The Wellness Scoop - 6p Superfoods, 8,241 Steps for Better Health & The Salty Sandwich Debate

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

This week we’re diving into the sandwich headlines taking over the news, after reports that one high street sandwich contains more salt than nearly five McDonald’s cheeseburgers. Rhi gives us the inside story from the latest Action on Salt research, why out-of-home lunches are often saltier than we realise, and how confusing nutrition comparisons can become when we reduce foods down to one nutrient. We also discuss the surprising health case for humble carrots, the fascinating study linking arts and culture to slower biological ageing, and the oddly specific number of daily steps researchers say may help people maintain weight loss long term. Plus, we unpack the latest wellness trends — from smart underwear designed to track your flatulence in real time, to an orchestra that performs entirely on vegetable instruments. For more from Rhi and Ella:  Order your copy of Ella's new book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Quick Wins: Healthy Cooking for Busy Lives⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Order your copy of Rhi's new book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Fibre Formula⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up to ⁠⁠Rhitrition+⁠⁠ Get an exclusive 15% discount on your first Saily data plans! Use code Scoop at checkout. Download Saily app or go to to https://saily.com/scoop/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to the Wellness Scoop, your weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. And as always, we're both here as your host. I'm Ella Mills. And I'm Rianna Lambert. And after a decade in the wellness industry, we know how overwhelming and confusing health advice can be. That's why we're here with this podcast to cut through the noise and make healthier living simple, fun and personal. Welcome, guys. I have to start the episode with an apology. I actually lost my voice on Friday night completely. It is so much better today,

Monday morning, but it's not perfect. So apologies, if I'm a little croaky, I am sipping away on some ginger lemon tea to help me out. She is, and she's under my strict instructions with vocal rest and steaming and all sorts of things we can possibly get in. I know, Ree was like, just go on vocal rest. I was like, I can't so really understand vocal rest. It is impossible when you've got children. But don't worry, because we're still here to discuss everything in the world of wellness. And this is what we've got coming up in today's show.

So we have the sandwich salt headlines and why one gale's sandwich sandwich sparked a huge conversation in the media. How much salt we actually need and why nutrition comparisons can be misleading. We've got lots to discuss there. Why carrots may be one of the most underrated foods in the supermarket. Ella's been saying it for years. The study suggesting arts and culture could help slow biological aging. Why 8,241, to be precise, daily steps may help prevent weight gain after dieting.

The smart underwear that tracks your farts in real time. We can thank my mom for that one. Thanks, Camilla. the London Vegetable Orchestra and the Rise of Carrot Flutes. You really can't make up how eclectic today's wonderful episode is for you all. So Ella, before we begin, apart from losing your voice, how have you been? Yeah, I've been good. I have nearly finished my meditation teacher training as well, which I've just kind of

tell you how much I've enjoyed the last sort of six months or so of this. I'm now teaching every Sunday night, desperate to teach every day because I just upset. and I love people coming, I say into the room as virtual, but into the room feeling stressed and kind of not up to height, but just like, oh, that tension and 20 minutes later, you can just see that kind of sense of softening and release. Anyways, we did a really lovely one last night, croaking away from me on how we speak to ourselves and just inviting in a bit of kindness and compassion, which was a really lovely exercise anyway. So that's what I'm most enjoying. I've been spending a lot of time with all plants. We've just gone into Sainsbury's,

think I said. So that's all very exciting. We're doing lots of new products. We've got a big shoot on Friday for brand new packaging and these new products, which are very exciting. I think we can keep this one in because I think it will be done by Monday, but Matt has decided to buy a new factory. He is now the proud owner of a soup factory. It's so funny, Will, our producers, like, I don't really think you do things by halves, do you? I've got to learn what half is. Matt, come on. Yeah. No, that is very exciting. I'm delighted for him. I love. I love soup, so, you know, I can't complain. Is it going to stay soup or can we not divulge?

Soup and sort of soup adjacent. Oh, I'm saying. Super Jason. Very exciting. He's so pumped. Oh, great. Oh, Matt, I can't wait to catch up with you about that. This sounds fantastic.

How are you? Today you have officially launched Replus, right? I mean, this will be a week later because today is the week before this comes out. But it's live. We stuck to the timeline because I was a bit hesitant of saying it would have launched on Monday the 18th of May because as Ella. and I both know so many hiccups can happen. But yes, we are live.

So this space, the safe space is there for you all for nutrition. I'm actually doing my first live with you all, or I will have done it by now. I guess I'll confuse the dates. What are you doing it on? So, well, I'm introducing the platform and then I will take nutrition questions. And then we're launching the nutrition journeys. Amazing. So what journeys can people expect?

So the first one we're going to do for the inner community is the eight-week menopause. so women that want to learn about perimenopause and menopause, then we've got the runners probably because of the next marathon and dates to get our group together for that. And then we'll have our gut health and, of course, relationships of food. Lots of different programs with the clinic and the clinic team. With different specialists and special guests that will appear. So it's out there, everybody.

So Retrition Plus is live. I honestly feel like that's all I've been doing. My time has been consumed every night with checking that you can actually log in. I love it. I'm so happy for you. Do you know what I did last night? I planted my corgettes into the ground. Oh, wow done.

Oh my God, I'm so excited. They're beautiful when they come up because I love the flower that you get on corsets. Me too. And one of the ones that I've done is like, that's its speciality, is the flowers. So basically, I mean, I only planted them not even 24 hours ago. And all I want to do is go and check them and see how they're doing. Well, we've got scheduled. I mean, this is such a British thing to do again.

I apologize to everyone around the world, but we have a heat wave coming in the UK as we record this this week. So let's just keep sprinkling. water because I made the mistake one year of drenching. Yeah, they don't like to be drenched. They don't like to be drenched. They like a subtle sprinkling. A subtle sprinkling. I have to say, just, we'll start waffling now, but I felt a bit kind of funky yesterday,

just lots of different things going on. And I thought, oh, what should I do? And I went and I just spent a couple of hours in the garden. And I know it's such a kind of privilege to be able to do stuff in the garden, but God, it is good for the soul. I know. Well, do you know what's good for my soul? good clean out. I mean, I'm

gutting. She's on a cleanse mission at home. I am. I'm gutting every single blooming room in the house cellar. I mean, it's amazing how many cupboards gather dust at the back. My God, the random stuff you find at the back of the cupboards. We've also been battling my cat, bringing in, I love my cat, and everyone listening knows I'm a big animal lover,

but she did bring it. We saved a mouse this week, and I do find that quite traumatising. I do struggle. She has a bell to try and give them a warning. She's coming. Oh, my God. Well, our mini sausage dog loves a dead mouse. Oh, no. Don't say I don't love a dead mouse. She does.

Okay, we're moving on to the health headlines that matter. I have a fear of mice as well, so it's not going. Oh, do you? I think they're quite cute. I just want to like save them all. No, give me a snake, a spider, I'm fine. A mouse. Oh my gosh, hebi-jeebibis.

Right. Good to know. Let's talk about posh sandwiches versus cheeseburgers. Let's do it. So you've probably seen the headlines this week that posh sandwiches, a sandwich from somewhere like Gales, may have more salt than nearly five cheeseburgers. This is quite a misleading headline, but it was in the BBC.

It was everywhere. It was everywhere. Guardian did a piece, I believe. Yeah, the Times Telegraph. It was literally everywhere. And it was pitting all of it. There was a big research report came out from action on salt and sugar, looking at the amount of salt in particular in ready-to-go sandwiches.

And basically, the number one salt offender was from Gales. And so what happened? Obviously, if you're not from the UK, Gales is a kind of, let's call it a bougie. sandwich, sort of coffee shop, fresh bread. Petissary type place. Yeah. And people are quite weirdly Marmite. It's quite polarised. Apparently it can bring up the value of a house just by having a Gales in radius. Yeah. And people are obsessed. Anyways. All of these headlines in literally every outlet was.

So, Bougie Gales sandwich versus McDonald's cheeseburgers. And I want to talk about those headlines in a secary because I think it's part of the. of what we talk about all the time how confusing it is because the natural implication there is that it would be better to eat the five McDonald's cheeseburgers than the one gale sandwich. But before that, Rie, can you talk us through? Because obviously, you're involved in this campaign with action on salt and sugar. What's going on? What's the kind of real deal behind the headlines?

Yeah, full disclosure. Thank you for saying that Ella. Every year I team up with a activation group called Action on Salt and Sugar. and we're campaigning just to help public awareness on the fact that we are over-consuming salt in the UK and over-consuming sugar. Emery very quickly remind us, why is it not brilliant for us, not in a certain meal, but as a whole, to over-consume salt? So many reasons. I think blood pressure and the risk of heart disease, the main one. We're also looking as well at links with cancers and the overall diet, palatibility, quantity that's then consumed. But the problem we also have is the amount of salt per individual at any age as well.

So we consume on average in the UK 8 grams a day and the upper limit is actually 6 grams. And this could be something that stemmed down through generations, you know, that salt shaker on the table. I actually, please don't hate me, I find them very unnecessary in restaurants sometimes because you know restaurants and chefs have already put a lot of salt in your food to add flavour. But there seems to be a habitual element of, oh, let's reach for the salt shake. and let's add some extra salt to our food. But it's not really helping our health in any way. But in a survey of over 500 supermarkets and high street sandwiches, 44% of them were high in salt.

97% were low in fibre. You don't need me to go on about fibre anymore. You all know I'm very hot on this topic. And 25% of those that they surveyed were classified as less healthy because of all the salt and sugar and fat. So if we chat first about the fact that to get traction on a boring topic, like we're eating too much salt that most people know, you have to have something that's pressworthy. Yeah, it's so interesting because we sent me over the whole report and I was reading it. And I guess it was just being transparent.

When it was embargoed, yeah, before we were looking at it. It feels important, but it feels boring. And funny enough, we put this in as a pickup, not a whole headline because we thought, oh, we'll just note it. and then all the headlines started coming out and all of the headlines were literally you know what I'm just going to get. Get the main one up now. Well, I just say that, you know,

I think the worrying thing here is that the UK is overloaded and salt from every area. The ones that you buy out of the home from the cafes, the bakeries, the coffee shops and most people are still going towards those sandwiches as their main lunch that day. And one in 10 sandwiches also failed to meet government salt targets that were due two years ago.

So we're really highlight, years of weak action from government and industry. And that is such an important point as well because, and I know sometimes you get frustrated when we have a political opinion, so I'm just going to have a quick one today. They do. I have read the Spotify comments and I have read the feedback, but this does link into the headlines. And I won't be facetious, but I do think it's important that we have opinions. And I think that women should have opinions and should be able to speak freely about them.

But I'm not here to annoy everyone this morning. No, I'm glad you said that, Ella, because anyway, you read the headline. What I just want to say on that really quickly is that ultimately one thing that we get frustrated by is that these things are all guidelines oftentimes. And ultimately, if you don't have strong legislation with repercussions, this is sort of what happens, which is that, yeah, 97% still don't have enough fibre. Almost half of them are too high in Seoul. And as you said, this is the core lunch that we all consume. So I think it's an interesting example of that. A couple of years later, guidelines are set and then just not met. Virtually no sandwich you could possibly buy has enough fibre in this country. That's quite sad. Yeah. So all the headlines, so BBC posh sandwich has more salt than nearly five cheeseburgers, the Telegraph, the High Street sandwich with almost five cheeseburgers worth of salt. The Times, Gales Club sandwich has the sole of five McDonald's cheesburgers. They're all the same, essentially.

But you would read these all and almost, I'm not kind of doing down people's intelligence, but there's almost a subtle implication in there that it would be okay to eat for, five McDonald's cheeseburgers and it would almost maybe be better than your Gail sandwich. Rather than seeing it as the cheeseburgers are stereotypically unhealthy anyway, so why would you go if something that costs a lot more money that has more sold? So it's how you read it and I think you're right. Most consumers would read that and think, oh wow. Gail sandwich bad. Not necessarily McDonald's good because there's obviously so much more a conversation around that, but there is. It might change their perception. Exactly. And I wanted to talk about that

because I think that becomes so confusing and it's almost this issue again, and this reductive nature of things where now we're only looking at salt, and now it's not that soul's not important, as you've just illustrated, salt is important. But I can't help these things. I then went into the deep dive and tried to get all the ingredients for the two and the nutritionals and compare them. Because if you look at it, for example,

McDonald's burger you'll get 15 in one of these cheese burgers, not in the five. You'd get about 15 grams of protein, but only two. grams of fibre so very low with fibre very important for re in your gales sandwich that they're talking about there's obviously too much salt so i'm not kind of quote unquote defending there but you'd get 40 grams of protein and you'd get six grams of fibre and i would say the salt comes from the choice of sandwich in this case because it's got streaky bacon within it um you know and that's preserved with a lot of salt exactly but then when you look at the ingredient deck for the two they are really different and again And kind of from a sort of UPF perspective, the girls one is so much better.

They've published the recipe for their season's law. And again, we've got some tomatoes, we've got some rocket, we've got this smoked chicken. We also do have some bacon. But it's whole foods added into a sandwich. Ella, do you want to read off? With a bit too much soul. We're a bit too much soul. But Redolph-Watson a burger.

I think it's really interesting for people to see. And also, our McDonald's version of burgers are very different to in the States. So if you are listening in the States, you'll have an even longer list of ingredients. Yeah. And they obviously do these really effective ads saying, like 100% beef in the patty, but then even if you look around there, it's like for the bun, as far as I could understand from my research, the bun has obviously wheat flour, but it has sugar, it has cream yeast, it has different emulsifiers, proteins, starches, multidextrin,

dextrous, maize multidextrin, maize starch, blah, blah, blah. Again, like the cheese isn't just cheese. It's also got way powder. It's got emulsifying salts. It's got natural cheese flavoring. Why do we need to add cheese flavouring to cheese? And extra salt should taste like cheese. Anti-caking agent.

Colours. Add it to the cheese. Yeah. So. Make it very yellow. I do think flavouring cheese is really. I don't know. It's not funny.

But there's something about it as a kind of great example of the insanity of the world that we live in where cheese is so processed and no longer even tastes like cheese. So we must flavour cheese with cheese. It's when scientists were given free reign to create a product that was the most perfect, palatable, visual. all preserved item in the world and that's exactly what maccadies are an example of. Do you remember all that stuff about how you could like leave it out for months at a time and it would kind of like wilt and look a bit dry and not that nice as a result, but it wouldn't like mould? I look at McDonald's as food engineering science in food form. I don't look at it as food

I'm eating. I look at it as engineered food. But that perception I think is only just come into public realm because of the conversation on ultra-processed foods. Yeah, no, no, I totally agree. Here's this idea it's like Chris Van Tulligan often talks about it and you hear it elsewhere. There's like food like substance is as opposed to food. What I really dislike is that brands like that try and pull you in with marketing to pretend they're all natural. Well like that 100% be patty. Yeah. That's the deception that I really am not keen on. But you're right. When you break down those two sandwiches. I would rather have a bit and you like as in for all of us. It's surely. But what I would add just to add another nuance to this is.

is that Gals is very expensive compared to most retailers that are selling sandwiches. I doubt the average person is purchasing that Triple Decker Classic as an everyday option. Or if you are, you know, maybe now you want to think about it with the salt. But, you know, it's a huge investment of money to purchase something like that every single day. And I don't think most people go for that type of choice as a daily item. No, I don't think so either. Whereas McDonald's is still a daily item and the other retailers that are still responsible, which need to be highlighted with 97% of them low in fibre

and nearly 50% of them over in salt, they need pulling up because those everyday sandwiches are what people buy every day in every supermarket. And that's the thing, isn't it? As we always talk about it, is like, have what you want for a treat. Like, go for it, that's great. That's all about kind of balance in life.

But when we have the foundations of our diet too high in sugar, salt, fat, too low in fibre, etc., that's kind of where the problems creep in. Anyway, I just found those headlines. frustrating. I don't know how you guys listening feel because I think it just the whole water around nutrition is so muddy. It's also murky. It's also hard to understand what the quote quote right thing to do is. There's so many different camps and dogmas and approaches and it all feels so conflicting. And then you have something like this that implies, although too high in salt, this kind of, yeah,

slightly fresher sandwiches worse than McDonald's burgers. I find it very frustrating because I don't think it's the educational advice that people need to make informed. decisions, but I do understand it makes headlines. Yeah. And that's the constant tension, isn't it? That's why I love the wellness scoop. We've got time here to discuss all of those different angles. So thank you for sticking with us.

The first headline we've got today is very different. It's on cheap and cheerful carrots. It says they don't get the respect they deserve, how the 6P vegetable could support your immune system, skin and eyesight. Well, that's what the Daily Mail headline actually started with anyway, Ella. It did. And you know what? We don't normally take headlines.

in the Daily Mail, I've got to be honest. But this one were thought, you know what, this is a good one, this is helpful. Let's PR the caro. I'm always family times. Just to explain why, it's more because we don't like fearmongering headlines. And I tend to find that they're much more drastic in that particular media outlet, which is the reason why a lot of the time the headlines we choose don't come from there. Just to say why if people say, oh, why?

Yes, very helpful. Thank you. That's why. Yes, they're often quite sensationalised. Anyway, the article starts by saying probably in quite. true Daily Mail style, Andy Warhol predicted that in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. How right was he? Yeah, he was. Is it finally the turn of the humble carrot? Arguably, the most recognisable of all root vegetables for decades, carrots have been resigned to the status

of a side dish, or even worse, just grated and dumped onto plates as an insipid garnish. Then they made the case as to why we should all be paying more attention to carrots, and I thought that was brilliant. I think it's pretty brilliant, too, because it makes a compelling case. The piece highlighted that the UK produces around 700,000 tonnes of carrots every year. And that is worth an estimated $290 million to the economy. And yet we still tend to think of them as an afterthought, you know, rather than a powerful everyday food. And I just want to say, you know, I think everybody will know, or most of you will think carrots, vitamin A, orange. Help me see in the dark.

Just to quickly explain that one, it's the beta carotene that is good for retinol in your eye. in your eyes, which is why that myth or that old wives tale came about. So it's got an element of underlying truth. But one carrot can provide 10% of the fibre that people are missing every day, everybody. Like my kids will take, because they're odd, a whole carrot. I think lots of kids like raw carrot for some reason rather than cooked. Yeah, that's so, because I... They'll take a whole one out the fridge and just chompet.

I think roasted carrots are so delicious. Me too. But my kids don't like them. They prefer raw. I made a tart the other day with like roasted balsamic, red onions and like roasted carrots. and kind of lovely pastry, etc. And it was so delicious. Heritage tart.

Yeah, the girls don't like raceda carrots, but they love a crudet. And I think it's one of those things that is actually fair play, just as long as they eat the carrots. It's fantastic for them because you get all of that vitamin A. You get the fibre. That type of fibre, soluble as well, helps lower your LDL, what we call bad cholesterol, of course,

within your gut. It's just helping feed your gut bugs, packed with antioxidants, You may have heard of things called carotenoids. They're linked to lower inflammation purely because of the help with the gut bugs, which then talk to your immune system inside your gut. And I've also tried with the boys rainbow carrots. Yes, I'm growing rainbow carrots.

I'm growing them. I love that. Good luck to them. Exactly. I mean, they won't if they'll come through. Well, let's have a look because I have said I've had a problem growing carrots. But you can buy these rainbow packs in supermarkets. They don't contain beta carotin when you get the white ones or the yellow ones or the purple ones.

But they contain other types of anthocyanines, like the purple ones. They're the ones that support your brain predominantly, the same as in dark color berries. And actually a 2024 study found that eating carrots three times a week increased your carotenoids at that antioxidant level in the skin. And that's associated with the stronger immune function. And just to add as well, that when women are pregnant, the studies that we have predominantly on preferences for food in the womb and infants in the first 1,000 years was initially one of the first studies. a thousand years can you imagine a thousand days if only we'd be around that long but there are studies that the women who drank carrot juice when they were pregnant their children had a preference for carrots and that's one of the first ever studies that we did with preferences for infants i mean they're

cheap and affordable here because we grow them in bulk in the UK they're not traveling miles yeah so the head line exactly was talking where there's like six be superfood anyway it's a nice one because yeah often superfoods are these like more powders it's all quite expensive you've got to get all these fancy things. And now it's like, nope, celebrate the humble carrot. Anyway, thanks for that Daily Mail. I actually really appreciate it. I really appreciate those types of headlines.

I'd love more of them, to be honest. And the same with this one. So Headline 2 really made me smile. But first, let's just head to a quick ad break and then we'll be back with the headline. Welcome back, guys. Okay, Headline 2 made Rees smile. Enjoying the arts has the same effect on aging as a weekly workout.

Yeah, it's a really interesting study this week. And it makes perfect sense. We've discussed hobbies before on here, but regularly engaging with the arts and culture may help slower aging process. Now, I think a lot of people may think of this as, oh, learn a new skill, like play piano. It helps with your brain development. But researchers were comparing here, just the impact of adding extra weekly kind of workout into your routine when it comes to listening, engaging in cultural activities once a week. Music, art galleries, theatre, singing, painting. and drawing. Do you remember when we were discussing, you know, I've got my son into, because he needs

to calm down. Anyone that's raising boys will know, like, my boy's football obsessed. And before bed, I give him a coloring book. And I quite enjoy it. I love it. I love calling books. I'm like, what do we to do for you this week? Sadly, I get a lot of superheroes and I want to, you know, do something else. But I'm enjoying it. And actually, I see Fern does a lot of painting, Fern Cotton. And it's really interesting. The university researchers from UCL, the University College London, and found that the group engaging regularly with culture appeared to age up to 4% more slowly than those who didn't, which translated roughly, if you look at it in years,

to around one year biologically younger in terms of your overall health. And that was particularly strong this research in adults that were over 40. So it's never too late to start. No, and always important to know as well, the researchers here with that one year of being biologically younger, they had adjusted for other health and lifestyle factors. things like BMI, smoking, education, income. So the suggestion therefore from the research is that actually engaging in the arts in this way, as we said, even just listening to music, can be

uniquely beneficial, which is very interesting. That study was published in the journal, Innovation in Aging, and it analysed over 3,500 adults in the UK household longitudinal study, which began in 2009. But really, there's one thing that they kind of particularly noted, right, with this biological or aging with epigenetic clocks. Will you just walk us through that? Yeah, because epigenetics, when we discuss this, it's like having a switch, like a light switch in your body, that's either switched on when you're exposed to a life event,

maybe something stressful or something happens, and a coded bit of DNA can be switched on. And when we refer to epigenetics, it's how it's the nature-nurture argument, you know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg. But this particular, these clock changes, are kind of tracked around DNA methylation. And the chemical tags that are added or removed from our DNA, which affects how long we live, basically. And these things that are switched on or off over time.

And these changes can help scientists estimate whether someone's aging fast or slowly. And we've actually had this with fiber. Like I discussed this in the Fiber Formula book that came out in March. You can live five years longer if you consume a high fiber diet. It's emerging research we've got. And that's because of aging and those telomers, which are at the end of our little chromosomes and our DNAs. and looking after them, preventing them from being worn down. So it's actually the first study kind of of its kind

to examine whether arts engagement could influence biological measures of aging. I think we need more. And what's so interesting is I wonder in my head, what type of music? You know, people have always banged on for ages. I'll listen to classical music. You're smarter. And there is research there with that.

I wonder if this is literally just everybody needs an emotional response in a healthy way like endorphins or oxytocin from music, regardless of genre. Yeah, that's so interesting because you know I'm like not a musical person in any shape or form.

But you enjoy music. And it has such an impact on my mood. Really, I find it so powerful and I'm not a musical person I'm not knowledgeable about music. I wouldn't even say I'm particularly passionate about music.

Like I don't have things I love. I mean, I literally put on like Neil Young Radio on Spotify and get all the old classics. Lovely. Oh my God, they're so good for the mood. Well, that's what I mean. All I have to do is play the Lion

soundtrack and I cry, I well up. I think there's obviously something with music with childhood as well, like nostalgia and memories and it's like a kind of, I know it gives me a release and I think it does that for you too. You probably just aren't tuned into it. I think so many people could benefit from the arts, which again, I wish more children had exposure to in this country. But I think what's really the comparison the research has made was of course just so striking the difference between those that engaged in it weekly and those who rarely did anything. It's almost It's the same as when we look at study of people that walk and don't walk. You know, we're talking that as human beings, social impact is really important.

And I think we just need to fill up from so many different sources. That's what I love about the wellness scoop. I know. I totally agree. And it's just that reminder, isn't it? Again, if we're looking at today, we're talking about like Caras, listening to music, I'm going to talk about walking. Like, it's all really gentle.

And I love that. Yeah. Just obviously what we so believe wellness is. Right. Headline 3 is How to Keep Weight Off in 8,241 steps. Experts reveal daily steps target for dieters aiming to prevent regaining weight. This was in all of the papers unsurprisingly re-hates this headline. Tell us why.

Yeah, we've put another number, haven't we? Numerical number that people are going to fixate on 8,241. It's the one for me. I mean, it makes a fantastic headline, like he said, but Once again, we're going back to arbitrary counts, which means nothing because everyone's a different height, size, like the pace, how many steps they take, what they need for their relative body, what they do every day. Is this additional steps or is it just part of their neat, so their daily activity levels? Is it just them walking to work and back? This new study was presented at the European Congress on obesity, and it suggested it was an effective tool for maintaining weight you've ready lost.

So we're not talking about losing weight specifically. It's if you've already lost the weight, you've got your goal weight, and then you don't want to regain it. So it's not marathon training or extreme exercise. It's just a really specific number that they've landed on. Actually, I want to go and look at the paper because I'm quite interested in the mechanisms of this. Yeah, it is very interesting.

So we had researchers from the University of Modena. They analyzed 14 randomized controlled trials involving just shy of 4,000 adults from the UK, the US, Australia and Japan. all of those participants were either overweight or obese before starting weight loss program. That's important to highlight because you've already lost a drastic amount of weight if you've gone from being obese or overweight to the weight that you then want to maintain. Exactly. And then the trials had two different phases.

So first an average eight-month weight loss period where participants attempted to lose weight. And then that weight loss period was followed by roughly 10 months, so just short of a year, maintenance phase. and researchers looked at whether people were able to keep the weight off that they had lost initially during this maintenance phase and to do that they split the participants into two groups so the first group they've lost weight now what they're doing is they are looking at a broader lifestyle program that's combining continued reduced calorie diets with increased movement

particularly walking more each day then the second group of people again remember bringing that they have just lost some weight they either continue dieting without increasing activity levels or had no intervention at all. And then at the beginning of the study, both groups, so all of these participants were averaging just over 7,000 steps a day. And then during that active weight loss phase, the lifestyle groups, the people with more interventions, they increased their step count by just over 1,000 steps to 8,454 daily steps. And then in the maintenance phase,

they settled at this average of 8,241 steps a day. And important, they largely maintained that weight loss. So they typically kept off about three kilos in the long run, whereas the comparison groups, the people who had lost weight initially, but then didn't have any intervention specifically in the maintenance phase and therefore didn't meaningfully increase their daily movement, they were much less successful in maintaining the weight loss over time. I'm going to actually go and have a look at this if I get a moment this week.

So I'm interested to how long they measured them afterwards for what they classify as significant difference. and weight and all those sorts of factors. Because what we're doing again is talking about move more, eat less, which isn't effective for the majority of people because we're talking about, right, you increased your threshold of steps, you just up the intensity again. How sustainable is it to keep up that level as well, long term? And then researchers, their explanation for why this happened

was back to the old archaic, well, you know, lower intensity movement burns more fat. It's like walking on a treadmill rather than running, which does scientifically make sense in terms of sports nutrition because when you do intense bouts of exercise, you tap into your glycogen stores and you just use stored fat for your slow walking. I've really oversimplified that to everyone listening, just so you know,

but you're less likely to feel extreme hunger after going on a gentle walk, whereas I think a lot of people tend to compensate for additional exercise with food a lot of the time. It's just an innate thing we do and psychological, which is also why weight loss is so, tricky and so difficult. But perhaps it's sustained, I just think ultimately let's look at this positively that it's just sustainable to walk more if you are able. It's probably one of those things

again where the headline creates an arbitrary number and makes you feel like maybe to be the way you want to be. You've got to walk 8,241 steps. It's very sort of specific and prescriptive and not therefore our cup of tea. But then I think when you actually look into it, I think this idea that we're glamorizing and kind of glorifying walking as a really helpful way to look after your body and maintain a healthy weight because this idea, as you said, like if you're suddenly like,

I'm going to get super fit, I'm going to lose way, which this time of the year also often kicks off the kind of bikini bod stuff. You then start going, you know, to hug or hit class in the gym, whatever, and you may be reducing your calories in the amount you eat at each meal. And you were just starving.

And I'm sure that's quite a familiar thing for people who've tried there. I also want to know if there were the use of weight loss drugs here for the initial part of weight loss. What's worrying is I think this is also tapping into a lot of people now that will move on to this weight loss pill from injections and then they suddenly come off medication and they're like, right, to maintain my weight, I just need to walk another 1,000 steps a day.

In terms of broader health implications, fantastic. We're just moving a bit more, which is always going to be beneficial. For weight, I would question it long term as a valid kind of thing. thing for mental health, fantastic. You know, there's so many things you can read into this. Yeah, I agree. And it's nice to be like walking as exercise. Yeah, exactly. Stop feeling you want to do really specific things.

Oh, yeah. Do you know, I, this is probably a ramp for the extra scoop, but I cannot bear. We discussed one before we came on out, seeing all these routines that are so unattainable of, oh, I set my alarm for four or five o'clock so I could do this big epic workout that that I had my juice, then I did this, then I did that. And then I moved again, and then I worked out again. things are just so unattainable, whereas I think to most people this is just in my everyday life, I need to try and get my step count up. Particularly now, obviously, you're in the Northern Hemisphere, but particularly now it's kind of lighter and warmer, much later.

Going for a walk after where it becomes possible. Obviously, in the winter, this is all unappealing. And also you don't want to and or can't go for a walk, obviously, in the pitch black. I think we should look at walking just in more awe. But will this headline have any impact? I mean, we've tried to say this so many times. times in many shapes and forms. Maybe this is the headline or the approach that gets people to walk more. Who knows? Let's move on to our trends. We have got two trends for you today, both quite,

I don't want to say silly because there's some seriousness in the first one, but maybe a little bit silly. My mum sent this to me, and the headline was smart underwear that tracks your farts in real time. I know. And finally this week, one of the strangest ones we've ever discussed in terms of innovations on the podcast, but research is featured in the new scientist. which is this amazing outlet that we all kind of look at in the science world for new, interesting things, have developed smart underwear, which contains a sensor that clips into the underwear, it tracks flatulins in real time. So it was created by the University of Maryland to better understand digestive conditions.

So it does have a really important role here. So lactose intolerance, IBS, where there's currently really no reliable way to continuously measure it as you go on or gas production in the gut. So you'll see how reactive you are to a trigger by measuring with the sensor within the underwear. So the sensor itself is tiny around the size of a coin and it clips close to the perineum where it can continuously detect hydrogen gas released during flatulence. I mean, it is interesting. I'm actually really interested. I totally agree. The headline sounds really funny.

Like, you know, we've tracked glucose, we've tracked sleep, we've tracked anything else under the sun. Let's now track off ours. But actually it's quite interesting because people with lactose intolerance, which really is so common, isn't it? Yeah. Well, over 60% of the world are lactose intolerant. In fact, there's some huge populations in different cultures around the world that will just have any, the idea of having any lactose in their diet is just unheard of. They don't have the enzyme lactase to break it down. And it's very much something that evolved in more recent history with ancestors in the Western world, with people that actually consume. dairy in the first place. So lactose intolerance is much larger than you may realize if you live here in the UK anyway. It's everywhere. Yeah, exactly. And because they don't have this ability to break down lactose, what happens is that undigested lactose goes into the gut and then the bacteria

can ferment it. And as a result, you can get this hydrogen gas as a byproduct and that gas contributes to bloating and to flatulose. It can be really painful for people, this condition, particularly and also there's so much cross-contamination and UPF products with added elements that contain dairy which can trigger this that it's far more common and IBS as well is far more common than people realise and not necessarily knowing what's triggering it so it's actually such an interesting idea the way they've tested it's a very small number of people but the research has got 37 generally healthy adults and they did this four-day study with them so for the first two days they got them to follow a low fibre diet, basically just to, as we talk about, fiber is what

gets fermented in the gut, but they were trying to completely reduce this baseline normal fermentation to better understand what was happening after that. So low fiber diet for two days. And then after that, they were either given lactose, so that's your milk from dairy products or sucrose, which is a sugar. What kind of foods we mostly find in the sucrose in? sugars that are added to products, so biscuits, any white sugar that's basically been added to a product. Okay, so they were either given lactose or sucrose, basically a dairy-rich or a biscuit-rich day on different test days, and then they obviously were wearing the smart underwear for about eight hours afterwards. And what they found was that 24 of the participants appeared to be lactose intolerant based on the amount of gas produced after consuming lactose.

appeared to be, which is very interesting because you also do need to go through the blood tests to get an accurate diagnosis. But the interesting part is, of course, only 12 of those 24 people thought they'd even farted anyway after eating more dairy. So the underwear data suggested otherwise. And that's what's really, really interesting. Let's watch the space evolve. Let's watch the science evolve. Because understanding digestive disorders, food tolerances, gut microbiome activity, it's, massive. Yeah, it's huge and at the moment it's often

quite self-reporting anyone who's been through trying to understand different intolerances, etc. will be so familiar with that or IBS. But to add, intolerance is not the same as an allergy and I just want to clear that up. It's not an immune reaction, an immune response by your immune system. It can trigger a few

things, but it's not a full flare up. As we know, very sadly you'll have seen in the media recently, there's another case, I think recently, of somebody very sadly passing away consuming a cross-contaminated item There was that big story a few years ago, do you remember on the airline? And you have to label products clearly.

It can trigger an anaphytic response. So many allergies are very dangerous and life-threatening. But intolerances are still quite misunderstood, and they can be caused a lot of discomfort. Big impact on your life. Right. Our second trend, I absolutely love. Anna sent this too. I was like, oh my gosh, this is a bit of me.

Okay, first of all, we have to play it to you. Okay, play it. Have you ever wondered what Mozart sounds like coming from a carrot? Well, here it is anyway. The London Vegetable Orchestra plays music using locally sourced produce with carefully crafted holes, from carrots and corgettes to bell peppers and butternut squash. Food, glorious, food, love a bit of Oliver. I think what a skill, but it goes to show.

I think that's science for children. How fascinating. Look, all you do is create an airflow and you create different spaces and dimensions and you get a different note. I mean, I saw it actually weirdly in the Times a few weeks ago. And I was like, God, we've got to talk about it. Now we've just talked about how carrots are superfoods. Turns out their multi-hyphanodes.

They can be anything. Do you remember a joke that used to be like, if a cauliflower can be a pizza or I can be a whatever. And I feel like we're in that territory here. Anyway, that's the London Vegetable Orchestra. And they play instruments made entirely from vegetables. So you've got carrot flutes. You've got squashes as instruments, you've got some sweet potato percussion in there.

They do covers like Sweet Carolein, which they call Sweet Carrot Line. I love it. I mean, I love a play on lines. It described how the carrots mimic the high-pitched lightness of the recorder, which is true. That did sound like a recorder. Anyone listening, if we hadn't said it was a carrot, you probably would have said a recorder. While the squashed sweet potato are obviously deeper in sound because they're a lot thicker and bigger and can create more hollow sounds, it's more brass-like undertones.

And one musician explained, people don't expect vegetables to sound like music, but carrots sound so much like recorders and you can hear every note. And it is in tune and it is clean. So I think what's so interesting is that, you know, you can do so much with food once again. I love it. It's really cool. The founder said after years of refining the technique, they can now make carrot instruments capable of playing an octave and a half, almost chromatic, almost in tune.

And he said, maybe most importantly, the ensemble. proudly describes itself as a hundred percent vegetable because apparently some people do it with a little bit of support. Anyway, there you go, guys. Have a look at the London Vegetable Orchestra. That's something to make your day. What a fantastic way to end the week, everyone. Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed that episode. It felt like we had a lot of positive things to bring to you all today. And as always, we value your feedback. And we'll be back on Thursday with an amazing extra scoop. As always, we can't wait to see you then. We have got a huge number of recommendations. We are going to be talking about some habits we'd prioritize if we had a little bit more time we are going to be

talking about whether humus and lent or chris are healthier than standard chris i'm excited to get into that and all sorts of other things so we will see you back here on thursday cannot wait thank you for bearing with my croaky voice