The Wellness Scoop - Beat Winter Blues, Multi-Vitamins & Daily(ish) Wins

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

This week we’re diving into everything you need to feel a little brighter and more grounded through the winter months, from simple ways to lift your mood to the truth about frozen food and how to choose a multivitamin that actually meets your needs without the huge price tag. We break down the biggest nutrition myths, explore why frozen produce often rivals fresh, unpack global food labelling systems, and share the small daily(ish) habits that make consistency feel easier and more sustainable. Plus, practical family-friendly meal planning ideas, winter wellbeing rituals and the listener questions you’ve asked us most. Get Dr David Hamilton's book, 'The Joy of Actually Giving a F*ck' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com. That's gofundme.com. G-O-F-U-N-D-M-E.com. This is a commercial message brought to you by GoFundMe. Welcome to the Wellness Scoop, your weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. And we're here as your host. As always, I'm Ella Mills. And I'm Rihanna Lambert. And today we have got some big topics and they're all chosen by you. As always, we love these Thursday episodes, our Q&As. Thank you guys so much.

Flooding us with questions. We so appreciate it. We've got some really good wrecks for you guys. today as well we actually have two listener ones first so georgia on the back of the last few weeks talking about dark chocolate has written in to say i am a dark chocolate fiend georgia you and us both and i have a recommendation for all the wellness scoop listeners for a dark chocolate that i believe is the most delicious chocolate you can easily get hold of oh my goodness yeah which also has zero emulsifiers or flavorings the chocolate is single origin and only has three ingredients cocoa mass sugar and cocoa butter it is the same breeze tastes a different range and they do 70% to 90%, but my personal favorite is the Madagascan

80%. To me, it beats even the well-known quality dark chocolate brands you can buy at supermarkets and it's only £2.40 a bar. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so Georgia says get to Sainsbury's and get the Sainsbury's taste of difference range. This isn't an ad from her or us, but apparently this is the best non-UPP chocolate in town. Fantastic. I'm going to go and get some today. Me too, because there's one near my son's school. I'm not going to be there. Sainsbury's Taste the Difference. asking 80% apparently will change your lives. And we also have another recommendation from Amy, don't we, Ella? Yes, thank you, Amy.

Amy said to us, I was listening to this morning's episode when you mentioned doing some Christmas charity shoutouts, and I wanted to let you know about an app called Bank the Food. If you download it and enter the town you live in, it'll link you to your local food bank and show you which items they're most of need of. I try to have a look every time I go into my local Tesco and add one or two things to my shop from the list. It's a really nice way to help others in an important organisation in a very practical way. I also have a friend who volunteers at the food bank who says they always need lots of Christmas stuff.

Stuffing, gravy, advent calendars for kids, etc. So any shout-tow for people to support, this would be amazing. Thank you so much, Amy. So the recommendation is bank the food. So grateful, Amy. What an amazing shout-out. It's such a great idea. And then just the reminder that all food banks need things for Christmas.

Honestly. And I think what we're noticing about the community that we have here as well is how honest and open you all are with us. And I've got a really lovely message that I received. I'll keep anonymous. But this lady has had a difficult time. She shared that her partner died from a stroke when she was seven months pregnant. And she went on to say, there are no words only grassy for everything I have. And she said, I live beside a shore in the northwest of Ireland.

And she said, I listen to the wellness scoop every day walking. my little one now, or my late partner's German Pointer. And there's some weeks when I listen to each new episode three times. I genuinely love it. And you and Ella are built an incredible, supportive community. It made me cry when I read it. Thank you. Oh, we're so grateful to you.

Well, thank you so, so much. The fact we can be there, I think, is overwhelming. And one of my recommendations this week to add on to that. So thank you for just giving and giving everybody. This listener rec is one that I do to each year. and you can get a calendar that's called the advent of change. And Roxanne mentioned this in the Spotify comment. She said, instead of chocolate, every time you open a window, and I love it.

It tells you how much you donate each day to which charity. So it could be a companion for an elderly person this Christmas, or it could be that you've contributed to a food bank by buying this calendar. So what a lovely recommendation. I love that. Yeah. This is a very meaningful start to the show. My recommendation is pathetic.

in comparison. It's not pathetic. It's how much I've been enjoying hot Epsom salt baths with a podcast. It is comparatively, totally pathetic, but a nice moment of self-care. And it links to last week when we had our topic and our headline on the science of hot baths. And how good they are for us. But goodness me, I have been loving it. Well, my rec's also pretty superficial, actually. I mean, the hot baths at least has science behind it. Mine was watch the Victoria Beckham documentary and listen to The Call Her Daddy podcast. I think that's what it's called. I watched the Victoria Beckham.

documentary on Netflix. It's a three-parter, isn't it? And I... I binge-watched it. Really, really enjoyed it. I think... I mean, I wouldn't say it was like a fan of hers. I really don't like her, but I wasn't, I'm not like particularly familiar with her or anything. I haven't kind of followed her or kind of charted what she does. You went like a Spice Girl's superfan like me. I really liked the Spice Girls, but I wouldn't say have kind of had much... Followed since. Yeah, exactly. Post-Spice Girls, I wouldn't say she's held a huge amount of relevancy to me personally. But I was just a just curious to watch it. And it is, look, people say, oh, she had a leg up, she had this. People

will always find a reason to criticise people, which I find inherently so frustrating. But what she created from a landscape in which, to be honest, she was pretty dismissed as a kind of a bimbo with fake boobs to this amazing company that is really seen as so legitimate in a very difficult to crack industry, the sheer determination. And the honesty with the financial ups and downs. She's remarkable. The ability to kind of ignore the naysayers and keep going. I really loved that. I found that really brilliant to watch. So I really enjoyed it. I think as far as a female inspiration, she is definitely up there. When you watch it, you think, yes, you know, her honesty about everything in her life. And it also led on to one little hack when she went

on this particular podcast. I'd never listened to this podcast before. I only did. I call her daddy. Yeah. I don't listen to it either. It's obviously one of the biggest podcast in the world. Yeah, and this lady talking, the American lady, she did this little reminder, she calls it phone reality, which sinks into what we have spoken about before with T.J. Power and phones. She said, Jen Alpha, Jen Alpha have no reality because their reality's on their phone. So she said, to all us millennials, how lucky we are to have not had a phone growing up. And then to Gen Z, the only way to get reality in your life is to put your phone down. Why are you brushing your teeth while you're scrolling your phone? Why are we watching a film while we're scrolling our phone? And she said it in quite a kind of to the point way, and I thought it was quite helpful. I mean, why are we so addicted? It's insane. And then one final recommendation. I cried the whole way through it, but it was the Caroline Flack documentary on Disney Plus.

And just a reminder that the media, you cannot trust what the media says. A lot of the time. I have seen a lot about it. I would watch in the sense that her story deserves to be told. I think that's how just leave it at that. Yeah, it's had phenomenal reviews, lots of five stars, which basically nothing gets. She just had poor mental health. She didn't do anything really wrong.

Quickly, Ruth, before we get into our listener questions, we have got a voice note for you all because everyone has been commenting on our conversations around winter blues and how harder is to keep up good vibes at this time of year, hence all the hot baths. So we have got a brilliant guy, Dr. David Hamilton. We've both interviewed him separately. We've had him as guests on the show. an amazing, amazing researcher to give us a voice note on how to be happy. We promised you was coming. But most importantly, we had to deal with tough time this year. And I think it's

important to know as well is that if you are finding the kind of dark, cold, challenging, you are not alone. Sadness during winter is so common all around the northern hemisphere. In the UK, for example, estimates suggest that up to 1 in 15 people experience a form of sad, so seasonal affective disorder. It's also known as winter depression. A much larger number of people around 17% experience a milder form called the winter blues, which involves feelings of low energy and sadness, but doesn't impact daily life in quite the same way as sad. So it's pretty normal to be affected, unsurprisingly, by the fact that it's really dark and cold. Well, yeah, you leave work in the dark, you go to work in the dark.

So let's see what Dr. David Hamilton has to say. One of my favourite words is confilicity. And it comes from the Latin con felicitas, which means. shared happiness or to share happiness. And it's the happiness that you feel when you're genuinely happy for other people, you know, when you're really happy for someone's good fortune or a wee bit of luck or a wee bit of a metaphorical sun shining in the life that particular day. And it's the opposite of a word that more people are familiar with Shadden Freud, which is the happiness you feel for someone else's misfortune when someone else screws up or has a bad day or something.

something, and part of the reason for that psychologically is it makes us feel a little bit better about our own struggles and pain and challenges. But there's magic in confilicity, because inherent in the word and the practice itself is happiness. You know, I am so happy for you presupposes that therefore I must be happy. So the act of actually being pleased for people makes you happier as a consequence, as a side effect. So I'm so high. happy that you've had a good day. I'm so happy that you've got a new addition to the family, or I'm so happy that the sun is shaking in your life today. I'm so happy that, this, that, or the next thing, or whatever it is happened for you today or is going on in your life. I'm so happy

for you. And in the act of being happy for someone else, you actually are being happy. So in the idea itself, is happiness presupposed. So one of the simplest ways to lift you in mood, to feel happier. It's actually just to be happy for other people and wish the best for them in their lives. I love it. We all need this in our life. Okay, question one comes from sunny Mexico. Oh, lovely. Can beat the winter blues there from Elle, but she's originally from Teeside. Elle says, thanks for the pod, find myself talking about things you've said like you're my friends. I love it. Sign of a good pod. So my question is, is frozen as good as fresh? I'd love some frozen veg recipe recommendations as well, not peas, question mark. Thanks again for all the balanced,

realistic advice, practical, doable for parents. Not peas. Makes me laugh. I love peas. Yeah, it's a great question out. And I know Reid did a lot of work on this earlier this year because there was a lot of stats that came out, which I think we did talk about in the podcast a few months ago because there was a poll that came out. I'm pretty sure it was commissioned actually by Iceland, the frozen retailer. But a study showed of about 2,000 Brits, 84% of people wrongly assumed that fresh is healthier than frozen and another study showed that about three quarters of adults in the UK believe fresh fruit and veg are healthier than frozen

so it's such a common perception that fresh is better than frozen yeah it's a big nutrition myth isn't it it's just not true a hundred percent frozen veg is just as nutrition if not more nutritious than fresh it's because of something called snap freezing so the produce is picked at peak ripeness and then it's frozen really quickly afterwards And then you lock in all of that wonderful nutrition, essentially, the vitamins and minerals. And I talk about this a lot with berries as well, being an excellent example, or sliced up red peppers. And the thing is, when you pick a tomato off the vine and you sit it on a shop shelf, over a period of time, oxidation occurs and you start to lose all of that natural nutrition that comes.

And that's why when you pick it and you freeze it instantly, you retain more of the nutrition. because vitamin C is often, you know, higher in frozen veg. That's the key nutrient because everything's still intact. You haven't picked it and kept it sitting there for ages. And also fish. So if you eat animal produce, fish is a really good one to buy frozen. And it's probably going to be far cheaper now as well. And those omega-3s are preserved brilliantly in the freezer.

And a recent study showed even after three months in the freezer, most omega-3 is still nutritionally available. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, you find so much of the time exactly that, that frozen is actually better than fresh, but we just have this perception that surely it's not. I think what it is is when you get something frozen, it's in a bag. You can't kind of see it looking all like,

juicy and colourful and abundant. And it's the texture when you defrost it. I think you have to know what to do because of the water. A hundred percent, whereas when you see like something looking really ripe and abundant and colorful on shelf, it does inherently appear fresher. Well, it's the nature fallacy, isn't it? because we all instinctively as humans, it's odd to get something out of freezer.

Yeah, exactly. It's so, so true. It's so interesting. I think to this point, or kind of recipe ideas. Yeah, give us a list out of foods. You're absolutely right with the kind of machinists that can ensue with frozen things.

So, for example, like broccoli or cauliflower, the best thing to do is you want to just roast it directly from frozen. Don't let it thaw out first because otherwise that's when it's going to get a bit like soggy. The water can evaporate. Yeah, you just want to get it straight in and roasting, which is amazing. Frozen spinach is such a good one that holds on, as you said, to its vitamin C folate much better than fresh because that wilts really quickly quickly quickly. On shelf, that's amazing. Frozen spinach is such a great one.

Stir it into like lentil, kind of curries, stews, all that good stuff. Your smoothies. Soups, pasta sauces, quickly steam it, blend it in. You put it in. Oh, I always put it in pest soap for like 100%. You bulk it up, don't you? It's such an easy way to get green. in and it just sort of melts instantly into anything hot as well so you're getting that

boost of fibre in there which is fab frozen sweet corn obviously such a great one like lovely in salads but also so good things like veggie fried rice edmarme has to swap l for peas if you're not a pea person so great in dips in stir fries salads rice bowls so you've got so much stuff in there the other shout out is frozen onions garlic ginger saves you cutting it all ginger's really cost effective because ginger can be so expensive and it just kind of sits there if you don't know what to do with it yeah and then all that time spent chopping onions and garlic have you been doing that with your um you're making the shots have you been using

frozen ginger I yeah be making daily turmeric ginger lemon shots well I don't do them daily I do it weekly and then I have a daily shot I know I do use fresh ginger for that actually and fresh turmeric and lemons it's about for people who like how do I make that because could you put frozen ginger in a juicer I think You'd need to thaw it first. Yeah, you just put it overnight in the fridge. Yeah, I think so.

But I can't see why you couldn't. No, it's amazing for things like stir fries where you don't need a whole massive bit of ginger. Do you know, I love it adding it to chocolate bark. I know that's strange. Ooh, gingery chocolate. I know. But I love ginger. Every Christmas I'm into those, like, candy ginger.

And actually, it's a far healthier way to just add it to chocolate. I think one last thing to say on this topic and the sense of perception over reality is that so much of what we see, as I said, you look on shelf and it looks so bright and colourful. you assume it's got to be better. But for example, in the UK, most apples on supermarket shelves, this shocked me. I learned this quite early on when I got into the food industry. I didn't know this. We was like, this surely can't be in England. I was like, I swear to you it is. Most apples on shelf are actually 9 to 12 months old by the time you buy them, especially when it's out of season, not kind of peak season, but the rest of the time. And they're basically picked slightly unripe and they're stored in cold climate-controlled warehouses, often treated with a gas called one MCP.

to stop them ripening, and it means they last year round. And I think they'm not like telling you not to eat apples, definitely don't not eat apples. But the point here is that things aren't always what they seem. But I think it just shows like fresh isn't always, doesn't always mean it came off the vine today. Yeah, it doesn't make the apples bad, but I would not have known.

And also they can't contain as much nutrition as if I just picked up from the tree. Whereas what you're getting in bags of frozen food is picked, you know, just go straight into the freezer, retains that nutrition. And I just think that's, as I said, totally really is right. Don't not eat apples. But I think it's just a reminder that like the food industry is so complicated.

And so it's not always as simple as it might seem. Frozen is just this like nutrient dent, budget friendly, low waste option that genuinely supports a healthy lifestyle and definitely not, don't let optics win. Fresh might look better, but it's generally speaking not as good as Frozen. Yeah, 100%. So our next question is from Katie, and she said, I firstly want to say that I really love your podcast. You two are so inspirational, and I find your approach incredibly relatable and refreshing. Thank you, Katie. Actually, I want to ask you about multivits.

Oh, gosh. I've been taking a daily supplement for the past year, which is a pretty well-known one, AG1, one of those green powders. I eat a really good diet with lots of plants and fermented foods, some oily fish and a little bit of meat, and I make a considerable effort to eat well, but I take this daily multivitamin to ensure that I've covered everything. For example, sometimes I probably don't reach my daily calcium intake that would be preferable for someone my age.

I'm 46, and this helps me to keep the numbers up. However, I am finding that the supplement is wearing a hole in my wallet and it's really very expensive. She wants a daily multivitamin tablet that's a bit cheaper. Instead, she also takes magnesium and iron supplements as my iron sometimes falls a little bit on the low side. Rie, I was so keen to get your thoughts on this. We have loads of questions about green powders.

AG1 does not sit alone in this. The marketing has been everywhere. This year started with like bus campaigns everywhere. I'd say the last two years. Yeah, you're right. Massive, massive money behind this, working with loads of influential people. It's pretty interesting.

I mean, I think it's fair to say before we get into this, neither of us are fans of these types of products as a broad brush approach. But, really, I'm very, very keen to get your thoughts. 100%. And I'm going to say it with kindness because I think that you've got a wonderful attitude towards food. You say, I eat really well. I really enjoy food. But I just want to make sure, you know, I've got all bases covered and good for you, Katie. But I would say you don't need that multi of it. It sounds like at all. And I'll explain why and also why green powders, which are actually ultra-processed foods. They're just an amalgamation of lots of different combinations thrown in together. And a lot of the time you don't know what source of vitamin A is being used, for example. And there's no guarantee that you drinking that every week is actually going to give you what it says it will. So I'll explain a little bit further. First of all, multivitamins give you a blanket dose of lots of nutrients.

And I use the bus analogy a lot. You know, there's all the vitamins and minerals queuing up outside the bus. But who's going to get on first? Is it vitamin C today? Is it vitamin B? I love it. I haven't heard that analogy before. I haven't heard it.

It's because I've done it in clinic for 10 years. I feel like I've what do you call it a button on repeat. But that's how I explain it, because multivitamins just don't work that way. Your body already has enough of a certain nutrient. So taking more doesn't create extra health. It just raises the potential for toxicity. I'd be more worried because you eat well, that you're actually getting more than you need of certain nutrients. And it's more concerning for me if you're getting more of the fat soluble vitamins like AD, E, and K.

So everybody, if you take a multi, you should check there's not really an excess or a lot of fat soluble vitamins in your multivit. It's also why I recommend taking vitamin D supplements on their own separately, rather than as a course of a multi-U. A, want to guarantee you're getting the right dose of vitamin D, but you also don't want to be accidentally overdoing it because a lot of people might be taking a multi and have just purchased a vitamin D. And is that because too much of those vitamins in particular interfere with the absorption of other nutrients? And they sit there in the body. So it just builds up over time. And before you know it, you'll have an excess of these fat soluble vitamins and you can't get rid of them.

And what's the problem with that? Toxicity, severe side effects, damage eventually to your liver and places. So extreme. You really don't want it. You really don't want it. That's why there's warnings in pregnancy with vitamin A and sort of certain things as well. But I'm talking extremes here. Most people hopefully will not have a buildup of these.

Secondly, for water soluble vitamins like vitamin C, it just goes right through you, which is why the phrase expensive urine that we've used for years is about because whenever you take a barocca or, you know, your green powders, you often have a luminous yellow urine. And that often is a sign, not of health, but literally your body trying really hard to get rid of all the extra water-soluble vitamins you're consuming. And thirdly, the evidence is really clear

that taking a multivitamin every day when you don't have a deficiency does not extend your lifespan. Now, that's really a key factor here because large trials have shown no meaningful benefit for longevity or chronic disease prevention in general population. and I think it's just the balanced diet. Again, you know, humans are not numbers. And I think what we tried to do with supplements,

they have a play cellar. And I know we discuss this all the time. You know, I have Retrition Plus, the supplements company, they have a place. It does help fill gaps. But we've become really fixated on what the public recommendation level of iron is for this person or vitamin C is here. We must be meeting this,

whereas we still are unique. And our bodies just do not work that simplistically. But I think this point here is, so vital. It's unbelievable. There is no impartial, large-scale evidence to show that taking multivitamins, and in this case with the green powders, very, very expensive multivitamins, has a meaningful benefit for longevity or chronic disease prevention. And I think that is so vital because, and I think when I said at the beginning, I'm not a fan, the reason I'm not a fan is because they're so expensive in particular. and they make you feel like it will change your life if you take these.

The risks are higher than the chance of it changing your life. Yeah, and I think it says things like, you know, that adds so things like, eat mornings for breakfast and it's like really what you need for breakfast. It's like a really nice dose of fibre. You know, a really great bowl of kind of boosted porridge would be fab. Get some nuts in there, get some seeds in there, get some chia seeds in that. Even some dark chocolate if you want. Put it on.

Some apple. Ginger. Some frozen berries. Like that would be a winning. breakfast and I think the problem is it just makes you feel and the one of my frustrations is sometimes the ads for this stuff makes you feel like I saw an ad the other day it wasn't for that one it was for a different one it was talking about how like we're all so busy and do worry if you don't have time to kind of eat all your vegetables because this contains 47 different

plants it's like but it doesn't work that way yeah but it also contains I can't remember exactly for this one but like one gram of fiber that's not enough fiber and you will just destroy it in your stomach acid like there's just no guarantee you're going to actually get any benefit of the food matrix of 47 plants in one shot. They just aren't quick wins. It's not a quick win. There aren't shortcuts in life. You do need the actual broccoli or the actual pee.

Unless you're pregnant or you are elderly or you have a certain condition where potentially the benefits of taking that supplement are really, really needed. Then multivitamins are one of the biggest, I would say, marketing cons existing across the supplement landscape in terms of what they promise you. Yeah. And they promise you a lot. And that's my frustration with them, to be honest. Oh, that's a good.

Do you know what? It sounds like you're doing really well, Katie. I wouldn't be worried. I don't think you need it. No, and I think if you are concerned and then you go and get some one-to-one advice and you see, yes, I am low in calcium, I am low in iron, I am low in vitamin D, then you can address that with a specific supplement for a specific period of time. How much are these, so the green powders, there were 100 a month or some subscription, which

is crazy. One nutrition consultation is like that much, with a little bit extra. And by the time you've done a year's long subscription to multibitamins, you could have had like five nutrition special sessions over one-to-one in the Retrition Clinic. Yeah, no, it's such a good point, actually. And if you are feeling low in energy, you're saying you could then address, if you are low in specific vitamins or minerals, you could then find out and address those specific ones through a combination of specific supplements for a period of time and diet changes that you then feel a lot more benefit from. We all want to feel better.

This isn't me and Ella just saying, oh, everything's bad. I genuinely understand. Like I also sometimes look at these things, even though I know. And I really think, oh, I will just take creatine. And then I look at the nine people it studied. It's like, oh, I'll wait a bit longer. But, you know, I do fall for it too, Ella. Oh, we all do.

But when it's really expensive, I think it's important that particularly it needs kind of shouting out, to your point, the number of tins are beans you could buy in a year. I wonder if anyone's counting how many, we might get a hate message on Apple. All they talk about is beans. Stop talking about beans. This episode of The Wellness Scoop is sponsored by Stripe and Stair. I have been wearing their pants and their PJs since the start of the year and it is honestly the only brand in my draw now.

Me too. And I don't think you really think about underwear until you try it. these and then you realize how good it can actually feel because they're genuinely the most comfortable knickers I have ever worn by a million miles 10 out of 10 honestly and the other thing is that they were founded by women for women and they spent six years perfecting the design even wear testing the pants with thousands of women they use tensile which is a natural wood fibre so it's breathable it's antibacterial it's softer than cotton and it stays that soft wash after wash. It's true. I can contest. I'm wearing them now and I'm a huge fan. And with gifting season

coming up, they make the perfect present for your sister, your mom, your best friend. I think anybody really. It's that kind of comfort all year kind of gift. Exactly. And same with their sleepwear. As I said, I've been wearing their PJs all year and it's made from that same buttery soft fabric too. It feels like sleeping in a cloud. I love that. So gift the gift of comfort everybody, 365 days a year at stripe and stare.com. And you can use the code. wellness, all in capitals, W-E-L-L-N-E-S-S for 20% off. And trust us, once you try them, you will not want to wear anything else. Our next question from Sophia is very different, and I think, Ella, you're really well

placed to answer this. She said, I wanted to email you about the UK food product labelling you mentioned this week. I live in Sydney, Australia, and we have a five-star rating on all food here. So, for example, a bag of rolled oats will be five stars, and then a bottle of lemonade would be 0.5 stars. And she said it's such a clear system that doesn't punish or penalize anyone and gives freedom of choice. She also has a question, do you think that general education about food nutrition in the UK should be a priority or do you think food industry changes should be a priority? Oh, love that question, Sophia. Love. So good. And I also love that system because as we

talked about jokes aside about beans on Monday's episode, I am such a fan of positive reinforcement in this of like share beautiful recipes than make those ingredients easy to get hold of to shift people's diets like this. Like point out that this is five star, this is 10 out of 10 for breakfast, as we just said. It's why Ella and I don't go viral all the time because we just love positive things.

Yeah, I just think like genuinely like achievable positive shifts is so great and I, so I love that system. Personally, I think it's a combination of the two, isn't it? Because no one makes choices in a vacuum. So we make them in the real world and our busy lives and so we can have all the education in the world but then when life is busy and you don't have time and you haven't made your lunch and the only thing on offer is like super super super ultra processed food that's not very good for you it's very difficult to make

other choices so even with all the education in the world if you don't have the options available or the options are too expensive etc etc then it completely changes it so I do think for genuinely long term change we need huge amounts of education we need to to get cooking back in schools. We need to really be empowering people to understand their food choices. And then we need to make those food choices easy to action where you do walk into the supermarket and there is some kind of labelling system. There is a way of earmarking, but there is also, as this case and point with beans, like a way of heroing and championing more nourishing ingredients that makes them cheaper, that makes them easier to get hold of. And

it also makes them more appealing. And I do think that part is absolutely critical. Like we've got to make making porridge for breakfast or making a chickpeas stew or doing a bolognese that's half meat, half lentils somehow kind of cool and exciting to help shift it while also making those ingredients super easy to get hold of. And I don't think because none of us exist in a vacuum, most of us exist in a busy life where we're reliant on what's available in front of us. I think you've got to have both. What about you, Rui? I think you summed that up absolutely perfectly. Both are absolutely essential. I couldn't have described it better. It's A very good question.

Yeah, it's a great question. But I think it is, it's that combination of, like, individual responsibility and collective shift that will make a big difference. And it's too much. At the moment, the onus is way too much on the individual to kind of go out of their way to make healthy choices. She mentioned education. I would just add that in this country, it is lacking in state schools around the country that deserve better nutrition education. And that's a dream that I hope will be fulfilled soon. one day? No, completely, 100%. As we said before, like, you can't just tell people what to do

and expect them to do it. Like, we've got to do it in a way that feels really relatable as well to our own lives. Like, this will genuinely help your energy or help your mood, etc., etc., etc. It's just so hard getting started, isn't it? It's like, like we said last week on the walking, you know, once you do it, you just feel so much better. But when you're stuck in that route, it's so hard. Yeah, it doesn't seem that appealing. So it's going to take a 360. shift. Okay, question four comes from Jenny, who says, I love, love, love the podcast. Thanks, Jenny. I'm always excited when a new episode drops. I wanted to ask you both about how you approach meal planning and or batch cooking slash prepping your meals. I've got two young kids and a

busy job and a few other commitments and it feels like a constant struggle to decide what to make, get food delivered and things cooked for the family that everyone will eat. Plus, ensuring we get enough variety and we also want to try new recipes. It's such a huge mental effort each week. I think so many people will relate to that, Jenny. You both must be even busier than me, so please share your tips. She also said she was the very lucky winner of the LED mask at Our Life Show.

I love that. Yeah, and she said her top tip is to listen to 10 minutes of meditation from your app, Ella, while using it and that does sound like a win-win. I do that. Do you? That's like a weekend treat for me.

Oh, it was Cordelia on your app. Yeah, 10-minute meditation with the LED mask. You actually do sound very busy, Jenny. And I think what you've said is every single person's vein of their life is just the constant. Because it's a revolving thing, it's just relentless.

You constantly have to be prepped and prepared. And for me, some weeks are 100% better than others. You know, some days, if I don't prep at the weekend, I am behind for the week. And that has happened to me this week because I prioritise my DIY instead of my cooking. I'll tell you what as well, Jenny. 64% of UK adults say a lack of time

stops them from cooking healthily at her. and 62% of 30 to 45-year-olds in full-time work say weekday dinners are a daily stress. So I'm actually surprised I'm not a little bit higher than that, but basically the vast majority of UK adults are also struggling, Jen. Yeah, I'd say it probably is hard. It's hard to survey people, isn't it? And we're a particularly difficult age group when you're working and you get back late and let alone juggling the family as well.

Ella, why don't you start with some meal planning tips? Because I actually also find if I don't write things down somewhere, be it in my notepad on my phone, on a piece of paper on the countertop. It's so easy to lose track of what's in your freezer, in your fridge and your cupboards. And you do get stuck in ruts. Yes, you do. I totally agree. But then I've almost basically tried to...

Give us some quick win help, because surely in your new book you've got... So we have eight weeks of meal plans in that. Okay. So then all the thinking's done for you. What I find for myself is I've almost embraced the rut to some extent in the sense of like, I know on busy days I'm going to cook something I'm really familiar with, but then I try and mix it up. So what we do is everyone gets a weekly request, basically. And I find, so Sky, who's one of my daughters, she always wants some kind of veggie-fried rice with some kind of pan-fried tofu.

So like a maple miso tofu, for example. We always do a pesto pasta one day. It's my youngest, May's absolutely favorite. I'd say if you did a survey in the UK of favorite kids dishes, Pesto pasta has to be top 10. A hundred percent. But then I'll mix it up. or do like half pine nuts, half cashews, or add pistachios, or add rocket, or add edamame to the pasto. So blend the frozen peas with your pasto, like you said. So you're getting that mix in. And then we'll always do, to be honest, it's always made like clean out the fridge, some kind of sort of veggie bolognese stew. So like loads of diced carrots, onions or shallots, garlic, leeks, celery, peppers, whatever I've got, lots of lentils, tomatoes, tin tomatoes.

and it's a kind of creamy, hearty, sometimes are like coconut milk, and that's fab, and we'll do that. I'll sometimes put it in a lasagna or a spaghetti or jacket potatoes. And then, you know, we do lots of things like fancy butter beans on toast. It's so easy, but just like really garlicy butterbeams simmered with tomato, a little bit of yoghurt, squeeze of lemon at the end, obsessed with soup at the moment, be making a zesty white bean soup, which is so good. But then I'll basically, so I'll do that most nights where it's something familiar,

but mixing it up for your 30 plant variety. But then one or two nights a week, I will pick something new. Okay. So with the eight-week plan, what I've done in the book is basically one batch cook, for example, that you'll use two times, but two different ways of doing it. You've got your fridge-suppers. It might be your fancy beans on toast. So I was just talking about for the night where you have no time at all. But you have your shopping there so you can get it already in advance.

And so I do think something you just need that helping your hand, don't you? I think so. 100%. Give us some inspo, Ella, like two dishes or something that we can try everybody at home, just something for this week. Okay, I would say do a clean out your fridge meal, which is some kind of big veggie stew, chickpeas, lentils, chuck it all in, loads of garlic, loads of veg, tin tomatoes, a bit of miso in there can help. Recommend that and you can have that for lunches as well. I've been making little pea and chickpea pancakes with a harissa yogurt. That's been a huge hit, and we know we love pearl barley, and I've been doing a roasted squash and pearl barley risotto,

with some crispy sage and fried pine nuts, that's also been 10. But I think if you feel overwhelmed, keep it familiar and then add in one or two new things for variety, because variety is the spice of life. Variety really is the spice of life, which leads us on to variety of the discussion we had a week or two ago with regards to processed meats. And Susie has said, with regards to the ham bacon discussion, where do air-dried meats such as chorizo, Parma ham sit and also, salami. She said, I presume they're just not great in terms of processing and that they're meat,

but would they be a slightly better option? She said, I'm vegan and my youngest is vegetarian, but the rest of the family, her daughter, her son, a husband are total carnivores. Finally, thank you for keeping me informed and up to date with all of the trends and the latest information. Yeah, I think as we've talked about rare and processed meats quite a lot, I definitely can sense that people are a teeny bit confused about where all of the different specifics sit in it. So, Rie, will you explain for us? I will try and keep this really short and simple, but those are still processed meats, you know, Parmaham, particularly chorizo salami. And it's so interesting to see how, where the confusion lies, essentially, but they are not good for us and they are all classified in that, in the same group there on that sense.

It's also not just because of nitrates and preservation, but also high salt, saturated fat. There's so many components to process meats that mean that it's not great for us in excess. So my big tip is just really limit those things, even if you're a total carnival. go for a chicken breast instead or something that isn't a processed meat. And then in terms of meat alternatives, if you are bacon obsessed, you probably are better of getting a mimic bacon and having that once a week instead because then you're not consuming the same saturated fat and salt

and then slowly move your way towards other options. But yeah, I really feel you. I'm a plant-based eater and my husband's a total carnivore and it's a hard dynamic to strike. but we all get there somehow we navigate the muddle of life totally and I think that the answer of just a little less is a nice one to focus on so too so our last question comes from Michelle who said

I love the show so much I've started re-listening to every episode from beginning love that Michelle thank you it's been great to remind myself all your guidance over the past year I wonder if you and re can offer some advice about consistency I've been a yo-yo diet in most of my life and finally feel I might be on the right track with the focus on eating more plants, small daily habits and general wellness, and trying to move just a little bit more, thank you wellness scoop. But I know that previously it hasn't taken very much to throw me off

course and sabotage all of my great efforts. I'd love to know your thoughts on staying the course. I love that. It's an important question, I think. Because you're not alone. I think just before we answer it, I just think it's really important to emphasise that because, you know, we have to acknowledge and I always say this that psychology just plays such a huge role here. It's not just about food choices. You know, it's about why we turn to certain behaviors in the first place. And in my life as a nutritionist, one of the qualifications that I really enjoyed was the master practitioner course, which was three different diplomas on the psychological interventions to disordered eating and eating behaviors. And at the Retrition Clinic, we work as a team with psychologists and nutritionists a lot of the time because, you know, we have to understand how we soothe. And sometimes, you know, I do it, but you have to identify it.

you sit there in the evening, you know, I really just want something sweet, or I will eat this now. And it's about just understanding, is that behaviour going to be helpful? Can you sit there and go, yeah, I'm okay with that right now? And that's fine. I'm going to enjoy it and really go for that moment. Or is it self-sabotage, essentially, and something that's just going to make you feel worse and trigger a vicious cycle? So a lot of the time, you know, is getting yourself a cup of tea enough or watching a Harry Potter film, calling a friend, getting a pen or paper.

And I'm saying this really blasé, like it's an easy thing to identify. It is not easy to tap into your brain and ask yourself the big, hard why. You know, that is far from simple. But is it a feeling or is it a fact in that moment? And if you can really ask yourself that, that can be helpful. But Ella, we live in a world, don't we have total comparison, social media. Everyone seems to have their, you know, don't want to swear, their life together. and that's what's hard.

Yeah, and I think that all-or-nothing mindset is so normal. Everyone seems to have it. Yeah, and I think my kind of number one piece of advice would be never say to yourself, never. You know, if you do have one of those days, life throws you, of course, and to Rees' point, like we all have different ways that we soothe and food is such a common way and can be a likes way to do it. You've had a bad day. You get your favourite tree. You sit on the sofa.

you enjoy your bar of chocolate, lovely, lovely, lovely. But then maybe you had a little bit more chocolate than you were planning to have. Instead of saying to yourself, I'm never going to eat chocolate again. Or I'm going to restrict tomorrow, which sort of a lot of, I hear that a lot. Exactly. I would just really try and say, no, that was today. It was great in the moment. But tomorrow, I'm going to get up and do you know what?

I'm going to make a really big effort for myself in the morning to make a healthy breakfast, really try and focus on those complex carbohydrates, healthy proteins, fats, etc. Things that make me happy. Totally. And that feel really good and you feel satisfied and full. If you then restrict yourself and you don't eat breakfast. It gets worse. Yeah, well, then you're going to suddenly be starving and you're so much more likely to kind of go back in a cycle. So I just, it's so easy to say, much harder to do.

But first of all, it's really common. I think it's really important to kind of normalize that. It's really normal to sue through food. But I think, as really said, first of all, kind of the why, I think not an easy question, but an important one. But the second is, if you do probably feel you've gone off course, instead of saying to yourself, I'm never going to do that again, I'm going to change my life in the next two hours.

just be gentler and kinder on yourself, but try and really nourish yourself and take time to look after yourself and not think that you can never have chocolate again, but maybe really try and have something nourishing for your next meal that's not chocolate. And start one minute a time. Like when we're talking about food changes, it's too much to say every day is going to be, you know, wonderful. Once you get a habit, what's the stat? How many days it forms to make a habit? There's so many different ones in it. Sometimes there's 60s, sometimes it's 90s sometimes it's over 100 people have such different sets but a meaningful amount of time exactly and it does become a habit it's really weird I see it in my children like when I start you know you mix up breakfast we try and keep it diverse that's what ella and I always say we don't want the meat in the same thing mixing up breakfast is so hard so hard but it's important because they get fixated very quickly if you offer porridge for a week that's all they're going to want from then onwards so you can form a habit for yourself by starting with one meal as you mean to go on a hundred percent I always take that idea that if you start something today, make it smaller manageable so you can keep it up forever.

Yeah, I love that. I think it's a really nice way to end the podcast today as well on such a positive note. Please keep all of your questions coming and I'm really, really enjoying the recommendations as well, the give-back recommendations, especially this time of year. Yeah, so please keep those coming and we'll see you on Monday. Bye. Bye.