Transcript
Fiona Spence
Welcome to our first ever podcast. Run by NHS Fife, nutrition and clinical dietetics, mental health and learning disability team.
Fiona Spence
We are so.
Fiona Spence
Excited to bring you a series of podcasts focusing on food, well being and mental health.
Fiona Spence
My name is Fiona Spence. I'm a registered nutritionist here at NHS Fife. And today I'm joined by Sarah Gallacher, who's a dietitian.
Sara Gallacher
Hi Sarah hi Fiona.
Fiona Spence
Lovely to have you here today. Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?
Sara Gallacher
Yes, absolutely. So I'm a registered dietitian and I specialise in mental health.
Sara Gallacher
I recently joined the team.
Sara Gallacher
In NHS Fife working in mental health and eating disorders. And it's an area that I've worked in for over 10 years and mental health is a subject that I'm hugely passionate about.
Fiona Spence
Lovely thank you for that. So today's podcast is talking about how we can improve our overall holistic health. Can you start by telling us exactly what you mean by holistic health?
Sara Gallacher
OK yeah, so really holistic health is thinking about the components of Wellness. So we are thinking and recognising the whole person as a whole being really. So we're thinking about different aspects including the physical health, mental, social, intellectual and also spiritual health.
Sara Gallacher
So really by taking all of these different factors into account, we can take ownership of our own health and our well being.
Sara Gallacher
But this is a really personal thing. So Wellness to me will mean something completely different to you.
Sara Gallacher
So it's really important to emphasise the link between mental and physical health. They really cannot be separated. Uhm, we find that better mental health will mean a better physical health and vice versa.
Fiona Spence
I think that is so interesting Sarah. Uhm, I know that there will be so many people that can relate to that.
Fiona Spence
When you are feeling under pressure when you've got stress in your life when you're not feeling, you know, quite on top of things.
Fiona Spence
That it does physically affect you. You do tend to end up with more, or it certainly seems as if you're more susceptible to colds and viruses, and you can't ever really seem to get on top of it.
Sara Gallacher
Absolutely. So if you are experiencing higher levels of stress than normal in your life, then the levels of your stress.
Sara Gallacher
Hormone in your body is going to be raised, and of course it's normal to experience stress. We all have stresses in our lives. We're juggling a lot of plates.
Fiona Spence
Especially, now.
Sara Gallacher
Yeah, That is completely normal.
Sara Gallacher
And our bodies are hardwired to respond to stress. So once the threat has passed or the stress has passed.
Sara Gallacher
If you like, our hormones should then return to their normal level. However these days with us all juggling so many things in our lives. As I said, we do find that for some people their stress levels are just constantly.
Sara Gallacher
That high level and your body is in that constant fight or flight mode all of the time.
Sara Gallacher
So your stress hormones are going to remain at higher levels and this can supress your immune system, so you'll literally it'll feel like you're catching every single bug
Fiona Spence
So your immune systems suppressed, you end up with all these bugs.
Sara Gallacher
Absolutely yeah
Fiona Spence
Grand. So can you tell me from a nutrition point of view, is that anything that we can do specifically to boost our immune system?
Sara Gallacher
So there's no one specific foods. Uhm, that's going to stop us from becoming unwell.
Sara Gallacher
A lot of us have heard of the term Super Foods. Probably so Super Foods blueberries for example. They said they were super foods at one point.
Sara Gallacher
Now this is really just a marketing term that's used by food and drinks companies to entice us to buy their products.
Sara Gallacher
So basically for them to make more money, what we really want to do is try and focus on a variety of foods.
Sara Gallacher
To boost our immune system so nothing is going to be off the table, and by having a balanced diet which contains all of the important vitamins and minerals.
Sara Gallacher
You need.
Fiona Spence
And lots of colour we love colour.
Sara Gallacher
Lots of colour. Yeah, that's definitely going to help to support your immune system rather than boost it if that makes sense.
Fiona Spence
Yeah, that's interesting. So can you tell us what you mean by a balanced diet, please?
Sara Gallacher
Sure, so balanced diet is going to contain all.
Sara Gallacher
Of the five food groups.
Sara Gallacher
We've got the starchy foods emm, which are also called the carbohydrates. Fruit and vegetables are daily foods or daily alternatives, protein foods, so that's our beans, pulses, fish, eggs and meats, and finally our fats and oils.
Sara Gallacher
Now, by eating a variety of foods from each of these food groups, we should all really be able to get.
Sara Gallacher
A wide range of nutrients now in terms of immune function. There are a couple of specific nutrients I could highlight.
Sara Gallacher
Here that do play a role in immune and supporting immune function.
Sara Gallacher
And so firstly, maybe iron would be a good topic to start with.
Sara Gallacher
So iron is really important for a good immune response. When your body comes into contact with any nasty bugs or any viruses and it helps to maintain healthy immune cells. Now the best sources.
Sara Gallacher
Of iron tend to be found in red meats and offal so offal as O F F A L. So that's.
Sara Gallacher
Liver and maybe kidneys. Definitely. Is it something you like?
Fiona Spence
Quite an acquired taste.
Fiona Spence
My dad's a chef and he would swear by things like tripe and yeah, proper old school. I don't mind a bit of liver if it's done right.
Sara Gallacher
Oh, really.
Fiona Spence
I have to say though, yeah, I probably kind of draw the.
Sara Gallacher
Line at that it's probably quite a traditional food, I would say, and I can't. I mean, I definitely don't think my children.
Sara Gallacher
have ever tried it and I don't know how much they would ever want to try it.
Fiona Spence
But then I guess I suppose is thinking instead of.
Fiona Spence
Having like a.
Fiona Spence
Slab of liver on your plate that there will be so many.
Fiona Spence
People love Patty
Sara Gallacher
Yeah Good example.
Sara Gallacher
Patty, so that's a really good source of iron, but the things I suppose something to mention with liver and Patty as well is just to make sure if you're pregnant, that isn't something that we would recommend.
Fiona Spence
Is that the vitamin A?
Sara Gallacher
Yeah
Fiona Spence
And I'm sure our midwifes will be telling our pregnant ladies out there that that's the case.
Sara Gallacher
And I would say that overall red meat consumption is really becoming less popular over the last few years, certainly because of potential health risks that are associated with.
Sara Gallacher
High red meat consumption and also there's environmental reasons as well that people choose to eat less red meat, but alternatives would be kidney beans or eggs.
Sara Gallacher
Some dried fruit or fortified breakfast cereals so they are all good sources of iron as well. However, the iron in these non meat.
Sara Gallacher
Sources is what we call non heam iron, and this actually can't be absorbed by your body as well as the iron sources that we find in meat so the iron in meat we call heam iron.
Sara Gallacher
But we can convert this non heam iron into haem iron by adding a little bit of vitamin C.
Fiona Spence
So that may sound quite complicated to listeners, but I guess the basics is if you're getting your iron from your red meat or your other alternatives, then that's fine. However, if you're going down.
Fiona Spence
More of a vegetarian route to get your iron. Have a glass of fruit juice or something alongside it and that'll help you absorb it.
Sara Gallacher
Better, yeah, that's a really good example. So say you were having a boiled egg for breakfast.
Sara Gallacher
You might have a glass of orange juice alongside it, so that means, yeah, absolutely so. The vitamin C in the orange juice allows your body to absorb the iron from the egg far more easily.
Fiona Spence
Perfect, that's quite achievable.
Sara Gallacher
But vitamin C also supports immunity, so that's a really important vitamin to highlight. From the immunity side of things.
Fiona Spence
I think that is quite an age old thing, isn't it? That we all know? Maybe not know why, but whenever we've got a cold, I mean, I think there's an awful lot of cold and flu remedies out there, and it's vitamin C is in big bold letters all over these pharmaceuticals.
Sara Gallacher
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Fiona Spence
So I think, yeah, definitely we probably know we should have vitamin C, but it's nice to explain.
Sara Gallacher
so vitamin C is absorbed by your immune cells and helps attack what we call pathogens, so again, that's your bugs or viruses and things like that, and it also clears away any old immune cells from the infection.
Sara Gallacher
So or any site of infection that you may or may not have, and vitamin C is mainly found in our fruit and veggie group.
Sara Gallacher
And so examples are like citrus fruits. Like we said, strawberries, broccoli and Peppers.
Fiona Spence
So what about?
Fiona Spence
If somebody was trying to include more vitamin C say they were including say pulses or like your kidney beans, things like that so they could incorporate that in a tomato sauce, maybe tin tomatoes.
Sara Gallacher
Yeah, absolutely, that would be a really good way to increase your intake of fruit and vegetables. Really, we want to try and aim to eat a minimum of five portions of fruit and veggies a day.
Sara Gallacher
So a portion is measured out as 80 grammes.
Sara Gallacher
But obviously we're not going to measure out all their food all the time. It's not really something.
Sara Gallacher
You want to do.
Sara Gallacher
So what we kind of use as a guide is just basically the palm of your hand, so whatever would roughly fit into the palm of your hands will count as a portion.
Sara Gallacher
Of fruit or veg?
Fiona Spence
So that's about your 80 grammes.
Sara Gallacher
Yeah, so that might be 1 Apple. It may be 2 satsumas, 7 strawberries or handful of strawberries that will count as one portion of your fruit and veg.
Sara Gallacher
And also it doesn't need to be fresh options. We can use frozen. We can use tinned fruit or veg if you're going for fruit. Make sure it's in a juice and not a syrup or dried, OK.
Fiona Spence
And that would just be the high sugar content in our syrups, isn't it?
Sara Gallacher
Absolutely. So like you mentioned, add extra beans, kidney beans or extra veg to soup, you can add some raisins to your cereal
Sara Gallacher
Some salad with your baked potato.
Fiona Spence
It's just about small achievable steps, isn't it is just thinking, how can we make this easy? Nothing that you have to remember too much.
Fiona Spence
Yeah, there's probably a lot of people listening going. Oh where do you even start? You know it doesn't need to be a mammoth task. You could make one tiny change by like you say as.
Fiona Spence
Some raisins into your cereal. If cereals something that you have in the morning. If it's not, maybe have them on the side.
Fiona Spence
If you have a slice of toast, just something to jog your memory and I sound like I'm really pro raisins here, but I always think dried fruit, such an easy one, but I know that probably there's so many dentists then listening to this, cursing us saying you know dried fruits terrible for your teeth.
Fiona Spence
so as long as you're having it with a meal.
Sara Gallacher
I was going to say exactly have it as part of a meal if it's dried fruit. Yes, absolutely. So it. I mean, you're right, it doesn't need to be expensive.
Fiona Spence
More gentle on the teeth, yeah?
Sara Gallacher
Doesn't need to be expensive, doesn#’t need to be boring or complicated.
Sara Gallacher
even have one piece of fruit as a snack mid morning mid afternoon whenever suits whenever suits you whenever you can work it into your day.
Fiona Spence
and I suppose if people find it easy to have that kind of routine, then it's small steps that you're building into your routine and then you routinely do it.
Sara Gallacher
Yeah, yeah. So you can be more consistent. Yep, and then you don't have to think about.
Fiona Spence
Small changes, yeah.
Sara Gallacher
So we've talked about vitamin C and I think it's also important that we highlight the B vitamins OK and there function and supporting immune health Now there's lots of B vitamins and they're found in a range of the food groups, so that's why it's really important that we are having a range of foods.
Sara Gallacher
From all the food groups, as I've said before, because if you are just eating the same foods all the time, you're not therefore going to get all these different B vitamins.
Sara Gallacher
And the main players in supporting good immune function is vitamin B6 and also vitamin B12.
Sara Gallacher
So they are in a few different foods, so it's completely different from the nutrients that we spoke about earlier. So in terms of vitamin B6, we've got peppers.
Sara Gallacher
That's quite a good source of B6. Bananas and avocados and then for B12. We've got our dairy foods, so things like cheese.
Sara Gallacher
And also fortified yeast extract. OK, so things like Marmite.
Fiona Spence
Oh, OK, right. I was gonna ask where would we find you know what would you use that for? So yeah, marmite is what you want to remember, isn't it?
Sara Gallacher
Perfect great.
Sara Gallacher
Kinda love or hate food? I think as well I mean, but there's a couple of foods that contain both B6 and B12, so that would be eggs, fish and also fortified breakfast cereals.
Fiona Spence
That is quite an easy one to remember though, isn't it? I mean there is probably a huge part of the population would have breakfast cereal.
Fiona Spence
Uhm, as part of their daily routine, but there be a huge amount of people that don't. But it is a good way to incorporate.
Fiona Spence
You know, even if you were having a bowl of cereal for your supper, yeah, you know a little just to remember that you know these cereals were fortified years and years ago to help us make sure that we were getting all the vitamins and minerals we need so.
Fiona Spence
Yeah, if these.
Fiona Spence
The B6 and B12 are both found in the fortified cereals. That's an easy way to.
Fiona Spence
Sort of, kill two birds with one stone isn’t it.
Sara Gallacher
Yeah, so they they often fortify breakfast cereals with iron as well and also folate.
Sara Gallacher
Folate is particularly important for, UM, in pregnancy, so if you're pregnant, or if you're trying to conceive, you should be taking 400 micrograms of folic acid supplement.
Sara Gallacher
Until you're 12 weeks pregnant now, this is to prevent any neural tube defects such as spina bifida in your baby.
Fiona Spence
OK, so for the development of the baby.
Fiona Spence
So we're talking about fortified breakfast cereals and.
Fiona Spence
Obviously we talk a lot about our vitamins and minerals in our day to day jobs, another vitamin and that we know is added to fortified cereals is vitamin D.
Fiona Spence
So yeah, are there not some recommendations about supplementing our diet with vitamin D that you can tell us about?
Sara Gallacher
Yeah, so I'll firstly just touch on vitamin D and why we need it, I guess so.
Sara Gallacher
Its another important nutrient which supports immune health, and although we're not exactly sure how it supports immune health, uhm, it's found a small number of foods, so some fortified spreads, oily fish, egg yolks, red meat, and also liver. Again, uhm, the best source.
Sara Gallacher
Of vitamin D though really is actually sunlight, and our body creates vitamin D from direct sunlight on the skin when we’re outdoors.
Sara Gallacher
Now obviously living in Scotland, we both know.
Fiona Spence
We don't get a huge amount of sunshine.
Sara Gallacher
You don't get much sunshine, especially over the winter months. It's very dark here. It's very cloudy and rainy, so the Scottish Government actually recommends that we take a 10 microgram vitamin D supplement every day. That is in, particularly during the winter months. Now this is very important for everybody.
Sara Gallacher
Children breastfeeding women as well and people who are vulnerable. So maybe people who are in care homes who don't get out at all.
Sara Gallacher
It's really, really important that that these these people are taking vitamin D supplement daily.
Fiona Spence
And I suppose for our ethnic minority communities as well, where they may choose to cover their skin for cultural reasons. Yeah, really important.
Fiona Spence
To have vitamin.
Sara Gallacher
D Yeah, so really everybody should be taking it OK.
Sara Gallacher
Across the board.
Fiona Spence
I think that's really important.
Fiona Spence
Message to get across there.
Fiona Spence
So Sarah, you mentioned at the start of this podcast that there's no one superfood. It actually sounds like all food is.
Fiona Spence
super food, so if you were to give three top tips for the people listening today, what would they be?
Sara Gallacher
So firstly I would want to highlight that it's really important to include all food so all foods in your diet, all food from these food groups, really nothing is wrong or bad.
Sara Gallacher
And we know that by restricting a particular food, what then will happen is you will then start to crave it more.
Sara Gallacher
And and then you might then eat a large volume of it in one go. Now this can then cause you to feel quite guilty. Might have an impact on your mood.
Sara Gallacher
So you restrict further. You then feel hungry and you then eat this large volume again and then that can become a bit of a routine or a bit of a habit.
Sara Gallacher
So definitely would be to have every food and not cut out anything.
Fiona Spence
A little bit of what you fancy, whenever you fancy sounds like a good message.
Speaker 1
Yep, Yep.
Sara Gallacher
I'd also think just I also think just highlighting the fact that like you said, there isn't a super food.
Sara Gallacher
It is just a marketing term so don't believe the supermarkets or you know the food companies.
Sara Gallacher
All Foods, as you said, is super lots of colour.
Fiona Spence
I think that's really important that. I mean, I think I mean it can be quite intimidating going into a supermarket and you almost feel compelled to buy these things that are.
Fiona Spence
Yeah, you know they created this vision that this particular food is going to heal you is going to help with your.
Fiona Spence
Immune system has all these health benefits, but actually including everything, making sure that we've got lots of colour on our plate is way more important than focusing on one particular thing.
Sara Gallacher
Yeah, absolutely.
Sara Gallacher
You've hit the nail on the head there, I would say so, but finally I would just say that it's important that we all are just a little bit more aware of our holistic health and just have a think about how positive dietary changes can actually have an impact on lots of other things in.
Sara Gallacher
Our life it might affect how you feel mentally but just having a bit more awareness about that erm can really be quite powerful.
Fiona Spence
OK, thank you. Sara it’s been so lovely to talk to you today thank you so much for coming along and doing this podcast
Sara Gallacher
Thank you for having me
Fiona Spence
Is there anything that you would like to add before you leave us?
Sara Gallacher
I think I would just like to say to the listeners just to erm share share our podcast share it with family or friends
Fiona Spence
Spread the word
Sara Gallacher
Spread the word to whoever you think might find this information useful cause hopefully it will erm help a few people
Fiona Spence
That’s lovely thank you so much and thank you listeners
