve your microbiome is to eat plant-based foods. And the number two is diversity of plant-based foods. And the magic number is often 30 different types of fruit and veg per week is the optimum. and only one in 250 people typically do this. That's very scary. One in 250, that's nothing, really, is it?

And that was from 11,000 people in the study. So I'd say it could be even worse if you look at the full population at large, you know. And really, like when Stephen said 30 different plants over the course of a week, like that means your fruit, your veg, your beans, your whole grains, your nuts, your seeds, your spices and your herbs. So they all count as plants and people go 30 plants a week. One positive story. Do you want to talk about this Southwest Plant-Base challenge?

That was an interesting one. A positive story about changed. This was a couple of years ago. So a friend, Dr. Allen, over, he's based in Devon, and he kind of go, well, why don't we try and see if we can get a blues on going to Devon? And he kind of invited us over and said, lads, why don't we try and do your happy heart course over here in Devon? And he said, OK, I'll get a bunch of medical professions.

So we ended up getting 100 medical professionals, such as doctors and dieticians and nurses and GPs. And they all signed up for this four-week experiment. We called it the South West Plant-based Challenge. Me and Steve flew over and we kicked it off. same again, nurses measured people's cholesterol weight, blood pressure, blood sugars, all sorts of different measurements. And then once again, it was getting them to eat plant-based diet for four weeks.

And it was amazing. And it was amazing. Even when we were there the first night, I remember there was a doctor racist. We were about nervous because it was like, these doctors, they're going to grill us. Like, we're just vegetable men. And like, I remember the first question someone took up their hand. And this is doctors. Like, first question was, can I drink my Coke on this course?

And you're kind of, oh, okay, there may be doctors, but they're just normal people. Okay, right. They don't know how to cook vegetables either. Okay, here we go. So I remember we, once again, cooked food, passed around. You know, they had potlucks. They had meetups every week. We had an online community, all sorts of stuff.

But at the end of it, 98% of them said that they'd recommend it to patients. There was not cholesterol of about, I think it was 32% of LDL cholesterol. All of them lost on average about two and a half KG. There was tons of different stats that came out of it. But the big piece of work which came out of it was now they've developed their own program, which is a plant-based program for four weeks, which is done via the NHS as well for other medical professions or for patients as well. So that's a positive story of change. Which is brilliant because we never prescribe diet. You know, we prescribe all these horrible drugs to people,

but we don't think about diet. And most people haven't had any training. I mean, I'm very interested in food and nutrition. And if I wasn't dedicating my life to the menopause, I would certainly be doing nutrition because, you know, we have to prevent illness, don't we? We have to keep well. and we all have to eat. So it's so important that we eat properly. And we're all different as well, aren't we? So I think having variety is great, but also being able to make choices

as long as they're healthy choices is really key. And sometimes just starting really simply, I look at some of my sort of friends and patients who are overweight, but they're eating really well. And I often think, well, why is it? And some of them is because they're drinking alcohol. But a lot of it is because they're having, you know, low-sugar fizzy drinks.

And we know that they change in metabolism. We know that people do put on weight, even though they've marketed as absolutely fine. So just making a very small change, you know, replacing a can of those drinks for water each day. It's a step in the right direction, isn't it? Absolutely. And even just for people, anyone listening,

who kind of goes, this all sounds great, but where do I start? It's baby steps. It's progress over perfection. You know, like many people, think it's, you know, they got to eat goji berries or they got to have kale or they got to be doing gratitude journals. But like laughter, joy, time outside nature, these are superfoods. It's not goji berries. It's literally, you know, it's the basis. But aside from those lovely, fuzzy,

nice things, Steve, I really do. I really do. And I think it is back to kind of go. And if people do want to make a change, you've got to actually grab the bull by the horns and go, right. This is what I usually eat. People buy the same thing in the supermarkets. He goes to the same cafe. days. We're so abitual at our food habits. So I really think it's someone sitting down and going, right, okay, those happy pair lads, they said, I need to eat more veg. I'm going to have a look at a few of their recipes in their website. Right, okay. So have a look on the website. There's loads of recipes there and pick one or two of them. Pick one or two of them and try them. And if you like them, brilliant, maybe incorporate them to your week. And it might be as simple as you've got

a chicken curry recipe. Put chickpeas in instead the chicken like. It's really put the chickpeas in and say the chicken like it's really put a few more veg like it's really making little steps because it compounds over time and these diseases which are so prevalent happen over decades. A lot of them happen over decades. So the more that you can do on a daily basis, the more that you're likely to be healthy into your 70s and 80s and beyond, you know, and that's what most of us want to life. Of course we do. So just getting back to the menopause, because I feel a bit out to my compass then. We haven't mentioned the menopause word. Because you were saying at the beginning, like this time last year, if I'd met you both, you would probably be thinking,

oh, you could eat your way out of the menopause, so you could eat soy and you could eat various vegetables and yams and you'd be fine, right? And I'm hoping you realise now that that's not the same and it's not right because you can modify your diet and it might improve some symptoms. So less processed food, often people find they have less sweats and flushes. They might feel better. So have a bit more energy. But there's no way, unless you tell me differently, and I don't think you will,

there's no way we can replace our own hormones by our diets, can we? We can't eat estrogen and we can't eat testosterone. We have to have that as hormones. But whether we take HRT or not, we have to 100% have a healthy diet because we need to reduce our risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, dementia, and we know that good food will help with that and also HRT. So having the two together is really crucial, isn't it? Yeah, I think it's as you said that if you're not up for taking HRT, like you're going to be less likely to want to exercise. You're probably less likely to want to make the healthy choices. So I think they both go hand in hand.

And I really think we're almost saying exactly which we've heard from you, really that it's like it's a hormone deficiency. So now I'm into yams or chickpeas or broccoli are really going to create more estrogen or testosterone or testosterone within your body. So I really do believe it is such a massive gap in health at large, which affects one in two people. And I feel sad that our society just kind of brushes under the carpet and doesn't create space for women because it's so important. Women are, we need more women in every aspect of our society leading. And when they're not giving HRT and they're not given appropriate treatment for menopause, it's just like half our population. And I believe the more important part of the population. Oh, you said the right thing there.

Yeah, but totally, I think we're just being not. giving enough attention. Yeah, someone said to me recently, oh, I didn't go for a promotion at work because I'm menopausal now and often menopausal women need different jobs, don't they? And I just didn't know whether to cry or scream because of course we're not second-class citizens. You know, absolutely women have to have different jobs or don't go from promotions if they're menopausal with symptoms because often the brain fog, the memory problems, reduced energy and so forth really affect our ability to work. But actually, you know, we shouldn't be changing because we're menopause or we should be seeking the right treatment. And it's so

important that we get this right and get messages right. And so I think having messages about our health in general are so important. And the more we hear from different people, like you guys talking about the menopause, is just something that people don't expect. So they'll probably listen to you more than they'll listen to me, which is great, because it's all about life's about choice. You know, we're not here on this podcast saying everyone has to eat vegetables 100% of the time, but we are saying think about all the advantages and think about how important it is. And like you say, it's very easy to make very small changes. And one of the first things about making a change is having the knowledge and the confidence. So whether get it through

your website for nutrition, get it from my website for menopause information, it's really crucial that you get good quality information. And I know you guys work really hard to make sure the information is really good. Because we haven't got time to talk about them now, but there are so many myths about diet. And it's scary for people. So it's really important that you get good sound advice. And once you start making choice changes,

then you start to feel better. And then it's downhill. It's easy then, isn't it? Well, it's the positive compounding effects. As you eat, desire to exercise more. As you exercise more, you spend time outside. as you spend more time outside typically you meet more people you develop more community and it's kind of this positive virtuous cycle and once you have that suddenly health becomes easy and it just becomes more the wind is at your back and then your environment changes the people you spend time with changes and you know a year later you're doing handstands and yoga and swim in the sea and you've got a whole you know circle of friends you've got you've got you've got to be friends with so I think there's I think things you've just got a perfect life I've done yoga for many years I can do headstands but I can't do handstands so one day I'll be friends I'll be friends so one day I'll be friends able to do handstands. She's still on you with a headstand. It's hard play. Yeah, yeah. So just before we end,

which I'm very grateful for your time today, both of you, I always ask for three take-home tips. So you're going to have to argue over the third one. Maybe you could do a combined one. So three tips about how people who've listened today can just go forward and improve their diet and their future health. Okay, number one, try to eat more whole foods. And as we've said, a few times, it's not about vegan or vegetarian. It's just try to add more variety. If you don't like vegetables, start with fruit. Start with things in season right now. We're in March. We're still at the end of the Northern European naval orange season. And they're incredible. And even if you think you don't like oranges, you could sit there and tell them because they're just

juicy and dripping and incredible. So it's a starting point. And I'd say be more intentional about your food choices, actually seek out and kind of go, okay, well, maybe I'm going to do a meat-free Monday. And as I said, we've got loads of recipes on our website. You don't need to go there, but just you want to actually be intentional about it. So go kind of look for a a chickpea curry or whatever it might be and try it. We have loads of them to take five minutes. They're all based on whole foods and they're all designed to improve your gut. Some of them have millions and millions of views.

And point number three, I'd say community. We've become the product of our environment. And it's not about if you have friends that are unhealthy, it's not about not being friends with them, but even just having one friend that's interesting. And joining a running club, becoming friend with the local vegetarian. Join the choir. It's like we've become the product for environment.

And the more you can choose an environment intentionally, that supports the healthier choice, the easier it is to sustain it. So maybe just find that one healthy friend and still be friends with all your other friends, but just one has a positive ripple effect on your overall health. Love it. I love all your positivity and energy. I just want you in my pocket to keep me happy all day. Labs, I need a dose of positive. Do a dance room.

Absolutely. So thanks ever so much for your time. It's brilliant. And yeah, look forward to seeing what happens in the future. So it's great. Thank you. Likewise. Yeah. Thanks, Louise. You're brilliant. For more information about the perimenopause and menopause, please visit my website, balance hyphen menopause.com, or you can download the free balance app, which is available to download from the App Store or from Google Play.