The Wellness Scoop - Are Portion Sizes Sexist? Meditation and Heavy Metals

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

This week on The Wellness Scoop, we’re unpacking some of the health debates that have been quietly everywhere. We start with the question that sparked a lot of reaction in December: should restaurants offer smaller portion sizes for women? We look at where the idea came from, what the data actually says, and why it struck such a nerve. We then turn to meditation and breathwork. We talk about why they’re suddenly part of so many conversations around stress, hormones and the nervous system, what they’re actually doing in the body, and how to get started without turning calm into another thing to get “right”. We also dig into your questions about food and health claims, from concerns around heavy metals in dark chocolate to whether “wellness” versions of everyday foods really offer anything extra. It’s a grounded look at what matters, what’s overhyped, and how to think about health choices without adding more pressure. Send your questions for our weekly Q&A to: [e-mail] Order your copy of Ella's new book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Quick Wins: Healthy Cooking for Busy Lives⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Pre-order your copy of Rhi's upcoming book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Fibre Formula⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At Desjardin Insurance, we know that when you own a nail salon, everything needs to be perfect from tip to toe. That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company, so we put our heart into making sure it's protected. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Dejardin.com slash business coverage. Welcome to the Wellness Scoop, your weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. And as always, we are both here as your host. I'm Ella Mills.

And I'm Rihanna Lambert. And today we're diving into some wonderful topics that you have chosen for us. If you weren't listening on Monday, big news, guys, we have our own email address now, very fancy. So send your questions for this weekly Q&A to us. We're just hello at wellness-hyfonscoop.com. obviously you can also pop your questions on Apple, podcasts or Spotify as well. We love, love, love, love hearing from you your thoughts and feelings. But, to hear from you, have you got any wrecks for us this week?

What do we need in our lives? Well, Ella, I've got a few. Obviously save our email address because that's a big wreck. The first is my porridge game. I've upped it. Okay. How do we up our porridge game inspire me? Up the porridge game.

It's because the kids have just been going through his face, particularly my adults. He just loves porridge. And I've always cooked it with cheer seeds pretty much. because it thickens, it speeds up cooking. It just feels like it's a nicer texture. I added ginger and dark chocolate and my matured dates. Oh, I know. Do you know what?

We had a reader. Did you put it in? A listener, I forgot to put it in for today. So I will show you out next week and I apologize for forgetting your name in this. But they recommended, they were saying, I know you guys love dark chocolate. My favorite winter breakfast is exactly makeup porridge. Always put a cube in it. She's a two cubes, yeah, of like 75, 80% dark chocolate and let it melt in.

I do it for the children sometimes and it feels like the most... I need to make it this week. It sounded. I just had this image of like getting my teaspoon and swirling the chocolate squares around as it like melts in and goes all creamy and delicious. I feel my mission in life this year is also, on top of obviously fiber fiber, is to make dark chocolate a health food over a certain percentage. 70 plus, right?

Yeah. Well, I always say 7580. Okay. I just want people to get that higher cocoa percentage. Although if you've been more of a milk. It's better to start someone. start 70, it still tastes really good, I think it's got a bit more sugar. But my other recommendation is try and book something for you.

Now, you don't have to book. So I realize, quite shockingly Ella, this is very embarrassing. But the last time I booked something for myself, like a facial or massage, was last January when we launched the World of Scoop. And I've done it again. Let's try and make it more than once a year. I know. I was like, oh my gosh, how is it only been once a year?

But I knew I had a really busy January workwise. And I booked a secret spa thing at my house. It was this facial, this Dr Jack's facial. And it was one of those ones. Do you remember me telling you about last year that lifted my face? The before an art photo is unbelievable. I saw it. I mean, if I only I did it every day,

because I do not look like that right now. And I feel my TV game has also gone up. So since having my now TV subscription, because I got that for Wicked, if you remember. Oh, yes, of course, to watch the, like, live, wicked thing in the US. I mean, that's the first time I got that subscription, because we don't have Sky at home.

I finally could watch the Harry Potter reunion. I mean, I'm probably like five years late. Oh my gosh, I never watched it. Did you know? It's really good. I mean, it's quite nostalgic and I shed a little tear. I love all that kind of stuff. I was like, oh, there's Ron and Hermione.

Well, it's coming back. I don't know how I feel about that. We'll get on to that though. But the night manager, absolute must watch. Have you watched all the episodes so far? Yeah. We've only done one. Because we...

It's three for you then at the moment to catch up on. Exactly, because we also started watching the morning show. Which is the Jennifer and the show. One. What channel? I don't have the channel, do I? What is it on? It's on Apple TV.

Yeah, I need to get Apple TV. Just subscribe for a month and watch them all. That's what I do, because I love Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Amston. It's so good. We've watched all of the seasons, as in like when they sort of came out. So we were watching for a few years. And season four, I think is relatively recently out, but we hadn't watched it yet. So we're just finishing that first.

Oh my gosh. It's phenomenal. I think we're on episode eight. So I think we're almost there. It is so, so good. I mean, they are both iconic. They are iconic. and they're just, they're great in it.

And I really, really love it. Oh, that I've watched that one. Yeah, I so recommend it, the morning show, Apple TV, Jennifer Anderson and Reese Wood's been. I mean, what a combo. And then my other recommendations. So I think I said last week, I've had a few health challenges recently

and I've got like a redoubled effort on stress management and gut health. And as part of my fun gut health games, I love, here we go. I thought, you know what? I'm actually going to write down the number of plants that we eat to try and get that diversity and I'm really trying to get more fermented foods in as well.

I did find, and just a tip of anyone else is trying to work on their girl health, and I know I've said it before, but writing it down does really inspire you, I think. Oh, you forget. Every day is so busy. Totally. And it just inspires you. I just had it on my notes out. Like, nothing big deal.

But to be like, you know what? I don't know. I found some capers at the back of my cupboard yesterday. And I was like, oh. And it made a kind of slightly spicy minestroney, but there was tangy because we put capers on the top. And it was delicious. And it just sort of slightly inspired me. Like, I bought a purple cauliflower, not just a white one.

I got to 49 plants. I wish I'd got 50. I needed to do it. Ella's written in the brief. I just, can you? Eaten alive, pickled cucumbers. Okay. Eaten alive.

Just fill me in. Okay. Yeah. That's my other wreck for this week. Okay. So exactly. Trying to eat more fermented foods. Yeah.

And someone recommended the brand, Eat and Alive. It's a brand name. Because I read that and I was like, right. Well, yes, they're not alive. But in what way do you mean here? Yeah. The brand, eaten alive.

And it's good because, obviously, country bumpkin these days, they deliver to you. So you don't. you don't need like a whole foods or a planet organic type shop to be able to get them. So we bought their kimchi for my fermented foods. Pickled cucumbers aren't pickled. Sorry, they're pickled so they're not fermented.

So they don't have the same benefits. So pickled are made with sugar because I have this in the fiber book and the salt is more for fermentation. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But they're pickled cucumbers are one of the best things. I like pickled cucumbers. Oh my gosh. Because I don't love a cucumber.

I'm eating. Pickled cucumbers. I mean, they're good. I'm eating with a fork out the jar. They are insanely. good. So eaten live pickled cucumbers, also their kimchi is amazing. I bought some of their fermented syracia and the jalapeno and line once I will report back. Anyway, really fun. I think pickled foods are a really good stepping stone to getting two sauerkraut and items,

because I'm not a huge sauerkraut lover, but I will eat pickled items. So I don't love sourcrout either, but kimchi because it's spicy and therefore has a slightly different, I think it has a slightly more universal flavour. It's not as tangy. It's delicious. So I would say, again, if you want to start adding fermented foods, kimchi's quite an easy one. It's nice, like even just avocado toast, super simple, but a bit of kimchi on there. And you've just got a kind of another layer of flavour.

I mean, I'm sure the Gen Z salads we discussed on Monday all have them in. Yeah, I bet they do pickled cucumbers of kimchi. Okay, so those are my rack. The morning show is phenomenal. Four seasons of it now. Eat and alive. They've got their own website. Get their kimchi and their pickled cucumbers.

And if you're inspired about your gut health, try writing it down this week, see how many you get to. try and beat my 49. Yeah, I love that. You probably will. And we've got great tips from Chavonne, who wrote in about relationships and goals for the year, Ella. Yes, so Chavon had some really nice information that would be very helpful for anyone thinking about kind of news resolutions in a more long-term way. So I'm going to read out what she's told our community.

As someone who works in the field of psychology as a therapist, I wanted to share something that some people can find helpful when it comes to goal setting. This time of year in particular is a time of reflection and setting our goals or resolutions can sometimes feel a bit daunting or all or nothing. Something which can be helpful is to think about your values, asking yourself questions such as what is important to me in my life. What gives me a sense of meaning or purpose can help to tease out what those values are. These might range from physical health to family relationships to recreational to work and learning and once you've identified a couple of values, you can then set yourself some

behavioural changes or goals in order to help you on your way towards living more in life. line with those values. It's helpful to think of our values like the direction we want to travel in in our lives and goals as little markers along the way which help to guide us in that direction of travel that's meaningful to us. There's a lot of helpful literature and questionnaires online which can help people not only identify values but also identify any discrepancies between importance and behaviour which may help to identify an area to focus on searching for something like valued living or valued living questionnaire online can be a helpful place to start. I have to say that's fantastic advice.

It's so nice, isn't it? So, so good. And it's so accessible. I remember in 2017 writing my first book, Renourish, I put in a self-esteem questioner in the book. Because I think once you can understand yourself what your values are, how you see yourself, how you believe in yourself, it's easier to then set goals. And also it's so much less generic. Like if you want to say, I want to be healthier. It's pretty generic.

What does that actually mean? Whereas, like, read to take what you said on Monday of either. know, what I want is to be around for my children. That's identifying what really matters to you, which is your family, and obviously your children are a humongous part of that. And so what do you want? You want to keep your health as well as you can in order to get that maximum output. Okay, well, what does that look like?

That looks like more energy. So then a small goal as part of that is maybe your strength training to be able to pick up your children. And it becomes so tangible. It's like here are these more kind of practical goals that are really orientated around being able to unlock the life that I want and I don't think just like I want to look good on Instagram is the inspo that really moves the dial for most of us whereas I want to be able to easily pick up and move things around independently when I'm 80 that's freely and just feel less all or nothing because that's what most of us are do you know it's a human innate thing I think for lots of people

to be wired as all or nothing I'm an all or nothing girl I know you said that from the day we first started well I always think it's important to know it yeah it is important to know because it you then set those goals. So thank you so much for those recommendations. I now have a lovely question on a voice note for us from Rebecca. And we just want to say really loved getting a question via voice notes. So please keep them coming. I love the podcast, really enjoying listening to it this year. I had a question for the Wellness Scoot and it's to do with seeds and specifically cheer seeds and flux seeds. That's something that I love incorporating into my diet. I have loads of overnight oats, I do loads of Ella's recipes, and use a lot of chia seeds and flax seeds.

Recently a friend said to me that there's been recent evidence that chia seeds and flax seeds are estrogenic and they increase your risk of breast cancer and that we shouldn't be eating them anymore. And my hunch says that this kind of sits into the same box. as the soy products and when we went through this with tofu and things like that and that yes they do contain phytoestrogens but there's no evidence that they're linked to breast cancer or anything kind of in that area I just wanted to see your thoughts on it because I know you and Ella are a huge proponents of eating lots of different seeds yeah I was just interested to see if there was any kind of research or data

about this. Thank you so much. So Rebecca, thank you so much for sending that question in. And I have to say, I find it quite shocking when I hear these types of things, the fearmongering, Ella. Oh, my gosh. I honestly, and this isn't Rebecca to discredit or criticize you in anyway. I just find it so reflective of the insanity of the environment that we live in where, like, as I always say, we eat fewer vegetables than ever. yet we're thinking that cheer seeds and going to give us cancer and, you know, we see this all the time, this clickbait saying almonds will kill you, you know, almonds is the most dangerous food you can eat and this kind of thing.

And when we live in a world where almost none of us eat in our fibre, we don't eat in our vegetables, we kind of fail so much on the basics, this like fearmongering and crazy clickbay. It's so unhelpful because all it does is muddy the water and no one knows what to believe or what to do. So really just break it down for us. And I think just sorry, before we bring down for us, yeah, let's just clarify chia seeds and plexes do not give you cancer. Yeah, 100,000%. So they don't contain those meaningful phytoeotestrians,

which is where the confusion from soy came from, you know, ages ago, which was obviously a myth. Also doesn't do that at all. So soy is really beneficial for our health, actually. So cheer seeds are known for their fibre, their amiga three, but in the plant form, alphainic acid, protein and polyphenols. They don't contain clinically relevant amounts of those phytoeotogens and isophoreans. avons and there's no human trials that show cheer seeds have any estrogen-like effects in the body.

So it's just not plausible at all for any biological mechanism of a cheer seed to act like a hormone in our body, a female hormone. And even phytoestrogens and estrogen, if you look at the whole soy thing, phytoeotestrogens are plant compounds. They mimic and they're not the same as human estrogen. They bind really weakly to estrogen receptors and they often act like modulators. they do not stimulate. So that means they do not cause a response on our body from our hormones.

In fact, in low estrogen states, they might have a mild estrogen-like effect for beneficial purposes. Like in menopause, it can be really good. And in high estrogen states in our body, they can actually block those stronger endogenous estrogens. So soy is so beneficial. Those phytoestrogens are wonderful plant compounds, and they've got such a bad rep from complete misunderstanding.

And there's huge studies on there. showing in large population studies that soy intake is actually associated with equal or lower risk of breast cancer. You know, so there was a lot of kind of fear around soy in that sense. I think it's important. Well done for clearing that up in this. In fact, it's actually the opposite. But Chiazis don't even contain meaningful phytoestrogens, as you said.

So they're not even part of this confusion. And we need to talk about the vibrant. You just wonder where it all came from. Well, this is it. I think. Or do you know? Well, Giles Yo used to say. to me that any myth online has some small underlying element of truth.

And it's the confusion between those plant compounds and the healthy fats. That's where it stems from. Soy, it's really obvious where it comes from because the similar word and the similar compound. But I think with cheer seeds, it's just a state of them becoming a trend and then people just picking out little elements of them and getting it wrong, if I'm being honest. Early panic comes from a failure to accept that foods are not medicine in the world. the same way. They can be beneficial for our body, but they're not as powerful as a medication as such. But what I have to say is the fibre and cheer seeds. Let's just go there with fiber. This is the year

for fiber, I hope. Let's make it that way, guys. It's protective. It's not harmful. Cheer seeds are so rich in fiber, as Ella and I know. They can really up your daily intake if you're trying to hit that 30 grams a day. They improve instant sensitivity, reduce chronic inflammation. They help with increased estrogen excretion through the gut. Because remember, we've got estrogen and receptors in our gut as well. If anything, cheer seeds support our daily bodily functions, Ella. I honestly find it absolutely mind-blown. They're not linked to cancer and I think that's where we should kind of leave it

because the hormone balance stuff on social media is insane. Yes, if it's helpful, let us know because we can do more on that because I'm seeing so much of that as well. I will say I'm sitting here with the cheer pudding over next to me. Looks good. Oh my gosh, it's such a great thing. It took me like three minutes this morning before I got on the train. You do it with coconut, right?

Yeah, so I do two tablespoons of chia seeds, one tablespoon of jumbo oats, any kind of plant milk or whatever milk you want to use. And then I do about a tablespoon of yogurt. And then I add a little bit of honey to it, like a teaspoon or whatever, half teaspoon. Some hemp seeds on the top. I've got chopped date with it. It's so easy. But I've got almost half my fiber intake in that.

So then it's like I've got a busy day. I'm rushing around. I know I won't have, you know, I'll just grab some bits and pieces as I go. It won't be a kind of really nourishing day. but I've got half my fiber intake. Exactly. Ready to go in a taboo. I know.

I know. You can bolt by them, guys, and it's obviously much more affordable. But we move on to a question from Collette, and she has said, Amazing podcast! Yay! She said, I'm watching this morning,

and they are discussing the debate on whether women should get served smaller portions in restaurants. Now, this morning is a show in the UK. It's like our daytime TV show that everyone, I love it. I'm obsessed. She said, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

I'm currently a breastfeeding mum. I would dare them to give me a smaller push. We love that, Calais. Okay, so in case you guys missed it, we actually didn't do this headline on the show, but it was kind of in the running for it for a while. It was. This debate kicked off in December,

and essentially there was some comments made from Professor Navid Sartar, who's the chairman of the Obesity Healthcare Goals Program, which is the UK government's obesity initiative. And they're writing in the Lancet, and Sartar and their colleagues were suggesting that food outlets should routinely offer at least two portion sizes for common single portion ready to eat foods. And the proposal focused on items like pre-packaged sandwiches, ready meals, take away pizzas, lattes, cakes, with the two portion options differing by around 25%,

which would just reflect the average difference in energy requirements between men and women at population level. Essentially, what they're doing is the recommendation isn't about banning anyone from choosing larger portion, but it is, I think, the idea was to normalise a smaller default option. that's then cheaper and then would be more suitable for adults of shorter stature, they said, or children. I think the idea was to make it more inclusive rather than less, but I can see how this went really wrong. Yeah, so the suggestion does sit within wider public health concern, of course, about obesity.

We know it's on the rise. And while men are more likely to be classified as overweight, data interestingly from both the UK and the US does show that women are more likely to experience obesity. and that includes severe or morbid, and that's particularly in older age groups. And in the UK around 67% of men and 60% of women are class as overweight or obese overall. But obesity is obviously common in women. So I think researchers point to factors like higher average body fat percentage, hormonal changes across the life course. You know, so much happens to us.

Can I just say it's not easy. And there's pregnancy-related weight retention, which is a huge factor because when you have children, It's so much harder if you've put on more weight in pregnancy than a smaller amount in pregnancy for so many reasons. And women, I just don't think we're supported enough. But anyway, the public reaction to this proposal of meal portion sizes for gender was obviously divided. Some commentators saw it as practical and choice-based, Ella, and others strongly rejected the framing. Glammer mag, for example, responder with the headline, on behalf of women everywhere, hands off our portion sizes. Yeah, I really liked that headline.

Bree, what do you think? I don't like it because to me, you can't just put a gender on portion sizes. We're all different. It just makes no sense to me. Everyone's a different size and shape with different activity levels, with different requirements, with different needs, different stages of life course. I know you're going to have a tall woman who exercises loads and has a high energy need. And then you're going to have a small man with a desk-based job who hasn't sat down. It's not done anything all day.

It just makes no sense to me. Yeah. It's a gender thing that makes it make no sense. But I do understand the idea of having two sizes. Of course. For optionality and for days where you're having a super sedentary day and you're not that hungry but you want the same thing. And then you're not having food waste.

We know food waste is a massive problem. So that I'm all for anything for the environment sustainability. But I can see the counter argument that other people would say is that, you know, relationships of food, going out to eat shouldn't be about restriction. It's about just going out to enjoy the plenty. I'm more thinking about like a lunchtime sandwich that. Yeah, yeah.

That's just it. And I think that definitely could potentially be helpful. But it's just such a big issue, Ella. I mean, it stems to so many factors. And also, I think just as women, it's the glamour headline, isn't it? No. That's why we wanted to include it because it summarizes it. Let's pick on women again.

Yeah, I just think there's a desire for autonomy over body and to not be told what to do by anyone else, which I so respect. So I think I understand. and the premise of where this came from, which was the optionality, as I said, not like for, yeah, a lovely meal out, but for a quick on-the-go situation. People don't know still,

and that's what I know we both try and do on this podcast, and in all my books I put how to read labels, people don't know. So, you know, when you're buying things on the go, we're still not educated enough to make healthy choices to begin with, whether you're a man or a woman. And also, there aren't enough healthy choices

unless you want to get 12 pounds of 50 super Saturday that we talked about on Monday. Which we love, but wow, that's not an option. Yeah. So, Kila, I think I'm with you. I don't think women should be told what to do or what to eat. It should be very much a kind of autonomous decision. Do you want my one liner I've got at the bottom there?

Yeah, give it to us. True nutrition respects appetite. It doesn't degender it. That was my friend. It's true. It's true. And that's, you know, yeah, listening to yourself. But then you don't want to waste food if there's too much.

So do you know, food waste is a humongous issue in this country. It sickens me. It's a huge issue, yeah. particularly across the Western world, it's enormous. If food waste was a country, it would be the third largest admitter of greenhouse gases. I mean, it's a really big problem. So I understand it from that kind of perspective as they're saying for children, you know, they don't need as much. You know, if you've not done anything all day and you're not that hungry, could you get a smaller portion?

There's a lot of logic, but also practically speaking, if you're all pre-t or the equivalent. Buying on the go for children is a nightmare. There are no children-friendly-sized sandwiches and options that are anything other than ham or cheese. if you're eating at a restaurant for lunch or the evening with kids, the menu choices for children is just shocking. It's always chicken nuggets, always baked beans or fish fingers. Yeah, and therefore there is often lots of waste if you're then getting the adults because it's too big.

So I totally understand, but I also think there'd still be a lot of ways because of reality, if you take a pret or something like that and you try to do the same portion size and everything, it's almost impossible to think you'd have the right quantities of food. Exactly. I think it's probably more fricrous and complicated than it's worth. I don't think I... I mean, it's like with calories on menus, that didn't work.

I fixed the food on offer before I fix the portion size in terms of obesity. Let's just acknowledge the fact that we have a problem and then we can like move forwards. It's like crazy. Yeah, I think the fundamental problem stems from the fact that the vast majority of on-the-go options are really bad for us as opposed to the portion size. I think that's, again, it's sort of slightly moving the problem along the line as opposed to actually solving it. I'm so excited to tell you about my brand new cookbook, quick way. Healthy Cooking for Busy Lives. I wrote this one to make healthy cooking just simple when life is busy.

So you'll find fridge sappers, one pound wonders and batch cooks that you can turn into two easy meals. Plus, we have eight weeks of delicious meal plans to complete with shopping lists. So all the thinking's being done for you. Every recipe also gives you plant points to help you eat more plants. You can get your 30 plants a week. It'll all help you feel great and just make healthy cooking feel effortless again. So Quickwinds is out now wherever you get your books.

Ella, a question from Erin specifically for you here. She wants to hear a bit more about your meditation journey. I've heard so many good things about meditation, she said, and resetting the vagus nerve, and we did a feature on that the other week with our vagal tone. She said, but I don't know how to get started. Is it best to just download a headspace type app? Yeah, and we had another question from Courtney, who said, I've just had a baby 11 days ago.

Congratulations, Courtney. and I find myself sitting feeding in the quiet hours of the night and becoming very aware of how quickly I reached my phone in those moments. I felt the exact same way I get that. And I'd love to begin replacing that habit with something more grounding, even if I only briefly mentioned meditation and breathwork in the last podcast. And I wondered if you had any advice for a total novice. Oh, those days, Ella.

It's tough, Courtney, so sending you so much love. It does pass. I just want to add on very quickly. Well, I know we talk about being sleep deprived a lot, but it's a different type of sleep deprived to those newborn days. Definitely, definitely. Look, there's no one way to approach it and other people would give you all sorts of advice. I do think it doesn't need to be meditation and it doesn't need to be breathwork. It could be calming music. It could be having a bath and just staring out the window. If you can do that, it could be a walk without your phone. It could be knitting. It could be coloring. It could be painting. It could be building Lego. I think that we desperately need more calming activities that move us away from screens away from kind of adrenaline, stress, cortisol, you know, intensity of our lives and let us sit and be with ourselves for a moment. There is increasing evidence in terms of our

brains regulation and particularly emotional regulation that it's so incredibly important and in a kind of overstimulated, overstressed world, none of us have enough of that. And I think it's so easy when we look at health changes to think they have to be enormous and sweeping. But you probably most of us would find enormous benefit in literally a five minute breathing practice. And I think would say personally, meditation is just my personal opinion, a little bit more daunting and hard to kind of dip in and out of in terms of your normal day to day life. Because with meditation, you want to sit there and just really try and let the thoughts come and go and instill the mind as much as possible. So if you're not doing a guided one, you really would just sit there and just, you know, every time a thought,

comes in, you just let it go and you come back to your breath. The thing about breathwork that I think is so appealing, and there's so many apps and I'll give some wrecks for it, but is that it's really guided. And so it would be something like, I think I mentioned it the other day, box breathing. So you would breathe in for four counts, hold the breath for four counts, release it for four counts, and you can just keep cycling through that for like four or five minutes and you will really, really calm your nervous system down. And the beauty of that is you can do it on the bus. You can do it on the train.

Like you can do it, you know, literally for five minutes when you wake up in the morning. I think it's more accessible personally and because it tends to be guided. I actually don't love Headspace. It's just a personal preference. I don't love their practices. I've tried lots of them. I've tried a new app recently that I really rate, which is called Open. They've got some great lots of short like six minute practices.

What about calm? Is that a good one? It's one called calm. I much prefer this one. I have to say the delicious yellow app, if you've got it, obviously it's got amazing recipes on there, but it has fantastic breath work as well. There's amazing...

Does Cordelia do that? Yeah, Cordelia, Rebecca, James. They are all fantastic. I've been using those for years. Personally, I would start with one of the two of those. I prefer them to Carmel Headspace, but they're kind of bigger players. But yeah, I just think that there's, you know,

there is so much benefit, you know, fundamentally to these breathwork or meditative or mindful type practices. You know, calming your nervous system obviously. So that slow intentional breathing really can activate your parasympathetic, your rest and digest state, which lowers your heart rate, your cortisol. It's great for building stress, resilience. So you can start to feel calm rather than constantly wired. Great for mental health and focus. So regular practices are linked to reduce symptoms and anxiety, improve emotional regulation, better attention span, but also great for physical health too, because obviously we know chronic stress has a really detrimental impact on the body. So just finding practices that really

help. So yeah, I would say I would start with breathwork if it was me, not meditation, because it's so guided and it can be so sure. And you literally just follow instructions to calm your breathing, which is, I think, quite accessible. And as I said, oh, it's very accessible. You know, you can do it on the train, you can do it on the bus. It's getting into the habit, I think. So it's so helpful. Ella, thank you, because I feel a lot of the time we turn to these practices when we're in dire need of them. And what's actually really good is trying to reframe it to be preventative. Yeah, and even if you just get up five minutes early and do it first thing in the morning, it's such a teeny slither of your day that it's worth it. Or in bed at night, before you go to sleep, just sit there and do it.

Yeah. So I actually, someone, our listener, put on the Spotify comments that the red masks, we shouldn't be doing things while we're wearing it because it's bad for your eyesight. I didn't know that. So thank you to that listener that wrote that in because now I close my eyes and I would do my breathing. There you go, exactly. And I think it's so important. And now we have a different type of question from Annie and Ibiza.

I know. I wish we were in Ibiza with you, Annie. Annie has said, I love your podcast, so thanks, Annie, and all the useful insights, especially as they're all realistic and out to earth. I enjoy the dark chocolate reviews as I love dark chocolate. Annie, we're so with you. My only thought was that sometimes dark chocolate can be high in the heavy metal cadmium.

what's the likelihood of this and what's the impact of just consuming a moderate amount? There are quite a lot of headlines on this kind of thing of heavy metals and dark chocolate. It was lead and we'll cover it. Dispell it for us, memory. Yeah, but this one, Cadmim, it's, so we all, dark chocolate does contain small components of this

because, you know, they're naturally occurring metals that are found in the soil that these cacao plants absorb, particularly in certain growing regions. So it doesn't add, you know, we're not adding it to it. Like you add salt or sugar to it, recipe, it's natural. And while dark chocolate can contain more than milk chocolate, that's purely just because it's got a higher percentage of cocoa. For most people, the risk from eating is actually really low. And I think a lot of health concerns relate to, as with everything in

Leifela, excessive consumption. So I'm trying to obviously make dark chocolate part of, I mean, it's part of my everyday life, but I'm not having five bars. I'm having a few cubes. And I really think that moderation is the key here in these headlines. You know, it's like, you know, high intakes can be found in tons of different foods, you know, bread, potatoes, cereals, all can have traces of things. And I think having a small amount of dark chocolate a few times a week is just not harmful. And when you balance it with the fact that you're enjoying those polyphenols, which are like antioxidants, which are good for us, I think it's okay. But let me give you a bit of research that I found. So the larger sampling study was in 2000.

And it was published in Food Research International and it analyzed over 155 dark and milk chocolates from global brands. And it tested for more than 16 metals, including cadmium. And when modeling the risk of consuming about one ounce, so that's like two chocolate bars a week, it found that only one of those brands exceeded the kind of limit for the metals. And only four bars had cadmium levels that could pose risk to young children. So it's about how much you consume. and for adults, you know, the research has concluded that just eating an ounce doesn't pose any health risk. And I think this stems back to when we were scared about lead, Ella.

Yes, because that's often associated with dark chocolate as well. Because, again, it's just a trace. You know, it's from the plant's environment. But, you know, evidence does suggest, you know, we just have to enjoy things in moderation. And I would say it's very difficult to eat a large amount of this dark chocolate. It's very bitter. It's not got the amount of sugar to make you come back to give you that. type of dopamine hit. I think we're also, and I'm not saying any you are by any means, but just

generally the process. I think it's that sense of a little bit like what we talked about the end of Monday's episode, this over-optimization. Like if we start worrying that, you know, our two squares of delicious non-UPF, no emulsifier dark chocolate are problematic when we've switched to that instead of having your like conventional, very UPS filled. Flavored chocolate. Yeah, or like confectionery and things like that. I think we're over worrying at that point. I a thousand percent agree. So I really hope that's given you a bit of reassurance that, you know, headlines love a headline. And that's really what it is here. And the next question is also similar to how we all view wellness. And it's from Sheza. She said, I love your podcast. And you've made such a difference to how I view

wellness. I have a question about honey. She said I clicked on an advert for wellness honey the other day, claiming to have different health benefits. And she's listed a few here like sleep and immunity. I mean, it sounds quite miraculous. So I use honey quite a lot instead of sugar. And I have two questions. Okay, so Ella, the first question is, is honey any better feed than sugar?

And the second question is, is there any benefit to spending more on honey with added stuff like the immunity? Or have I been come by the wellness world again? And Ellie, you've got response from another listener there too. Who said it would be helpful also to do a honey versus maple syrup versus sugar and understand it all. Yeah, 100%.

I mean, Ella and I both love maple syrup. But for me... I love honey. Do you love honey as well? I prefer honey. I love honey. I do, but my choices are guided by ethics and sustainability. You know, I'm really passionate about animal welfare.

So I only buy, because I am a wellness snob and a privileged nutritionist, I only buy expensive manuka honey because I know it's the only one with health benefits. but it is so expensive. It is to work for the company. You got it to be monofluural. You don't want bees going to multiple flowers. And actually, there is a huge hierarchy of difference in honey. It's almost a question in and of itself, just debunking honey.

Because unfortunately, as is often the case, premium honeies, local honeies. They can have health benefits. You know, honey is not the same in that sense of sugar. When you're talking about very mass cheap supermarket honey, supermarket honey, immunity boosts, like that in itself is a like the chewing gum that we saw with that added zinc. It's just pointless. Sinanity. If you're low on zinc, you need a high quality zinc supplement.

Yeah. Yeah. So refined honey in the plastic, squeezy bottles, not good, guys. Not good for the bees often. Not good for their welfare. No benefits, nutritionally speaking, whatsoever because it's so highly refined and processed. But that's not the same as like a local farm shop. No.

In a jar that you buy local. that they look after the bees and actually there's some research that that can support allergies and things like hay fever if you get local honey depending on the time of year and the environment and where you consume it and then manuka honey has this

methyl glyoxyl rating you'll see MGO on every jar and you want a high number like 250 300 plus because that's antimicrobial and it's really if you feel like your throat's getting a bit itchy you're meant to have a teaspoon of it often I have it when I feel run down

or I know a cold's coming and touch wood on the table in front of us. It does seem to work for me. So I would say bees are so crucial. We wouldn't have fruit without bees. We wouldn't have a lot of the vegetables. We pollination flowers. Bees are responsible for such a large infrastructure on this planet. The ecosystem, they're in decline and it's really scary.

So I cook with maple syrup a lot for ethical reasons. And then I consume manuka because I'm in a privileged position to do that. I would never cook with nice honey. I use it as like a little drizzle. I had it my chair pudding. Yum. Or a little bit on toes. You respect it.

You respect the amount of work because one bead to consume or to create a honey. Like it's just insane. Should we go into the difference between what it does? Yeah. So to answer it so far, high quality honey, yes, can be beneficial. But it's worth kind of enjoying it and using it for what it is as opposed to kind of using huge quantities in a oat bar that you're cooking or something like that. Don't be sucked in by like immunity honey, sleep honey, etc. I think that is probably a con of the world of wellness,

your point, Chesa. And then to look at honey versus maple versus sugar, give us the overview there. Yeah, it's still sugar and I know it can be really tempted to say, well, I'm making my brownies with honey, not with cane sugar. It's still going to have the same impact on your blood sugar levels. and this is because of the molecules themselves. So sucrose, which is the scientific name for sugar, is made up of two little molecules together. You've got glucose, which you've probably heard of from carbs, fructose, think fruit. You've heard of from fruit.

And when we digest these, just I'm really simplifying it down. I tried to do this in the brief. You split it into two components. So glucose is what we work insulin with in our body. You've probably heard a lot from certain names online that are causing a lot of problems actually in that department. but with blood sugar spikes and glucose goes straight, it's an available source of energy straight around our body.

Insulin helps get that energy into our cells, whereas fructose goes to our liver, and that's where it's metabolized, and that's where it's processed very differently. Now, honey can contain a very similar ratio of fructose and glucose, and that's when it acts in pretty much the same way in the body as just your average cane sugar. So they're both the same in terms of blood sugar responses,

But there's other types of syrups in the US that we don't have here that, you know. Friktose corn syrup. Yeah. And agave syrup is marketed as healthy here. It's awful. I think like it's got like. Because it's all fructose, right? All fructose.

Isn't it insane? So it's such a load on your liver. And people market it as this healthy addition to things. So basically all sugar is sugar. And I would make the choice on ethics and quality when it comes to your choice of sugar rather than thinking it's healthy for me. But something that's primarily for. fructose is worse. Way worse. Oh my goodness. I would say honey is still a better choice.

Sorry if I didn't explain that very well. Over agave syrup. And obviously high fructose corn syrup isn't really a thing here in the UK. But I know in the States for anyone listening, you probably do have a lot more of it. Yeah, and best avoided if possible. Agree. So let's move away from the individual ingredients to meals, Ella. Yes. Okay. Emily says, hi, I love your podcast and have not missed an episode. Love that. I've seen lots of talk about the concept of eating just one meal a day, sometimes stretched to two meals a day.

What are your thoughts on that? Tell me your thoughts. She knows. I know what she's going to say. Do you remember that? I remember these books coming out, one meal a day books. It was the Twitter guy, Jack Dorsey, I think, is his name, who's a big advocate of it as well.

It was a Silicon Valley trend, gosh, many years ago as well. And so I think there was the, like, super successful people do this, so we should all do it. I mean, you can't hit 30 grams of fibre in one meal a day. Well, and then it's all about fasting and intermittent fasting because you're then having like a what, 22, 23 hour fast every day. But as we've debunked fasting quite a lot and there is some interesting science behind fasting, absolutely. Sarah Berry and I, we discussed that in it. Totally, but it's not universal.

And for the vast majority of people, that would be way too long. Yeah, there's no best fasting pattern. We're all unique. You have to find what works for you. For instance, Ella sat here of her cheer pudding. my stomach was rumbling so loudly. I had to stop and eat a banana because I was just, and I've had breakfast this morning. That's my metabolism. It's it's what we need each day to function really, really well. And you've got to think of those goals that we've got for your, for your

digestion, one meal a day, for some people might be fine, but for the majority of us, you're going to get constipated. But it's going to have to be an enormous meal. I mean, we know, we always say like, so few people are deficient in protein, you know, you get enough protein. But like, you'd still be having to then get like 50 or 60 grams of protein in a single meal, 30 grams of fiber in a single meal, five portions of vegetables. It makes no sense. It just makes no sense. So if you're going to eat such a big meal, isn't it? Yeah. Also, your gut bugs, I talk about this sometimes. You know, they have their own circadian rhythm, don't they? So they work when we're awake. They do different things when we sleep. You've got this one amazing strain called Acomencia, which comes out like a

garbage bin and helps clear away things in our gut lining. And they've all got a job to do. And if you suddenly start eating one meal a day, you're going to make their lives very difficult. Yeah, I mean, and I think again, like with the busyness of most people's lives, I think this will probably add more stress on your body than last. And when do you do it? Think of the joy in your everyday life. So I don't have time to sit in the middle of the day and have this massive, epic, every nutritional need meal every single day in the middle of my working day. I think you'd then just need a lot of supplements, wouldn't you? I know. And then you'd be like, oh, Ella, do you want to try this? It's delicious. So I'd be like, oh, no, I don't eat for 23 hours a day.

Oh my gosh. Sorry. So, it's awesome. Yeah, no. I'm. We're not fans of that one. No. Thank you for bringing that up. And what, again, just to come back to, we've talked to us a lot this week, I think. This is all about finding the, you know, balance between eating well, living a healthy lifestyle and enjoying your life. Joy, joy. And ultimately, like, I just don't think one meal a day gets that balance correct.

Not in any shape or form. Your fifth pillar of health is now a wellness scoop. We need to bring back. Yeah, in the sense of, like, balance and connection. Yeah. and joy. Totally. So no.

No. So our next question, last question actually today is quite a big one. It's from Kate. She said, my husband and I are plant-based eaters at home and will occasionally eat vegetarian food if we're out with friends and family or at their houses. We have been meat and fish eaters in the past and transitioned to our current diet a few years ago. We're expecting our first child in February and we would love to bring up our child on a similar diet. I plan to use Ella's How to Go Plant-Based Book to help. However, I'm concerned about not exposing our child to alter any meat or fish during weaning and childhood.

And would this create intolerances or promote fussy eating, as I would ultimately want our child to be flexible and have choice if they're going to a friend's house to eat. I would be really interested to hear your thoughts, given you both have young children. Look, first of all, congratulations, Kate. Congratulations to you both. It's such an individual choice. I don't think anyone can tell anyone the right way to do it. you know, life changes at herbs and flows, you might change your mind, they might change their mind. Personally, the way, and you know, we can speak to whether or not that could create any intolerances, for me, our approach with our children, they're vegetarian. But I have always said to them, it's entirely your decision.

When you grow up, you don't need to be vegetarian. You know, you've got complete autonomy over the way you eat. That's good. One of them's curious to explore not being vegetarian. That's great. It's completely her decision. And I really respect it. And for me, I think that flexibility is important to create this sense of like nothing being good or bad, not feeling restricted.

You know, we will obviously eat loads of lentils and chickpeas at home because that's clearly how I like to cook and I do the cooking. She makes a good doll. You know, yeah, lots of black bean chilies or whatever it is. But if she wants those four other things, that's great. And for me, I think it's really important to give that flexibility. I know there'll be people who disagree with me on that. The only allergy concern is shellfish. You know, I don't think you need to be concerned or worried about intolerances here.

I didn't introduce meat to my children weaning. It's not a common allergy or response. It's true that lack of exposure to certain foods can increase your risk of something. I mean, that's been shown in a study, the leap study. Yes, it's come to my head. It's always a moment of, oh, it's called the leap study. And it looked at exposure to peanut allergies earlier on in infancy in life. but I don't think you need to worry

like I said apart from shellfish and it's up to you as parents what you want to do there introducing it or not introducing it to be honest the key allergens when you're weaning are things like egg, dairy nuts obviously seeds and you kind of go through the list

and you do it you put like tiny little pin drop amounts in a regular item that they're fine with when you're testing them it is up to you and you'll find that interestingly kids have their own brain much earlier than you think I mean, Ella and I discuss this all the time, the things they come out with, the beliefs.

And I often find it's helpful to have this is what we do when we're at home. But when we go out for a meal or like you said to a friend's house, it looks like you've got a lovely approach there, we are flexible and they will witness it with you. And that's probably the behavior they'll model and learn. But you never know they can go rogue. Totally. And I think that flexibility is really, for me, that was really important for them to feel like they weren't different from anyone else. They can join in with everything at the birthday. party and things that was super important

because we want to create any complexes or any kind of morality when it came to food. I also am now like super liberal with you know the rule in our house is if you eat real food as in you sit down and you eat your bean chili at the table that of course you can have treats and it's not

about kind of really trying to micromanage it. We have sweeties in the house there's a couple of open packets and a couple of all time. We're daily chocolate eaters. But interestingly they know they're there, they're not that bothered by it because they don't feel it's a restricted item and I would say that's one of my big learnings is whenever something feels like a restricted item where you talk about this a lot it can create quite a big deal and so for me it has

been like let's ground the way we eat in a family in real food this 80-20 type rule and if we can eat like that you're welcome to enjoy whatever else you want to enjoy it's yours to choose what you add on obviously within reason yeah 100% I actually find the biggest challenge is things like fizzy drinks and things and kids parties that you'll find you don't need to worry about that during weaning but mine know what celebration foods are. So this might sound outrageous, but I let my kids have like no sacko sometimes when we're having a roast at the weekend. I let them have little bits of things you'd probably think, oh my goodness, she actually lets her kids have that. Because like Ella just said, I know if you restrict things and you paint them out to be good or bad, that's where the

problems come. It is difficult. And, you know, I have different beliefs around foods to, and I don't want to impose them onto my children. But I am clear with education. I tell them where food's from. Totally. I'll tell them a chicken is from a chicken. And I think sitting down and eating together when obviously, not when you've got an infant, but like that and showing to eat meals together and to try new things, it's super important. So key. And one thing I wish I'd done more of, weaning, because I didn't, in lockdown and my first baby, I didn't really know, but I wish I'd just blended up more of what we were having for dinner rather than making all these fancy extra of things. It would have probably, you know, in the start it's great to all these beautiful

coloured weaning palette things with, I did veg first approach. But it's a lot of pressure. It is a lot of pressure. And actually what I should have done sometimes is just blend up my dinner. Yeah. And I should have done that like my mum probably used to do. I love that. I know. There you go. What a nice way to end. With everything in life, you've got to find the approach that suits you, your family and all the things you've got going on. But thank you guys for listening. We will be back here on Monday. There is so much to talk about. As we said, you can email ask any questions for next week's episode hello at wellness hyphen scoop.com thank you everybody we can't wait to get your emails have a great day bye