The Wellness Scoop - Are Smoothies Really Healthy? Processed Meat Risks & Lunchbox Upgrades

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

Are smoothies actually as healthy as we think? This week, we’re clearing up the confusion around blending fruit, what happens to the fibre and how smoothies compare with eating whole fruit. We also look at whether organic processed meat is any better, share easy ways to make tofu genuinely delicious and tackle the eternal workday question: what can I actually take for lunch? Plus, does batch cooking reduce the nutrients in your vegetables, and is a quick stir-fry really better than a slow-cooked stew? Please sign and share the petition to stop Krill farming for supplements: http://act.our-antarctica.com/ Ella’s recipe: Mushroom and coconut Noodle bowls  4 tablespoons olive oil 1 × block of firm tofu (about 300g), drained and cut into bite-sized pieces 3 shallots, finely sliced 2 garlic cloves, grated or crushed Small chunk of ginger (about 15g/2cm), peeled and grated 200g mixed mushrooms (use shiitake mushrooms if you can find them), sliced 3 tablespoons brown rice miso paste 1 × 400ml tin of coconut milk 500ml hot vegetable stock 2 servings of udon noodles (about 50g per person) 3 large handfuls of baby spinach (about 150g) Grated zest and juice of 1–2 limes Sea salt and black pepper Warm 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large frying pan set over a medium–high heat. Add the tofu and cook for 10–12 minutes, turning every 2 minutes or so, until crisp and golden all over. Remove from the pan and set aside on some kitchen paper. While the tofu is cooking, set a large saucepan or wok over a medium–high heat and add the remaining oil. Add the shallots, garlic, ginger and mushrooms and cook for 8–10 minutes, stirring often, until softened and fragrant. Next, whisk in the miso, coconut milk and vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Add the noodles, cover with a lid and cook for 8–10 minutes or until the noodles are just cooked. Stir through the spinach and tofu, then divide the between bowls, add the lime juice and scatter over the zest Enjoy! Get your copy of Rhi's book on how to build a lunch box, HERE The Way 30-day trail: https://www.thewayapp.com/wellnessscoop Send your questions for our weekly Q&A to ⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠ 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 Pre-order your copy of Rhiannon's brand-new cook book for kids: ⁠⁠'Ready, Set, Cook!' ⁠ Sign up to Rhitrition+ HERE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Wellness Scoop, your twice weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. With the two of us, I'm Ella Mills. And I'm Rihanna Labbert. And in today's Extra Scoop, we go through all of your recommendations, listener questions, and what we've been up to and what we've been trying out as well. So let's do it. As always, I feel like we read what's coming up in these shows, and then we talk about literally everything under the sun.

But here's a little taster. White might be coming up today. we eat us to it. We do. So it is a taster, but there's plenty more. We promise. Our smoothie is really healthy. Does blending fruit destroy the fibre? And we've gone on also to discuss organic processed meat. Is that perhaps any better? How to make tofu taste good. Easy, healthy lunchbox upgrades and do leftovers then lose their nutrients? What about stir fried versus slow cooked veg and how to break into a career in nutrition? It's all there. There is so much to get into. So let's get started. But Rhee, have you got any recommendations for us? What do we

need? She says seeing my humongous feel on the document. Okay. I mean, I feel like she's all like eight pages of recommendations for us to know. It's only because one of them is particularly heavy. So the first one is that I guess I'm sort of off work now. So I'm navigating that which is obviously I'm not off work. I'm self-employed. But being 38 weeks pregnant is yeah, it's heavy. And then I'm really excited because Carly's new book. I know that she's kind of similar to, I'd say what Ella does here in the UK, Carly Bodrug. She's called Plant U on socials. She's huge and she's got a book called Quickies. So, you know, we've got a book there that I think will also do very well and I love it. And then we've got where I need your help. And this is where my spiel starts. So are you ready?

Okay. Go. Raise yourselves. We've had a quick book wreck. We've had a little life update. this is actually really important and I need your help and it is a petition to end krill farming for supplements. Now we've been speaking a lot on the Wellness Scoop about Omega-3 and there are lots of supplements that we sell in the UK that are made from krill. Now they're the tiny crustaceans that live in the ocean around Antarctica but they are the food and the entire ecosystem

that whales need to survive many creatures, penguin seals, sea birds, And almost similar to what happened with macro, which we discussed last week, we have overfarmed krill. And also, I don't know how legal this process actually is in Antarctica. There's lots of dubious points around this that I'm not an expert in. But you don't need krill to get omega-3. In fact, the omega-3 in krill actually still comes from the algae they eat. So Ella and I are also trying to say, let's try and get a plant-based supplement if we can,

or know where our omega-3 comes from. But we have a huge, huge issue here, and it's something else that almost nobody knows is that krill also helps lock away carbon. So around 20 million tons a year, as much as mangroves and seagrass. So what we're doing, it's almost similar to what's happening

in the Amazon rainforest that everybody's aware of is that we're removing at a rapid rate from the ocean, something that's helping protect our planet. it's really interesting and there is a petition that you can sign to look and look at the conservation basically of Antarctic marine living and boycott krill pills and it's something I'm a little bit passionate about and I really wanted to share and I will put the petition link in the bio I hope that I've kept that as it's a heavy subject but as lighthearted as possible just to say that we have a choice as consumers and if you see krill it's probably

not the best sustainable choice. Yeah, exactly. And whilst we are not ones for like pushing anyone to do any one thing with dire, I do think omega-3 supplements, if you can do a plant-based one, I think that is the way to go. Rhee, have you got any other recommendations, anything else we need in our life, anything you're enjoying? Oh, I started. So I've done a book. I've done where I'm up to.

I've done my petition. And I started last night. I mean, yeah, you weren't light on things. Sorry. No, it's fine. It's just in case you heard more. No, there's this one other thing. It was really interesting.

I started watching The War Game. I don't know why my TV choices are so obscure all of a sudden. Is that the Sienna Miller one? That's what I thought it was. So, true story. Oh, no, I think that might just be called The War or War. So I'd logged on thinking that's what it was of my now TV subscription, which I have thanks to the Wellman Scoop anyway last year.

So I logged on thinking, oh, I've heard about this. I want to watch it. It wasn't that at all. it was ex-politicians you've got everybody there in a room in a cobra situation half acting half responding like they would do in real life it's the strangest reality TV concept I saw an ad to that with Nicola Sturgeon yes I saw an ad it looks very weird I couldn't figure it out for the life for me I think you need to stop watching like end of the world scenario so I think this is like I feel like we have to call time on it for you I can't help that it's trending and

number one. I did also watch the Gemma Collins documentary, which was also actually, it was really sad and Gemma spoke a lot about her infertility and yeah, I feel my recommendations are a bit all over the shop this week. Ella, what about you? I think I mentioned this ages ago right at the beginning of the show. I love the show Ted Lassow. The new season is out at the moment. It's on Apple. And I'm going to be honest, it's not as strong as the previous ones. But I'm are really enjoying it. Like I've watched an episode. We watched an episode last night. It's just like, it's just feel good TV. And ultimately, like, I like that. It's like a warm and fuzzy. And I like the emotional intelligence of the characters. And I like that they're funny and imperfect.

And I really want to watch the new Colin from accounts because I watched the first few seasons. I haven't watched the new one which just come out on high player. So I'm excited about that. So maybe I can tell you about that once I started watching it. My husband's not that keen. But I, apparently, it's hilarious. It's hard when the husband's not keen on something that you want to watch. We have this constant, usually it's him wanting to watch thrillers in our house and I want to watch like a Disney-esque thing or like you said, warm and fuzzy. That's really the thing. And it does cause a bit of a divide. How do you navigate that at home? I normally have my own show going on on the side and then things that we watch together. So watching Ted Lassow together, we just watch

the gentlemen together. But then I'll watch something that are like, I don't know, watch sometimes when I'm commuting or like I'll watch it sometimes like when I'm making dinner or you know kind of like doing like chores or walking the dogs and things or not walking the dogs more that's a podcast but more when yeah if I'm like doing chores around the house or if I have like a bath so I'd be worked through those quite slowly unless it's off campus in which case I stay up when I and binge them but I've been doing I've been watching this for so long tell me lies yeah I know you're nearly for it I know I was hooked when I watched it the problem is guys hear me out on this I'm like I'm so far through I'm at the beginning of season three now.

And I have been watching it for a couple of months. So I have to finish. And I do, because I keep showing you the end, it kind of starts at the end at the wedding. And you see that in episode one, but you don't know what's going on. And I'm like, I've got to get all the answers now. Like, I need to see how the jigsaw puzzle comes together.

But the characters are so psychotic and so unpleasant. And I don't like spending time with them. But I can't stop because I need to know. My husband couldn't continue to watch it because the Stephen character, he found it so uncomfortable. He was like, I find this person. He's so unpleasant. Yeah, like obviously an amazing actor because he's really portrayed that and he's really encapsulated it. It's also quite, it is the like the subtle control that people with these different personality disorders can wield.

And that narcissistic and very coercive control, it's a very sensitive and difficult topic. and he does portray it absolutely brilliantly. Anyway, so I'm still watching that. I don't recommend it though. Don't start it because when you start it, you will want to finish it, but the characters are so unpleasant. You're not going to want to spend that much time with them.

Well, just on the flip side to that, Alexandra on our Spotify comments said, can you imagine sitting on the edge of your seat over a restaurant drama? You should watch Bear on Disney Plus. Okay, so it's so funny you say that because we started watching Bear when we still had a restaurant And we were just like, no, no, uh-uh, can't do it. This is, we're so stressed.

It's too close to home. No way. It was too stressful for me, but maybe I could try it again with a different mindset today. But that's what my husband says that the reason. Hospitality is hell. Any hospitality show, I know this is so generic and it shows my naivety to the subject completely. Reminds me of Gordon's Hell Kitchen or something. Obviously not everyone's screaming and shouting at everybody, but it just the stress of

the margins and the time and all of it. You know, I used to have such a crush on Gordon Ramsey when I was younger. Is that something you want to share on the podcast right now? Ella, this could be a newspaper headline. Deliciously Ella admits crush on Gordon Ramsey. You've done it. You've said it. I've done it.

I'm good to do it or take it back. It's such a weird crush. Sorry. Anyway, but I used to love that show. But didn't I shout out his documentary on him setting up his new restaurant? I watched, I think I did last year. It was very good. He's very entrepreneurial. I haven't watched it. I don't still have a crush. This was quite a long time. Are you sure? Okay. I'm blushing. Okay. We have two recommendations before I really embarrass myself for you guys. Rosalind says we should listen to the Imperfects podcast. It explores some wonderful wellness themes. It's another great lesson. And one of the hosts has also set up something called the Resilience Project in Australia, which is just amazing work. at the Google if you don't know about it. So we're going to have to Google it.

And then we have one recommendation from Rebecca. On a recent episode, you mentioned you enjoy watching Little House on the Prairie on Netflix, and it reminded me of a book I loved as a child that's called Sarah Plain and Tall by Patricia McLaughlin. And if you love Little House on the Prairie, you'll love this too. There's five books in the series and it's suitable for ages six and up. Thank you very much. I love Little House on the Prairie so much, so I think I need to do that.

We're going to absolutely love the beginning of this question from Lucy in Sheffield. Lucy, you've got us down to a tea. She said, I love the all both intelligent women and also talk about trash TV so much. Because I also like, I'm here being like, can't waste the new season of the Kardashians to come back. And anyway, I do love all that stuff. She says, you teach us life as about balance. Can I just say, I'm not saying you have to enjoy the Kardashians or have a crush of Gordon Ramsey or any of the rest of it. But I do think life is about balance and wellness gets way too serious. Like people take health and wellness. I personally think like way too seriously.

Like it's a full time job. It's really not. It shouldn't be a full time job. It should be fun. It should be quite jovial. It should be lighthearted. It should be just like, what should we cook for supper tonight? And I do actually think like, you know, you don't have to take the life too seriously.

And I think we probably all sometimes take life too seriously. Just to reiterate on that, I feel my whole career as well, I've been very conflicted on how much of your actual personality you show or you let shine through because as a woman in science, it can, or I felt, it probably still do that people don't take you seriously if you're an upbeat, happy, positive person. It's a very interesting drive. It's almost as if you're expected to be immensely serious 100% of the time. And I actually, for fun, was singing Colors of the Wind, Pocahontas song, little Disney thing on my personal song. And I literally said on my little personal re-page, I said,

the environment, the message that this song has about loving the earth that we have should be listened to you by everybody. And do you know what, Ella? I got lovely messages, but also I got trolled by people saying that I'm bringing up political situations in the world and I'm just singing a Blumen Disney song. So we appreciate Lucy your comment. I agree. And thank you for thinking you're intelligent even how much we love talking about trash TV. Okay. So Lucy has then said, this is a real question. You've both helped me so much to have a healthy relationship with food. I've gone from demonising many foods, including fruit. Hooray, it's in the or not demonising, and emulsifies in my soy milk to being much less anxious, and I'm so much happier for it.

You are both a much love and appreciated part of my life. Thank you, Lucy. I'm a vegetarian, I eat mostly plant base. I do sometimes eat eggs and cheese, but I want to limit them for ethical and environmental reasons. I really would like to eat more tofu. I like tempe, and often add it to dalton my protein and a fermented food. But what else can I do with tofu? It doesn't matter what I do. It always tastes like plain tofu. It's so boring.

Well, Ella, I think you are the guru of making food that otherwise appears boring. Taste super duper delicious. So give us your kind of top three ways, perhaps, that you like to cook tofu. Because, in fact, I was doing it of my little one, and I'll start with my only one rec, which is very simply just olive oil, pinch of salt, pinch of cumin or paprika, and then you roast it in the oven. And that tastes really lovely. Ella, three tofu recipes.

I mean, ultimately, look, there's so many different ways to do it. And I totally understand we did actually talk about this the other day, but when we were myth-busting tofu, tofu is really, really hard to cook. One recipe I'm really liking at the moment, this was actually for my second to last cookbook, Healthy Made Simple, but you basically do this, like, spicy tofu bowl with a crunchy slaw. So for your store, you've got like cabbage, cucumber, carrots. You know, you could use any veg you like in there. And then you do this Horissa peanut dressings.

You've got lime, lime zest, garlic, harissa, soy, peanut, olive oil. So you mix that all together. And then the tofu is so simple. I would say when the keys are doing tofu, so you cut it up, and then you do want to, you want to pat it dry, like just using either teetow or kitchen roll. And then just let it sit for just a few minutes to help the excess liquid get removed. pop a pan on a high heat I do think you want to kind of

over oil personally pop the cubes of tofu in there and then just fry them up five to eight minutes until they're really golden on the outside and then that's when you add the dressing so then pour the dressing in so this would be your Herissa peanut dressing you use kind of say half of it on the salad

half on the tofu and then you fry it up until it's really coated and that will take like two minutes so that's the kind of thing I do a lot and I would do it yes I said I'm quite into it with the slur at the moment but also absolutely delicious with noodles or fried rice, for example. I know lots of people don't like it. I quite like scrambled tofu as well.

Do you know that I associate that as, again, a very 2015 wellnessy thing. It is. Yeah. But then I did it the other day and I was like, it's actually so nice. So you just drain your tofu. You could actually use a silken or a firm. I prefer a firm one personally because it's a bit chunkier and heartier. And then you're going to literally like with your hands combine, like,

crumble up the tofu. Again, I would add a bit of harissa here, a bit of turmeric for a bit of colour, a bit of maple sea salt. Crumble the tofu, mix it all together. And then you literally just cook it for like five minutes, kind of like a scrambled egg, kind of stirring it until it's really hot. You can add a bit of spinach at the end for colour, which is absolutely lovely. And then load that up onto sourdough with some avocado, a bit of extra harissa or chili oil on the top. I also quite like doing, I said, I think the other day, like quite thinly sliced. just a centimeter or two of canned fried tofu. Yeah.

And you can do that in sandwiches. I've been doing it with like a herb of yogurt. So you could do just a plain yogurt, coconut or Greek yogurt type thing. And you do that with a bit of fresh herbs, like coriander or basil, a little bit of lemon, a little bit of olive oil, some thinly sized cucumber. That's absolutely delicious. So, I mean, there's so many different ways you can do it. You can pop it in a curry as well. Like you can pan fry it and have it in a kind of.

pokey type bowl. You can steam it over noodles and you know if you were doing say like a tahini dressing with maple, lemon, lime, chili over noodles. You could steam the tofu for five minutes and toss it through the noodles with the dressing with lots of spring onions and chili lime juice for example. What would be, I mean out of those three pick your favorite one and let's put the whole recipe in the show notes. So what would be out of those three? Because They're all quite different. What should people try first? Okay, actually I'll tell you the one to try first.

If we're going to try one, we'll put this one in, which is because obviously if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, and I know the majority of our listeners are these mushroom needle bowls with tofu that I'm obsessed with where you do this like coconut milk broth with noodles, mushrooms, some greens and pan-fried tofu. It is so yummy. It's so easy. It's like a 30-minute meal.

It really is like super simple. I know you will come back to it time and time. again, I will put that in the show notes. Needed. And actually now, that's what I'm going to make the kids for dinner. I'll do like a noodle tofu broth. I will put it in the show notes. Thank you.

And I will text it to me. Advertising on Spotify puts your brand in the moments where Gen Z fandom takes shape. They're 35% of our audience and spend two hours building rituals and shaping culture with every stream. Download the Culture Next report to discover trends and insights that will inspire your next campaign. We've talked about the world. meditation app a few times now because we're obsessed. And I've just looked at my stats and I'm on over 3,800 minutes of meditation with them so far this year. I've actually done it almost every single day for six months now, normally 20 minutes a day. And I cannot tell you the difference it's made to my life.

I just feel this amazing sense of inner calm, even when life is chaotic. And I don't think I've ever had that before. I feel less reactive, more grounded and just more peaceful in myself. it's become one of the most important, unmistable parts of my day. It really is. And now you've finally got me onto it too. And I started using it because I wanted something to help me unwind at the end of the day. So I've actually been doing the meditations before bed when I'm finding it hard to switch off. And it's really helping me get to sleep.

So it's become a nice way to shut down at the end of the day. Yeah. And you guys seem to be loving it too because as a community you've now done over a quarter of a million minutes a meditation on the way, which is just incredible. And I think you're loving what I love and relives, which is how simple it is. You don't choose between hundreds of meditation and keep scrolling.

You just do one after the next. You follow the path, each one led by the same person, the founder, Henry. Exactly. You just literally open the app, press play and do the next one. And I think it's the whole simplicity, which is a huge part of why I've actually managed to stick with this

every single day. Yeah. So if you haven't tried it yet and you've been wanting to get into meditation to help you with, overwhelmed sleep or just finding a slice of peace and calm in the day. You get a 30-day free trial with us. You just go to the wayapp.com forward slash wellness scoop. Yes, that's the wayapp.com forward slash wellness scoop. Our next question is a mix of two from Stephanie over in Munich. She has said,

when you blend fruits and vegetables, is it right that the fibres then lost? So it's much better to eat the whole fruit or vegetable. And her second question is on processed meat. She said it's proved to be carcinogenic, but is this also the case with organic processed meat like salami? If I understand it correctly, it's more about the preservatives and additional ingredients which are usually forbidden in organic food. Okay, Ella, let's start with the first question on blending fruit and veg. You tell me, Ray, does it make any difference? And we're talking about when you do it at home. We're not talking about store-bought smoothies, right?

We're talking about when we do this at home. Yeah, I mean, the fibre doesn't disappear. I think we have to really think logically that, of course, when you cut things up and cook things or process things, they do change to a certain degree. But, you know, it doesn't remove the fibre. So if you put a whole apple, berries or spinach into your blender, the fibre doesn't just vanish. What happens is the blender breaks down some of the plant's physical structure and reduces the size itself. But the fibre still remains. but it is then different when it comes to the food matrix of the food and the other benefits you get alongside it.

So I would say marginal in smoothies, don't worry too much. Obviously, eat your veg and fruit most of the time, but having a smoothie is still a win, I think, nutritionally speaking. And then juicing is where we get the issue because where the pulp is physically separated, you can see it. You're removing all of that insoluble fiber. So it is kind of nuanced and juice also contains a lot more free sugars because you don't have anything to slow the release of the natural fructose into your bloodstream. So it's not that anything is bad or good, remember, just pimp up your smoothies of a bit of extra cafe for your gut bugs, sprinkle in some seeds, some cheer or flax. So yeah, as of everything in life, nuanced.

Yeah, it is nuanced. And I mean, I always come back to the fact that like smoothies are the most helpful quick way to pack in. Like if you've got a busy week and you're struggling with time to cook stuff, you can get four different plants, like half your fibre needs, healthy fats, you know, all sorts of things, omega-3s, like it all goes in a blender and you've got it in one meal. And when life is busy and time is short, as it often is, like that is so helpful. It really is. And I mean, like, I honestly, sorry to say it. You probably all think I'm like really condescending, but like my husband doesn't like Kaffir, but he loves. smoothies. And so like I walk a fear. It's like a child. No, but I do. And it's like, I know that's

really good for like our family's gut bugs to put things like that in a smoothie. When I was nauseous all summer, all I could have was smoothies. Like for some people, it's a real godsend, I think, that way of consuming all the wonderness of food. Yeah. And then what about this is so interesting is whether organic makes the process any different because I would say this applies. We'll talk about specifically with this, but it applies way beyond it. And I think it's way worse in America. Like when you go into Whole Foods or Health Food-ish stores, you often do see all these products that are like organic, GMO-free, you know,

supports the world, gives 100% of profits away. But then you look at the ingredients and you're like, this is awful. And they use all these humongous claims. Like, this will change your life in one bite. And it's organic and it's X and it doesn't have this. It's Y. But actually the ingredients are absolutely awful. And I slightly feel we're doing the same here.

I'm not sure we tell us organic is unfortunately making it a huge amount better. Ella's right is loopholes. They all find loopholes, the percentage to which a certain spice or bit of produce is organic can be then said on the pack. It is the evidence with processed meat in particular we should not blur and we should just say directly that it's still the same thing. A pack of salami is it is processed meat regardless of whether the packet says it's organic. And then there's such an important distinction because, of course, with the link with it being in the group of class one carcinogens, if you consume things in excess, remember it just increases risk. It doesn't mean you're going to eat one piece of slimy and that is going to suddenly give you a magnitude of elevated risk. It's just the strength of evidence we have towards repeated consumption that is not good for our health.

And you're right with nitrates, though, and nitrates as part of the conversation because they do contribute to the form formation of. those compounds which can damage our bowel, but they aren't the whole explanation. There's also links with the hema iron, the processing itself that happens to that when we cook it at high temperatures. So sadly, just because it's organic and doesn't have some additives doesn't mean that processed meat at all is better for you. So I hope that clears that one up. And remember that actually 50 grams of processed meat consumed every day was what was found to be associated with an increased risk of up to 20% of colorectal cancer. And that's nothing if you look at the weight of 50 grams of the meat itself, which is why we're delighted in the UK with the overhaul of food standards

and children's guidance and removal of items like ham being so frequently served and all that sort of thing. Bring back what we go on about all the time, more pulses and everything. For reference, as we said, 50 grams isn't a huge amount. So like of bacon, for example, it's two sort of standard rashes or slices. Yeah. Yeah. Or if it's like the streaky kind of more American bacon, it's like maybe three or four. So it's really not a big amount.

And as we said, the WHO, the World Health Organization does classify 50 grams. So just two pieces of bacon a day as the amount that does. Statistically speaking, increase a relative risk of colorectal cancer. It doesn't mean you will get colorectal cancer. it does mean you will increase your risk. And so we should treat these things as treats, you know, at which point it does become a bit of a different story. Now, our next question, we have sort of covered, and I did pop a link, in last week's episode. But it's, I think it's one that we should discuss and just bring up again, shouldn't we, Ella, and it's from Laura.

Yeah, because I think this is something so many, if you struggle, we'd read, had so many emails like this. And then the headlines and Akado's research showing that actually, Laura, you are not alone, lots of people struggling with what to make pack lunches, wanting ideas because pack lunches are back with almost half of people increasing the number of times they take pat lunches to work. Laura has said, I have been working back in an office for a couple of months. Now I'm really struggling with healthy, tasty, tasty lunchbook options. I live in the late district so we don't have the likes of Pratt or any sushi or salad bars, etc. And even if we did, not all of it's that healthy and it's very costly.

Have you got ideas for lunches take into work that don't require heating up? that I could put straight out from a lunchbox and be prepared at home in the morning. So she does say feel free to write a lunchbox, good options, cookbook, so we're going to pop a note in again, aren't we, to your lunch ebook? I think when you're thinking about things

that don't require heating up, something that I would look to do, for example, that I really enjoy is like mashing some chickpeas with some avocado, a little bit of red onion, a bit of lime juice, olive oil, like a tuna mayo situation, And with chickpeas, you can add mayonnaise as well if you want.

And then taking some nice pitters or something and you pop that in, that's the kind of thing that in the morning, you know, it's like no washing up or anything. It's, you know, just a little bowl. It's going to take you probably no longer than three minutes. And then, yeah, with a pitcher or a wrap. You had a whole section in quick wins, didn't you, as well? Yeah, quick wins. There's quite a lot of things like that.

But you can take that don't need heating up. Yeah. Or if you've got a stew from the night before, for example, you could heat up in the morning and put it in a thermos, which is often easier than a soup because it's less likely to leak. So that's the other thing to do. That's a good tip.

Or Adal. Adal's a nice one. And Adal's the kind of thing that like again... Oh, in the winter. Yeah, and to make loads of it is really easy. You're just chopping a few extra onions and garlic and things like that, like using a few extra teaspoons of spices. You're not really doing any incremental work.

You can heat it up in the morning, pop it in a thermos, and it will still be lovely at lunch. Cold potato salads, if you love those, all those sorts of things. And then like an orzo, salad is another good one. And you can steam tofu over your orzo, but also does keep its texture quite nicely. So you could do like pesto, also tofu, peas, for example, that would be nice. That would take 10 minutes to cook in one pan and then mix some pasta through and you, again,

I don't think also needs to be hot to be nice. We're on a lunchbox roll this week in particular, which I hope has been helpful. Let us know if you start making more lunchboxes. Yes, please. Maybe send us pictures. Who has time? I love that. I mean, if, you had time great but no pressure no we're going to be starting taking pictures because we're going to be uploading it to our gut bug at moochie yes we are um okay our next question and i love this um she said she's from scooper joe she's named itself scooper joe fantastic um does the fiber or nutrients available to me differ if i cook with fresh veg but leave the dish in the fridge for a couple of days until i'm ready to eat it as opposed to leaving the vegetables in the fridge for a few

days, cooking a dish and then eating it straight away. So essentially, she wants to know about cutting them first and prepping them or cooking them in advance. If you cook them quickly in a stir fry versus cooking them regularly, I'd love to hear your thoughts, best wishes. Great question. I mean, I would say overall, I wouldn't worry. Like overall, you know, you're getting home cooked, fresh food, lots of veg, etc. You are absolutely winning. And I think, you know, we said at the beginning. And this isn't a criticism in any shape of forms scuba joke because I think you're nailing it. But I think, you know how we said we shouldn't take it too seriously? We don't need to kind of get two in the weeds. I think this is maybe getting two in the weeds. Like just enjoy it,

enjoy it, enjoy it, get more great nourishing food in your life. But as the details go, as far as I understand, fibre doesn't really make any difference whatsoever. Bitamins, tiny impact. No, you're right. I do think sometimes we can overthink it and sometimes it is literally just have the meal that you obviously want to enjoy. But if we separate fibre from vitamins, they behave differently. Fibers really stable. And we know that because it travels all the way through our digestive tract, of course, the insoluble part of the plant. So equally cooking the veg until they're soft doesn't mean you've destroyed the fibre. You know, you're still eating plant material. And I think, of course, that scientifically speaking, a marginal small, tiny changes

when you heat up anything or you process anything, you change the food matrix of a food, but you are still benefiting from a large amount of fibre. However, some vitamins and minerals do change when they heated. And I think a really good example of this actually is all the recent headlines around baby food that was in the press because, you know, you'd have a mango pouch, for instance,

that was brought to the light by one of the popular. brands. And it was studied and studied and all of the stats on the back said, oh, it's 100% of vitamin C. It contains this much. And actually, when they looked at it, because of the high heat processing that the pouch had undergone, there was barely any vitamin C left over after the processing into the pouch. And it was quite deceptive for parents. So theoretically speaking, vitamin C and some B vitamins can decline. Over a few days, exposure to oxygen. It's like when you bite an apple. I use that example all the time of oxidative. and it's very quick to go brown with exposure to oxygen

and things change scientifically speaking. But I would say just check your fridge is the temperature that it's meant to be. So your optimal temperature for your refrigerator should be between 0.5 degrees Celsius. And do you know how surprising it is that if you set it anywhere above or beyond or below that, you are drastically changing how you preserve your food long term? And then crunchy versus stir fried Ella, I mean, generally the shorter you cook a food. You know, like if you steam a food versus roasting it, you retain a bit more nutrition. But honestly, I think it's overthinking it a little bit too much, I would say, on this one.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. Just enjoy it first and foremost. The only thing we don't want to do is like really blacken our food generally speaking. No, we don't want to char. Charring is carcinogenic and charing is not great. Okay, question number six is from Tilly and she said, I hope you're both well. I love listening to the podcast. It always makes me feel positive and excited for the future.

Isn't that the nicest thing to hear? I absolutely love it. It makes me feel that way too. Okay, I'm hoping you will be able to offer me some career advice, read this once for you. I just graduated from the University of Birmingham with a first class MSC degree. Well done. That's amazing. In psychology and psychological practice, I am now looking for work in the psychology field.

However, my true passion is the connection between psychology and nutrition, particularly the gut-brain connection. I would also love to get involved in the food industry to try and create an impact on nutrition for children and young people and create awareness around UPFs, etc. I'm wondering how best to get into the nutrition world seeing as my degrees in psychology. Can you recommend what my next step should be to enter the wonderful world of nutrition, e.g. I think I should say, for example, a qualification, work experience, etc. I'd really appreciate your advice and expertise. Well, true story. My A levels, I didn't have a science A level.

I had a psychology A level and I had a music A level. And I was still able to get on a university degree for nutrition. Now, I think they really appreciated the psychology aspect. I don't know if that would be the same today. You have to do certain foundation courses. I may actually have done a foundation course in Biochem. I cannot recall. that long ago, which is quite unnerving. But there are pathways. There are pathways. And I think it also

depends exactly what you want to do within this space as well, because there are so many different ways to be involved in the world of health and wellness that aren't being a nutritionist. That's an incredible platform. But it depends what part of that world you want to be. Because if you want to see clients and get under the skin of things or give public health advice like we and, you know, speak in Parliament, like she doesn't. which is incredible, then that's obviously in a great avenue. But actually, you know, there's so many companies where you need people with all the different skills sets.

Like when we were hiring it to the Shatia, all sorts of companies under the stand in this space. Food scientists. It's different. Yeah, but also you need accountants. And you need like brilliant marketeers and you need absolutely fantastic operations experts and you need really good HR people. And so you need all these people who have. passion for that industry but also like real skills and so obviously as you know like there's

huge intersection between psychology and nutrition so there will likely be lots of companies that exist within the health and well-being space that are looking for psychologists and looking with the people with psychology degrees to impart on the emotional and cognitive impacts of the way that we eat the way it affects us and so I think it's really pinpointing what do you want to do in the world of nutrition because you can be involved in it as an accountant. I know you're not an accountant, but what I mean is in there are so many different jobs as part of this. The differentiation is if you want to give nutrition a device or if you want to just be in the industry. And I think that's the real crux to distinguish. And once you figure that out,

then you've got your pathways open to you. So if you do want to do a similar pathway to me, I did find psychology invaluable. I think understanding theoretical models, how the brain works is invaluable in clinical practice and it's a skill that most, if I'm hiring in my clinic, I love anyone that's got a bit of psychology background alongside their nutritional education. You have psychologists in your clinic, don't you? Because I mean, I was one of the first clinics in London to introduce psychologists working alongside, can you believe it, back in 2015, but it was quite revolutionary at the time because it was an, it's an investment, but I believe fundamentally that that model, especially for certain types of areas of nutrition, is really

impactful and you get more for your money if you invest in both together simultaneously sometimes or you need one than the other. But I digress. I think check out the Association for Nutrition website for Nutrition degrees. You can check out the BAMP website for Nutritional Therapist degrees. You can check out the British Dietic Association website if you want to go into more hospital-based environments, which doesn't sound like you do if you want to do a bit more policy. I'd say you're probably better off with the AFM because they do public health nutrition degrees, which specialize in looking at public policy and how to shape it and what goes into making guidelines. It really does give you a fantastic in-road.

I also have, I think it's in November. So we're not far off now. But on Retrition Plus, my community, we're doing a nutrition careers talk just for students. My old lecturer at Rahmpton Uni is going to do a talk, Sue Reeves. I'm going to try and get the head of AFN there. just to give budding nutrition students an insight into how things are. I feel maybe I'm outdated and I need to attend this. So I think Ella's right.

You just got to figure out, which is hard. It's hard to know. It's so hard. But what do you want to do within the industry? I think that's the first question to ask. Yeah, it really is because it's a lot of money these days, degrees, to spend on something that it's very different how we're looking at times now of university degrees. I question it with my children, I think, unless they really know what they want to do.

that is a humongous investment that is huge to not really know what the end result you want is. Yeah, I completely agree. It's funny. My daughter asked me that the other day about university and I was like, maybe you'll go. Maybe she was curious about university. Not as in for her, but she was like had heard about it and that like growing up children and that kind of thing. Yeah. And she was like, do you have to go to university?

And I was like, no. And you never have had to, but most people used to. I'm not sure. I'm not really sure if that will be the case when you live. school. I mean, what is going on with everyone likes to fearmonger with AI and what we do with our jobs, but really, I think times are changing at such a rapid pace. But there is no denying. If you want to do anything in the field of science, I do think you need to study it, obviously. So thank you so much for all of your questions. We've had so many wonderful, wonderful recommendations.

Please keep them coming in. We do read them and maybe those pictures of those lunchboxes. Yes. And we'll be back on Monday. We're going to going to be talking about why eating together is good for you. We have a big update on the new food strategy, some interesting insights into changing consumer habits. There was a very interesting sky news in a look at peptides that we're going to get into. Loads different bits and pieces coming up as always. So we can't wait to see you guys then.

Have a great week. Bye!