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On this episode of The Daily Dollar, we're chatting about the core principles of plant-based eating and how you can maximise your long-term health with practical ideas for your daily meals and snacks. It's dollop time! Hey, hey, my name's Kate. I'm a registered nutritionist, and after 20 years in the field of nutrition, I'm tired of seeing people stressed about eating and confused about where to start.
And so, I'm changing the conversation. You deserve to feel confident in your food choices and empower it to maximise your health. Every weekday will dollop an episode into your feed covering everything from busting nutrition myths, practical food ideas, my thoughts on trending topics, and habits for a healthy life. My promise to you, it will always be sustainable, realistic, restriction-free, and strictly no-woo.
Only good science translated into easy, everyday advice. Let's do this. Welcome back to The Daily Dollar. It's a wonderful day to chat plant-based eating with you and how you can incorporate some key principles into your diet and reap the benefits of plant-based eating without actually having to fully cut out animal products if that's what you choose to eat.
But before we get into the episode today, I actually really need to vent some recent trauma to you. I'm being a little bit dramatic with the use of the word trauma, but it was an unpleasant experience. And as an experience I've had since moving to Queensland, so I am in South East Queensland in the Lachia Valley, and I had no idea about the cane-toed situation. So, cane-toeds are a toad, which is kind of like a frog, for those of you who don't know what a toad is, but it grows like an ugly frog, like more watery and more stout and chunky.
I don't really know how to describe them, but they're just gross. Cane-toeds are native to South America, and they were actually introduced as a foreign species to Australia in 1935 to help control the pests in the Australian cane fields. This beetle that was eating the cane. Anyway, it's now seen to be an environmental disaster bringing cane-toeds into Australia because they, one, didn't control the pest situation in the cane fields because the beetles ate the top of the cane plants and cane-toeds can't really climb that well.
So, they didn't really think that one through. But they have just gone nuts here in Australia, and I think a female can lay like hundreds of thousands of eggs across her lifetime or more. Like, it's just crazy, and they are all around my house at night time. Like, what the heck?
They're also toxic. So, they have very little predators here in Australia because if someone tries to eat them, the animal will die very, very quickly because of this poison that's excreted onto their skin and like behind their glands behind their eyes. So, yeah, it's this epic problem that we have here in Australia, but just in Queensland in the warmer climates, we don't get them back down in Canberra where I'm from. And it just didn't even occur to me that this was a thing that happened.
So, because they're toxic, I actually need to be careful with my dogs because they can kill a dog within 15 minutes. Of the dog eating them. Yeah, so it's a whole thing. So, I've got these big fat toys with warts and poison glands that are just gross like all around my house at night time.
And so, because they're a pest and they're actually bad for the environment, you are strongly encouraged to kill them. And you should be killing them because every young female told that you kill, you stop another 100,000 of them being born. Right? So, it's doing good things for Australia.
But, oh my gosh, guys, it is the grossest, most awful thing to do. And I know they're a pest and I know they're dangerous to my dogs, and I will do it. But I just had this one hunting evening, and my mum and her husband, my stepdad was visiting, and he was like, come on Kate, let's go kill the Kate Toad. And I was like, yeah, I was all brave.
But honestly, the repulsion and the, I felt so bad for killing them, that I felt like deep down while hunting them. It's just next level. And it's just dawning on me that this is my life now. And we caught 11 that night and I got to that many.
And we were still seeing them. And I was like, no, I can't do anymore. I can't do anymore. And I think I'm just going to do it every second night because every night just feels overwhelming to me.
But yeah, they're all around like sitting in the window frames and door frames and all in the gardens. Like I walked out to my new compost bin to put some compost in, and I could just hear them like scattering under my feet. Like, oh my gosh. So anyway, I'm going to post a photo of my Toad hunting outfit because I've got to wear gloves.
And I bought this spray from Bunnings called Hop Stop, which is a humane way to kill them. It's basically an anesthetic, so it just puts them to sleep. And then they just don't make up. So I feel good about that.
It's just not very nice. And you have to wear gloves. And I've got my little head torch. Like it's the whole thing, guys.
This is my life now. So anyway, onto plant based eating. And I just want to talk through this idea of plant based eating, how to build a plant based diet, because it's a term that's thrown around on the internet a lot. And like most things in nutrition these days, unfortunately, there's lots of extreme messaging around the concept of plant based eating.
And particularly when it comes to plant versus animal foods, the messaging actually goes from one extreme to the other. So at one extreme, we've got the carnivore diet. And I would call them activists because that's what they are. They're not actually using any scientific evidence to back themselves up.
They're just activists with propaganda, like fighting for a cause. It's quite strange. And they demonize plants. And they like to focus on what they like to call anti-nutrients, which we've known about that exists in plants for a really long time, which are nutrients that actually just impair the absorption of other nutrients that we need.
And we know from science and research that when you're eating a wide and varied diet that anti-nutrients are not a problem and that including plants regularly in your diet does not impact on your absorption of key nutrients if you're diet's wide and varied. And it's not a problem. But they like to focus in on these anti-nutrients as being a key problem. And then make you feel bad for eating perfectly healthy foods like spinach and oats, which is just crazy.
Now on the other extreme, you've got the vegan activists. And now they're advocating for more than just health. There's environmental reasons and moral and ethical reasons. And that's fine.
Like everybody is entitled to their own opinions and perspectives on food. But we have the demonizing of meat and animal products. And of course, you know, a side of environmental guilt as well. Now, I like to approach nutrition from the perspective of you're an adult and you can eat however you want.
Everybody is entitled to their opinion about food that might differ from my opinion or the opinion of somebody else. But hey, it's your life. Go live it. It's your choice, your body.
You can eat whatever you like. And I do encourage people to eat in a way that aligns with your personal values. That's how you should be eating. And, you know, I would encourage you to potentially be critical and, you know, look for evidence-based information.
But at the end of the day, that's on you as well. You can choose to not do that. So, eat in a way that aligns with your personal values. But what bothers me is that people think that because they hold their own, quite strong conviction about their own food choices, that that then gives them the right to tell other people how to eat, who aren't qualified nutritional professionals.
And, you know, because both of these messages from, you know, animals are bad and plants are bad. Like they're both extreme messages. They're unnecessary and not evidence-based with long-term health. So what does the evidence suggest?
Well, lots of different studies looking at lots of different dietary patterns over the years culminates together to suggest that a diet rich in plants is vital for promoting long-term health. And many of the, you know, different plant-rich diets study a main one known as the Mediterranean diet, which is primarily plant-based and includes some animal products, has been shown to benefit health across a bunch of different elements of health from cardiovascular health, to tattoo, diabetes, to mental health, et cetera. So, that's telling us some good news. And it means that you don't have to cut animal products out.
And, in fact, for the most part, whole food animal products are a great source of additional nutrition on top of a primarily plant-based diet. So, like most of my nutrition messages, if you've been listening to the Daily Dollar Ball, you're a part of the Ayla Health community or you've got the app, is that you'll know that I like to focus on what to do rather than not what to do. And so you are better off focusing your efforts on eating more plants, both from a volume and a variety perspective, and doing that consistency than you are focusing on not eating meat or not eating dairy. So rather than focusing on cutting things out, see if you can focus on what you can include more of.
So here are some thoughts of what to do, what to do more of if you're really wanting to build a plant-based diet, particularly for promoting long-term health. So, you want to focus on including the following five groups of foods into your diet daily if you can, just as much as you can. So, the first is to increase your intake of vegetables and see if you can gradually hit up to five serves a day. If you're really having one or two serves, heading to five can feel a bit overwhelming.
So, just make it three and then gradually increase it over time. Keep it really sustainable and realistic. Every additional serve of vegetables into your day improves your long-term health, particularly from a cardiovascular and chronic disease perspective. So, it's not a waste if you can't hit five, even if you go from one to three serves.
That's fabulous too. Just keep working on that as a habit that eventually becomes part of how you're eating. The next group is including some fruit in your diet every day. You know, around two to three serves is a really good place to start.
And, you know, include that in ways that you enjoy eating. I find fruit really challenging to eat. It's probably the food group that I don't enjoy eating as much all the time. And I think it's because I feel like fruit is unpredictable and sometimes you eat fruit and it tastes bad and I just don't like that.
Like, I would combine into a strawberry and be like, oh, this is not a good one. That really bothers me about fruit. But for the most part, when I do make an effort to include fruit, you know, in my day, I enjoy eating it. And I found ways that suit me and that I like.
Next is including nuts and seeds in your diet every day. So, they are a fantastic way of promoting long-term health and there's plenty of good evidence showing that even a small handful, 30 grams of nuts can improve cardiovascular disease risk. Include legumes, so beans, lentils, chickpeas into your diet every day. And, lastly, going for whole grain varieties of carbohydrate-rich products rather than refined more processed products.
So, that way, you're reaping the benefits of the whole grain. So, some practical ideas for plant-based eating is add nuts, seeds, and fruit to breakfast, like muesli, porridge, or a high-five breakfast cereal. So, it's just thinking, where are these little things that I can add in? You can add salads to your lunches as a side to boost your vegetable intake.
So, even if you've got a ham and cheese sandwich, add a side salad to that. You can add a side of steam vegetables to your meals, no matter what else you eat, same with a salad. You can add beans and lentils to salad, soups, curries, and stews. They're a great way to boost your carbohydrate and protein intake as well as fiber and other micronutrients.
Make your own dips from blended beans, really good. I mean, hummus is a good example of that, but you can do white bean dips, using flavors like garlic, lemon, olive oil, a bit of salt and pepper, yum. And, lastly, grating vegetables into different meals, sauces, resoles, bakes, et cetera. So, the aim of health out in our ratio of body pathway will help you build a majority plant-based diet based on the principles in this episode, as well as encourage you to take that really long-term mindset with your health and wellbeing and build that healthy relationship with food and your body.
So, make sure you check that out, otherwise, that's it for today's episode, and we'll catch you next week. The Daily Dollar Podcast is proudly brought to you by Ayla Health. Build food confidence and learn how to choose foods that are right for you and your body. Download the app today and build habits at that last.
As always, you can find out more about our chat in the show notes. You can also join the conversation over in the Ayla Health Community Group on Facebook. We'd love to see you there. If you've got a topic you'd love to hear us chat about on the Daily Dollar, please let us know.
Email us at hello at aylahealth.com.au, or you can send us a message on Instagram. Until next time.