Jayne Leonard on food and mood

For World Digestive Health Day, am delighted to be welcoming Jayne Leonard back to discuss a super simple way (even I’m enjoying experimenting with it) to improve our gut health, ADHD symptoms and mental health.And Sole to Soul Circle members can join us tomorrow for a deeper dive into getting our inner (and actual) toddlers on board.le grá (with love),EveiWatch hereFull transcript… and found that those people who ate 30 or more plant foods a week had a far more diverse gut microbiome.So that's fruit and veg?It's actually fruit, veg, grains, nuts, seeds, so just 30 different types a week. So it actually isn't completely out of reach, you know, if you had your porridge with berries and seeds and nuts that's already like four different, four out of your 30 in one meal. It was just very little things, just like a different seed every morning, a different…Hi, you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and I'm here to help you create a life you don't have to retreat from.I'm doing this by helping you take better care of yourself. That's the lower case self-care and also that upper case Self: that highest, wisest, truest, most brilliant, joyful and miraculous part of yourself. I do this by sharing trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self-care ideas and I would love to hear how you're getting on and what questions you might have.Today we're working with our digestive health for World Digestive Health Day and I'm delighted to welcome back Jayne Leonard. She specialises in food and mental health.I hope you find this helpful. And if you want to join the Sole to Soul Circle or if you're already a member, your bonus content this week will be a deeper dive into working with your inner child around pathological demand avoidance when you want to eat healthier but your inner toddler is like, No! And there's also plenty of helpful information for people dealing with actual toddlers. I've just made it all about my own inner toddler.I hope you enjoy the episode and thank you for listening.Welcome Jayne, thank you for coming back to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast and this is actually around your specialism because we're celebrating World Digestive Health Day.Do you want to say a little bit about your background for people who haven't listened to the earlier episodes and where people can find you?Yeah, so I'm a psychotherapist and nutritional therapist. My interest is in the intersection of the two. Food and mood.I am currently doing a PhD in how mental health professionals use food and mood research in their whole field called nutritional psychiatry which studies the relationship between what we eat and how we feel. You can find me on my website vivecounselling.com or on LinkedIn or Instagram @vivecounselling.And that's v-i-v-e? That's v-i-v-e, yeah. Thank you.If you were to think about your ideal self-care around your own eating and your actual, what would you like to say about that?Ideally, based on the research, we should be eating 30 different plant foods a week and that's for our gut health, for our digestive health, mental health.There's been a huge American, the American Gut Project found that those people who ate 30 or more plant foods a week had a far more diverse gut microbiome.That's fruit and veg?It's actually fruit, veg, grains, nuts, seeds, so just 30 different types a week. So it actually isn't completely out of reach, you know, if you had your porridge with berries and seeds and nuts that's already like four different, four out of your 30 in one meal.So it's just varying little things, just like a different seed every morning, a different fruit. But yeah, aiming for 30 over the week.Wow.Yeah? So how do you think you do?Challenge accepted! I think if this were even a few months ago I'd have been like, it's just like not even worth trying. Whereas I think, I'm guessing I'd be probably around 20 because I do have a lot of fruit and veg now and what you're saying with the nuts and seeds. I believe, I no longer think you're an alien for suggesting such a thing, put it that way. I believe it is possible.I know you like dal, so it's like lentils, garlic, onion.I made yesterday dal, I had the onion, the garlic, the ginger root, the turmeric root, the coriander, the spinach and the tomato. Would the coconut milk count?I don't think so, it needs whole foods, so it'd be the whole. Yeah, so that's I think eight, if I counted correctly in one meal.But then you tend to eat the dal every day for however long. It's about variety, isn't it?Yeah, well your breakfast, your lunch, your snacks. Yeah, so about 30 plant foods a week.One helping of fermented food a day as well, for gut health, is what they say is best. So in the future? Yes, kefir, kimchi, miso, sauerkraut. You just have to be careful if you're buying sauerkraut in the supermarket that it's not the pasteurised one, that it's the actual real fermented.What are vegan options and if possible, what are pepper-free vegan options? This is very much about my allergy, but there'll be other people who are vegan.Yeah, so some kimchis are vegan. You just have to note to see that it's not the fish.I know Aldi have one, or Lidl have one that's vegan. Sauerkraut, miso, you can make water, kefir, kombucha.OK.Yeah, so most of them, yeah. So I think like about a tablespoon or so a day of sauerkraut or something.Just a tablespoon? Yeah, I think one tablespoon is one serving.I mean, I think most people don't even get close to that, so any increase is a good increase.It's that sense always of, and I think this is an ADHD thing as well. It's like the, well, I can't do it perfectly. I'm not going to bother at all. So a tablespoon feels way more manageable. I was imagining that a whole bowl of it and thinking, Ew.No, like one to two tablespoons. Yeah. I mean, you know, but beyond two tablespoons, I don't think it's probably a need, but like any, you know, like I said, any change is better than none.That's the point of the podcast. Something is better than nothing. A teaspoon will be better than nothing, you know, or having it once a week would be better than never having it.It's, well, whatever feels manageable, you know, you're not trying to be perfect. You're just trying to be, a little bit, make it a little bit easier each time.I say this now, knowing that I rarely do this myself with the healthy foods, even though I have the best intentions, but definitely make the 30 different plant foods. So they would be two things. And then the other thing I would say is ultra processed foods. To really watch those.Yeah. I know. They're just kind of coming out now as being pretty bad for gut health and overall health and mental health as well.Big links between that.So I'd say if you have them, have them intentionally, you know, rather than, because we can have like an ultra processed pasta sauce and not realise it's actually maybe not as good as we think ourselves, whereas at least if you're going to have something ultra processed, at least recognise what it is and that you're having it as a treat rather than, you know, putting them into your day. Yeah.I, when I started seeing the medical herbalist, Colleen, she was a guest a few weeks ago and it was a good few years ago now, maybe four years ago, but I was actually celebrating my Denny's anniversary of like a year of Denny's vegan sausages every day because they were so delicious.She was horrified. And it's like as a treat, but not as a yeah.Yeah. A lot of the vegan food is very ultra processed. Yeah.And do you use the Yuka app?I don't. I tend to make most of my stuff from scratch or I just quickly check the label. I tend to just buy the whole food. So I don't, but I know I've had lots of clients say it's been very helpful. I know you've said it's very helpful. Yeah.Just thinking like, even in terms of like, say making dal, the first time I was using the app, most of the coconut milk tins I was picking up were containing hazardous, risky additives. That's the thing I'm seeking to avoid.But like some of the ultra processed vegan stuff, it shows up well on the Yuka app in terms of nutritional value and others, terrible. And it's really like even within the same brands, different products, either. And it's really like I wouldn't have the bandwidth or the brain to be navigating the labels. So yeah.Yeah. And I would say with labels, it's, you know, like a shorter label or foods you can recognise tend to be, but that's just a general rule of thumb. But yeah.And with the coconut milk, you can replace it with, you know, the block. I got organic, it was OK.Oh yeah.Sorry, do you mean like the decimated coconut?No, you can kind of get, is it cocoa butter? It's a little cocoa butter. It's a little block. Oh, you can get it in the health food store.I need to figure out what it is....