The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Dr Rupy on nutritional strategies to support our wellbeing

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

In this guest episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna is joined by Dr Rupy Aujla, NHS doctor, recipe book author, app creator and host of the Doctor's Kitchen podcast, as they discuss Dr Rupy's One Thing: the importance of consistency when approaching better nutritional health.Following the diagnosis of a life-changing heart condition, Dr Rupy turned to nutritional medicine to overhaul his lifestyle and ultimately revesrse his condition. Now, through his delicious recipes, his podcast and The Doctor's Kitchen app, he teaches us all how to cook our way to health and how the medicinal effects of food can help us cope with whatever life has to throw at us.Follow Dr Rupy on Instagram hereListen to The Doctor's Kitchen podcast hereBrowse and buy his brilliant recipe books here

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist's mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with mums everywhere. So join with me as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hello everyone. Welcome to today's guest episode of The Therapy Edit. Today I have with me, Dr. Rupi Orgela of the Doctor's Kitchen. Dr. Rupi is a medical NHS doctor whose life changed when he suffered a significant heart condition.

This prompted him to learn more about nutritional medicine and he actually reversed his condition with a food and lifestyle approach. So he, out of this passion, he started the doctor's kitchen in 2015 as a way of inspiring and teaching and sharing his knowledge with others in order to cook themselves to health. He's also got an app called the Doctor's Kitchen, which contains loads of kind of research-backed recipes tailored to your personal needs. He has the Doctor's Kitchen podcast, and he's also got a brand new book, which has just been out two weeks as we record. And it's called Dr. Rupi Cooks.

And it's just full of recipes to help you find some healthy, easy flavor, which is so far up my street. Easy is the word that I like their, Dr. Rupi. Definitely with three kids to keep happy. So thank you for that. No worries. Thank you for that. So how are you today? So it's good to meet with you. Yes. Yeah. It's great, great to connect. I'm not, I was just saying before we start recorded, I'm not 100% today. I think doing the book tour, constantly doing radio and podcasts, my throat kind of went. But I've been drinking my sipping broth that doesn't sound very delicious, but it is. It's like onions and garlic and ginger. I basically have that.

on the hob that pretty much the whole day and it just intensifies and flavor with all those different anti-inflammatory ingredients and I'm feeling I'm feeling okay I'm feeling pretty good I might just get myself some of that I always feel at the minute like I've got half cold I wake up thinking I'm going to get a cold I'm getting ill and then it disappears and then it just keeps happening so maybe I need to make some of this magic sipping brothel do you always when you're feeling run down is is thinking about what can I make or what can I fuel myself with to help me? Is that something that is just always coming to mind for you? Yeah, definitely. I mean, for me, I'm lucky in that I've developed a habit of having

pretty good foundational nutrition. So everything that I'm consuming, I'm always thinking about how it's supporting my natural immune system, how it's anti-inflammatory, how it's going to be supporting whatever activities I'm doing, whether it would be sport, whether it'd be running around, doing work stuff and all the rest of it but when I need like an extra sort of pep or extra sort of something to support how I'm feeling like right now I will think about things like sipping broths and stews and there's a couple of recipes in the new book actually one is the sipping broth that everyone asked me about so I just put it in the book and another one is called iovetic Jewish penicicillin which will make anything

sort of cultural preparation consultant, like, do a double take. Like, what on earth is that about? But as you know, you probably know, and a lot of your listeners will know, Jewish penicillen is like a really nourishing chicken soup. That is glorious,

lots of different variations on it. It's something that is very popular within that particular community, but also like, I think globally, everyone knows about Jewish penicillin. But when I was growing up, we would have an Ivy Vedic version, which is all those different anti-inflammatory spices, whether it be clove and cinnamon and

coriander seeds. And so we used to experiment me and my mom back home. And we put basically the two together. So it's like a chicken broth that you shred the chicken into and you have all these different spices. And that's what I named it. And I put it in the book. And it is very nourishing and it tastes absolutely delicious. It makes me feel warm just thinking about it. I like that. That sounds brilliant. I'm really excited to talk to you because I'm really interested at the moment in ways to kind of support our general health so that our bodies are under less stress because I think in motherhood there is, there are a lot of stressful situations that arise. And I've started to really recognize that when I'm supporting myself generally in the decisions that I'm making around what I'm eating and how I'm moving, then that kind of base level of okayness is in a better place. So that when things are stressful, I'm not already coming at it from that place of whether it's nervous system, kind of heightened nervous system or physically just constantly feeling a little bit run down. So, yeah, I'm really excited to hear what the one thing is that you'd love to share with all the mum.

So what is that, Dr. Rupy? What's your one thing today? Yeah, it's hard to distill it into one. I'll be honest. It was quite a hard challenge, but I'm up for it. So I think the number one thing is that food is one of the most important health interventions that anyone can make. But I think in the context of busy people, in particular busy mums, it's really about consistency and trying to figure out how you can create easy, automatic habits that maintain your nutritional health. What does that mean? Well, it means coming out with strategies that will support your well-being when you are on the run. So things like, I mean, it sounds very simple, but mastering one meal, like a tray bake or a stew or a curry or a casserole, that you can make in one pan, minimal fath, maximal ingredients that you tend to have in your store cupboards, and you get so used to it that you can almost make it with your eyes closed. And that can be like your one foundational meal that you know, packs in fiber that will support your immune system, packs in all those different colorful ingredients that you can also use frozen for convenience. also that everyone will absolutely love as well and that you can make spins on so you don't

if you don't have coriander seeds for example you don't have fennel seeds or you can use different aromatic spices you can even use cumin you can use new blends so coming up with those kind of strategies that you know will be fueling you and your family the best way possible I think is is really key to health because it's down to consistency everyone likes to talk about their own sort of diet and And director persuasion, look, I'm not vegan or vegetarian or low carb or paleo. I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to diets. I'm more on the consistency train because most of those diets all have the same features, very, very similar features.

I would say 80% of them are pretty much the same. It's removing the crap and increasing plants. That's pretty much the same, which is why they will work if someone is able to maintain consistency on that particular diet. So consistency, I think, is the one big takeaway for me. So just finding that one thing perhaps that you can change in how you're eating as yourself or as your family in order just to kind of pack lots of veggies in, lots of kind of, yeah, those different flavors and kind of mixing it up a little bit.

And what, yeah, do you know what I'm feeling really smug because I did that last night and it just felt really good. I made this massive casserole and someone I shared on Instagram and someone asked me what the recipe was and I was like, I've got no idea. I literally just got any veg from my fridge and I chopped it all up and I put it in and I added I added honey and mustard because I knew my kids would just love it then and they wouldn't be so bothered. My son didn't even pick the mushrooms out. He didn't even look for the mushrooms. That's epic. And then we ate that, you know, my husband and I ate that on the safer in the evening for dinner. And I just felt like I'd done something really good for us. And yeah, so I think I'm going to make more of a habit of just these big one tray,

shove it in, whatever you've got. It normally works out all right. I haven't had a bad one. It tends to work out, I think. I mean, like, if you get consistent with trying new things and also experimenting with something that you already know, so let's say that cassero, you know, you might put the basing with allium flavors like onions or garlic or fennel or celery, whatever you've got. And then you're going to layer that up with, I'd know, like a layer of beans or canolini beans that say or chickpeas and maybe you want to put some meat into it as well. And then you want to use like a flavor base. Well, you can experiment with variations on all those different types of ingredients and

you know that you're getting in three portions or the magic number for me is three portions of fruit and vegetables per serving. It sounds like a lot. But honestly, it doesn't, I mean, every recipe that I've created in the book and the app and everything else really comes down to getting three portions of fruit and vegetables in per person. And if you're batch cooking as well, it's even cheaper. I did something with the BBC food actually recently, obviously with the cost of living crisis, everyone is thinking about budget cooking. And if I'm saying that people need to get upwards of eight, nine, ten portions of fruit and vegetables per day, it doesn't sound very achievable on a budget. But we did some calculations.

We looked at all these different supermarkets, the cost of different ingredients. And with some like thrifty swaps, like going for frozen, going for store cupboard and having largely plants, you can get it down to between one pound and one pound 40 per portion, all these different types of recipes, whether it be curries and casseroles and stews and that kind of stuff. And, you know, frozen is really the way to go. Like when I'm cooking for my wife or people who come around all the time, you know, I'm constantly like raiding my freezer for peas, broad beans, stuff that I've cooked before,

like a, like a paste or some sort of like base sugar, what we call it Sugo, my moist Italian. So Suga is basically like a pissata with like flavors all through it, like a pasta sauce basically. Oh, this is such a good idea. I've never frozen sauces. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's such a good idea because you can just make a whole lot. shove it in the, yeah, shove it in the freezer

and then you've got, yeah, oh, I like that. It's a, there's a name of one of my recipes, I think it's on the app this one, it's called the Fridge Raged tomato sauce and it's got five different vegetables in. You cook it lightly, you blend it down, and then you can put it in one of those non-disposable freezer bags

that you just pat down. So it's almost like a record and you put it in your free. freezing, it freezes up, right? And you can have multiple in them, so you can flick through them like a collection of vinyl records and pull out. Oh, that pleases me. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Oh, that's so good. Because often I've got, you know, the kids like pasta and then I'm kind of whipping up some kind of sauce on the go. And it's just another time thing that takes time. So free, yeah, batch freezing sauces and bases. Definitely. And, you know, it comes down to

Because people always ask me about, okay, what do you eat for immune health? What do you eat for brain health? What do you eat for even things like menopause, fertility? Honestly, like there is so many similarities because what you're doing is fueling your body that innately knows what to do. You just need to give it the right ingredients. And that's largely plants and a lot of diversity of plants. It's things like polyphenos that you get in a collection of colorful ingredients.

So all those different colors that we have currently in the supermarket. markets right now. We have the greens. We have reds. We have those sort of deep nourishing colors and pre-biotic fibers. So these are things that you'll find in artichoke, in cabbage, in garlic. Those are specialized types of fibers that uniquely benefit your gut microbiota, which everyone's talking about now. It's been in the literature for at least a couple of decades, but it's been in traditional medicines like Ayurveda for, you know, millennia. And it's really accessible. And that's what I want to get across is that you don't need to go for the like really

expensive supplements or these particular tinctures and powders, just focus on really good nourishing food and that's where you want to put your money. There must be a whole massive host of people that have been trying to bang the drum of gut health for decades and decades who are now sitting there going, finally, finally. But I talk to my children about it and, you know, learning about gut health and the fact that I think, am I right in saying it's over 90 or over 90% of our serotonin, which is our happy hormone, that we're always wanting to find ways to get more of it, of course, is made in the gut. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I'm often explained to my children, this is so good

for your tummy. This is, your tummy needs all these different colors. And it gets me thinking about, what I'm giving them and what I'm feeding myself. Yeah. And I think that serves as like extra motivation for parents across the world to really think about what they're feeding their kids because they know it's not just about feeding healthy bodies. It's nourishing healthy minds as well. And there's a whole bunch of estimations that I've come across as to how much

serotonin is produced in the gut. Some people say 70%, some people say up to 90%. any whatever which way it is is a lot and serotonin yeah exactly and serotonin is one of these um neurochemicals that is uh involved in uh in in in in mood um in euthymia so so having like a contentment essentially there's a whole bunch of other chemicals that are into playing with that uh that coalesce i mean mental health is is very important and multifactorial but it's definitely important and that just goes it just speaks to how um like how important the gut is to multiple parts of the body.

So the gut brain axis is getting everyone talking about serotonin, but what about the gut skin axis? What about the gut lung axis? What about the gut, the gut inflammation axis? So how we maintain and modulate inflammation in our bodies, which is related to a whole bunch of lifestyle-related illnesses like cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

So it's a really important. subject. But the science is really complex. The solutions are simple, eat more plants, eat more colors and all the rest of it. Implementation, that's the hard stuff in my mind. Science is complex, solution, simple, implementation. How do you do this on a daily, weekly, monthly basis when you've got multiple tasks and responsibilities, you know, kids running around and they don't want to eat this and then, you know, you just end up shoving whatever you can get, you know, it is tough. And that's what I want to focus on when it comes to recipes and strategies to make it easier for people, because that I think is the big barrier for a lot of us. Yeah, absolutely. The intentions there, but the actual

acting out and the doing of it, I yesterday was talking on my social media about doing things for our future cells, even if it's sacrificial in the moment, because we're thinking, how can I benefit myself when I you know at a time of the day when it would be quite stressful perhaps or there's a lot going on and that was why I was thinking about the batch cooking is that I did I cook that meal at lunchtime yesterday that we had for dinner and it just made things so much easier so that that one tray meal but what are some other ideas that you have just those grab and goes like you're you're recognizing that perhaps you didn't make proper time for lunch you're hungry you've got a head out the door what you know it's so easy then to kind of grab the bag of crisps or just

you know, go to the fridge and literally just grab a mouthful of whatever is in there, be it a bite of cheese or goodness knows what my fridge snacks have been in the past. So thank you so much for your tools. My pleasure. I would love to ask you some quick, fire questions to finish off. Sure, sure. And very bravely, you've said that you don't want to know what they are. So you're coming fresh into these.

What is a life kind of stage high for you at the moment? Something you're really enjoying. I think I'm really dialing into being present at the moment. I've read a whole bunch of, re-read a whole bunch of books from Michael Singer, so Untethered Soul, the Surrender Experiment. And instead of like chasing those highs, it's actually chasing those moments between the moments. And just realizing that, sorry, this is a very long answer,

but realizing that this moment right now is as high as it's going to get. to really be grateful and enjoy every single second of it. So, yeah, worry less about the accolades and worry more about just being content in any moment. Oh, thank you. That's a, I feel an audible book coming on. Thanks for that. And what's the challenge or a low for you at the moment?

I think the challenge is attention steal and just having to use social media without really enjoying social media. That's kind of a bit of a bug bear of mind at the moment. Okay. Yeah, that little internal battle that we have and we're on now. We don't always feel good and we come off. But there's a necessity as well with that. And what's something that makes you feel good at the moment,

something you're really enjoying? My sipping broth. Oh, yes. I'm going to seek that recipe. Yeah, that's really, that's really making me feel great at the moment. but I think like vision boarding that's definitely something that I'm really enjoying

so I do an exercise every quarter and I'll just write things down and I love sort of coming back to that direction but also grounding myself in that look it's not about getting to a certain height it's about really enjoying every single moment simultaneously so but yeah vision boarding is it's great brilliant well

Well, yeah, I think I listened to quite a bit of the neuroscience on that and how it just starts shaping the decisions that we're making as we come up against more choices and decisions each day than we'll ever recognize. But it makes, it guides us to be a little bit more intentional about how we face them, isn't it? So that's, oh yeah, I've never done that. I might do that. So thank you so much. And I really encourage everyone to go and check out Dr. Rufi Cook's, the new book with healthy, easy flavor and just, yeah, jam-packed with recipes. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been an absolute treat to have you on.

And I'm going to go and batch cook some sauce. A little freezer filing cabinet is going to give me a great joy. Shoot me a picture. I'd love to see it. Yeah, I will do. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit.

If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe or review because it makes a massive difference to how many people it can reach. You can find more from me. Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my three books, Mind Over Mother, Know Your Worth and my new book, The Little Book of Calm for New Mums, grounding words for the highs, the lows and the moments in between. It's a little book you don't need to read it from front to back. You just pick whatever emotion resonates to find a mantra, a tip and some supportive words to bring comfort and clarity. You can also find all my resources, guides and

videos all with the sole focus of supporting your emotional and mental well-being as a month. They are all 12 pounds and you can find them on anamatha.com. I look forward to speaking with you soon.