Hannah: We're all sitting here and grateful to you for kind of helping us all to navigate this completely mad world of nutrition and health and there's so many avenues to which you do it. I mean, I'm personally, on a very personal note, thrilled about what you do for medical students because to start at grassroots, for those who don't know, one of the many, many hats that Rupy wears is he has brought nutrition into medical school to start when you're training to a doctor. Is that, I'm correct in saying that correctly, aren't I? It's start from training and you are educating from the bottom up. The non-medics like us, the medics, across the field and also improving food in hospitals, which I've seen you've been doing as well, which is really, for anyone that's spent time in hospital to know that you're there to be treated and then you can't eat anything that's healthy and the staff don't have access. So that is really amazing. But it's really the reach of to all of us through your app, through your newsletter that I think is really inspiring. And the thing that I personally love the most is that you don't tell us what we can't do. You're not there saying you can't do this and you can't do that. You're saying here is what's accessible to you. So that is a very bizarre introduction for Rupy. I, for those who don't know, I'm Hannah. This is my home. I started my life as a designer, and then about eight years ago I started to write about food and teach classes and I run supper clubs and I run events like this. The thing that probably excites me the most, I've always been extremely passionate about food, but for me it's not what you make, it's how you share it and how you look after yourself by sourcing cleverly and well and making food accessible and easy. And for me, the most exciting thing is getting you excited about food. So the prospect of sitting here and chatting to Rupy was a perfect dovetail. I am definitely not a nutritionist. I definitely do not practice enough moderation, but it's all in the balance and here we are. So, let's start. First of all, let's celebrate tonight and the launch of Cooks. This is your fourth book.
Dr Rupy: Yes, yes. And I'm so privileged to be able to celebrate it with you guys in this wonderful setting. It's amazing. Thank you so much, Hannah, for putting this on. As soon as I walked in, I was like, wow, this is a special setting you've got here, so it's epic. And yeah, this is my my fourth cookbook. I didn't think I'd be getting to my fourth when I wrote my first one. This is like a proper foodie's foodie cookbook, I feel. It could live on that shelf over there with all the other cookbooks you've got over there. You've got your Ottolenghis there, you've got Diana Henry, and now you've got a Dr Rupy Cooks there as well. It's a hardback. And I'm just super passionate about getting accessible, healthy, easy, flavourful recipes into people's hands because everything that I do, obviously you know it's going to be healthy because we've done all the research, we're packing lots of vegetables in, we're plant-centric. We align all the recipes that we create with the principles of healthy eating that, who listens to my podcast? Any show of hands? So you guys will know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day, every week, I'm always banging on about how we need to eat according to the principles of healthy eating. But it's also got to be super easy because we all live very busy lives. We have responsibilities, many of us have children, many of us work busy professional jobs or whatever we might be doing. And we want minimal washing up. I think that's one of the things that I've I've definitely got from feedback from a lot of people is Yotam, I love him, don't get me wrong, but like when I whenever I do a Yotam, I know I've got to do it at the weekend because I've got to spend like hours cleaning up afterwards. So I want my books to be like Monday to Friday. And it sort of like lies in that moderation that you were talking about as well. But also it's got to be flavourful because one of the things that I think is a bit of a myth when it comes to healthy eating is that willpower is enough. And willpower is not enough. All the behavioural psychology tells us that you can't rely on willpower alone. You have to make something enjoyable and pleasurable for it to become a habit that is almost automatic. And so for healthy eating to be something that is described as banal or just health promoting is not going to create that habit that we all want to keep for our for our health needs. So the flavour element, I feel in this particular cookbook is is something that I've I've amped up and you know, you'll find recipes like the sticky red beans that have got gochujang in for example, or you've got the the feast section, which I think I'm most proud of because most people think about healthy eating as something that you do in solitude, like restrictive sort of diets that usually around January, February time. Whereas actually I want you to be able to use this cookbook to entertain your friends, celebrate something with, you know, do something, do a celebratory healthy feast under 90 minutes. And also explore different cuisines as well whilst you're doing that. So
Hannah: Yeah, that was really evident in your book actually, was how you go around the world basically. And it it it is. I mean, when I when I cook and when I teach, I always say the three things you want to think about in a dish is flavour, colour and texture. Because no one wants to sit down to a brown meal. It's kind of, you know, you want it to be inviting and then automatically once your eyes are satiated, you'll start to be satiated and you're probably less likely to overeat.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you what you just said there about your eyes and your senses that you're trying to entertain, you're creating anticipation. And that anticipation is all the senses basically coalesce to impact the primary cortices of your brain. It basically is hitting your pleasure centres of your brain. And what that does is if you're hitting that over and over again, it creates repetition, it creates a behaviour, it creates a habit. Big food knows this very well, which is why when you see a McDonald's advert or something that's super indulgent, the the shine on the food, the the way it's been described, the image itself is so well fine-tuned to the the the last book that I was writing that I I wrote, I had a photographer that did a lot of corporate work. And when we were talking, we're doing this this shoot, he said to me, I'm so glad I'm doing like a proper cookbook where we can be like, you know, free and frivolous with the the design and the styling and all that kind of stuff. It's like I've just done, I won't mention the name, but I've just done like a big piece of work for a for a big company. A big, yeah, I won't say the name. But um, because I'm being recorded. But um, but he he told me he was like, they were so anal about every every element of light, of texture, of superlative, of all those different descriptors because they know that they are trying to hack our brains that we that such that they create anticipation, such that they create that that that the sort of anticipation of pleasure. So yeah, that's basically what we need to do with healthy eating. We need to heighten up the flavour and use the same tricks that other companies are using to create habits that are actually going to be healthful.
Hannah: I mean, I think your trick's quite clever though, because every book you read is telling you what you're supposed to avoid. And the minute you're supposed to avoid it, you want it, even if you don't like it. So what you do, there's no, I read your whole book cover to cover and there was no you can't have this. I noticed that there were certain things in ingredients that were missing. That's fine. But are you going to name them? No. It's like choose your own adventure. Everyone has to go buy the book at the end and see what they find is missing. But no, so I think that automatically it doesn't become a chore when you're not when you aren't allowed something. If you go, what I loved about your book was this is how you do it, because I feel so often we're told what we're not supposed to do, which isn't helpful because just because we're not supposed to do it, you're not actually told how to do it successfully. So that's what I think is really different about your book. And it does, I know that it is a, it makes it less of a health book and more of a cookbook that you can keep on your shelf. And I thought that was really refreshing actually.
Dr Rupy: Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. And I think that comes from personal experience of, are there any medics here, like GPs or, yeah? GP? Oh, there you go. So with, I don't know whether you've had this experience, but in primary care, when you've just diagnosed someone with high blood pressure or excessive dietary cholesterol, let's say, in their blood panel, what we're told to do is give this sort of single sheet of low cholesterol foods or like healthy eating diet sheet. You give it to the patient, say, this is what you don't, you can't have anymore. You can't have red meat, you can't have butter, you can't have cheese. Go figure it out. And that is just wholly inadequate. You can't. Yeah, probably a lot of us have maybe even received one of those sort of like healthy eating diet sheets. That that is not enough. We need to really help people to create those habits. And the way you do that is by showing them and enticing them with delicious healthy food that they can prepare themselves. But also reflects their cultural heritage. Because one of the things that I think we do badly, particularly in a in a place as multicultural as London, is try to force a Eurocentric menu on people from a vast variety of backgrounds. And what I try and do with my recipes is show that if you are from a Sri Lankan background, you can have Sri Lankan food. If you are from a Korean background, if you are from an African background, if you are from an Indian background, you can have your heritage cuisine as long as it conforms to these principles of healthy eating. So whilst it might be Mediterranean in terms of its style, it doesn't need to be Mediterranean flavoured.
Hannah: Well, when I was, because I've selected some recipes that we will taste afterwards that I've made, and it was really quite fun because we've kind of, we've got stuff from all over. We have a little Mediterranean salad and we have, you know, some masala cauliflower and we've got some Tunisian chickpeas and a bit of cornbread. And I'm like, wow, we've gone, we've gone around the world and it's all hanging together, you know, happily on the table and colourful. So, yeah, no, it was it was really, it was really, I was like, oh, what should I make? And I was obviously in my way that I approach things was like, how is it going to, how is it going to look together? I didn't want everything the same colour. So once I knew that there was, well the flavour combinations are going to be okay, then I went to the colours because actually it matters on your plate. Yeah. You've got to have variation.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the so the principles of healthy eating are pretty simple. I I always say, look, the the science is complex, you know, when we're talking about anti-inflammatory chemicals, we're talking about polyphenols, we're talking about the gut microbiota. All that wonderful science is super complicated. The solution is very simple. It is eat more healthful food, have more diversity in your diet, increase fibre, have a plant-centric diet. Implementation, that's the hard bit. Science is complex, solutions are simple, implementation, doing it every single day, that's the hard stuff.
Hannah: I find that it's the pre-cook cook. So it's not actually the cooking that's tricky. It's when are you shopping? What are you cooking it in? Like that's where I feel people really struggle when they go to cook. They think, I've got it all there, but then there's that one thing, I don't have anything to serve in. So and then they're bought. So it's actually what's so great about your book is you can literally serve it in the things you've made it. So it's about the cooking isn't tricky. It's how it fits into your week. And I think that is part of the education of cooking. It's not how to fry an onion, it's when are you going to buy it? Where are you going to buy it? How long is it going to last? And what else are you going to use with it? Because then once the kind of that's part of the system and I think that's really kind of you you you cover that really well actually.
Dr Rupy: And that's why I love working with with chefs and and home cooks and and people who absolutely adore food because you are creating culinary confidence in people that require it if they are to eat well every single day. I get DMs all the time about like, oh, I don't have this particular ingredient, what can I use as a swap? And I'm like, straight away, I know intuitively, as many people here probably know as well, because we're all probably intuitive cooks, that you could swap coriander seeds with this other aromatic, or you can swap fennel for another allium vegetable. Um, and the health benefits are relatively, you know, similar. It's not really about being prescriptive about singular ingredients, it's actually being a lot more flexible and knowing how they flex in a in a recipe.
Hannah: Yeah, that's, yeah, I mean, that's kind of part of the whole, you know, the cooking adventure is, you know, being able to play with it a bit of it and have fun. And I think that goes back to being contained but not restrictive.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And the fun element I think is really important as well because for like food food is one of the most beautiful ways in which we can communicate across different cultures. You know, it's one, it's a huge route to pleasure. It's a an amazing way to celebrate. It's an incredible centrepiece of community. I mean, events like this really do like warm my soul because you get to meet people over delicious, hopefully delicious food. Hannah's definitely done a great job. You're taking no credit for anything we're eating tonight in terms of the execution. It does look wonderful. I was not one of the recipe testers, we'll come to that. I was not selected as a recipe tester. But you know, I I think it's just one of those wonderful things that shouldn't be put into a bucket of either it's comfort food or it's healthy food. There is a a rich sort of um, there's a partnership to be had there. And that's hopefully what I I do with the recipes and the content that I put out and the way I describe food as well.
Hannah: Yeah, I think also what's really, you're very clear being a doctor, you must get a lot of questions. But um, that this is not, you're not curing. This isn't the cure all diet. This is a preventative way to live, which I think is a really kind of important distinction. Do you want to talk about that?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, within within the book, this book and then even previous books as well, particularly Eat to Beat Illness, I I do dive into this whole concept of food as medicine. And I think it's been misinterpreted in many ways by people willingly or unwillingly, I'm not too sure, um, as a replacement for things like pharmaceuticals and and drugs and medications. When that's not really, that's not what I'm talking about at all. Um, there are some minor and rare instances where food can be the medicine. Um, and that's part of the treatment and management plan, but more so than not, it's really about a preventative lifestyle that encompasses all the other foundations of healthy living that we know can prevent some of the biggest killers that afflict us, particularly in the Western world. So, yeah, I I I make that distinction pretty clear. Um, but I also welcome, you know, other ways of thinking about things. Like I grew up in an Indian household. Ayurvedic sort of traditions were very much sort of instilled in me. I promptly poo-pooed a lot of that when I went to med school, and then I came back to it when I got ill myself when I became a junior doctor about 14 years ago. Um, when I when I had to sort of undergo my own sort of consultations, my own sort of patient journey. Um, and a lot of what I thought was just old wives' tale that my my mom and my family were telling me, actually turned out to have a lot of scientific evidence behind them. So I've had a lot of I told you so. Yeah, I've had I've had that a lot. And I continue to get that as well every time, you know, they bring something up. But um, I I love it. I love being sort of a a student of multiple different cuisines, traditions and different medical practices. That makes me slightly unique, I think, compared to it makes some medics uncomfortable, it makes other people a lot more inquisitive. Um, and I like to think that I I I find the balance well. True and true, I'm I'm a foodie, otherwise I'd just be prescribing kale salads to everyone.
Hannah: But it's the whole load of mental health benefits as well. But one thing you talk about is consistency. Now, for some of us, consistency is a bit challenging. Um, can you talk about consistency versus moderation and what you mean by consistency? Because I think that people could misinterpret that and I think it's a really important point.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I think so. Um, so the the benefits of eating well really come down to how well you are to consistently eat in a way that aligns with those principles of healthy eating. Uh, there was a really interesting study by uh Professor Gardner at Stanford University. It was called the A to Z study. And what they did is they compared different diets. I think they had a low carb diet, a paleo diet, um, even a uh something that was bordering ketogenic. And they followed these patients up for 12 months. And that's actually quite a long time when it comes to nutrition studies. And what they found was uh they were looking at a particular endpoint, which I don't really like, it's it's weight as an endpoint, as well as a few other parameters. But weight was the primary endpoint. And what they found was every single diet was exactly the same in terms of its efficacy. The the factor that uh differentiated whether someone was going to be successful on it or not was whether they were able to consistently eat according to that diet. Because when you group them all together, a lot of them do very similar things. They remove the crap, they increase plants and they increase whole foods. With the exception of extreme ketogenic diets, they're also increasing fibre as well. So it really comes down to how well, how consistently well can you eat in a way that aligns with healthy eating principles. And so for me, I'm pretty agnostic as to whether you choose to be 100% plant-based or have a little bit of meat in your diet, as long as it's roughly in line with that. And I'm more concerned about, okay, how can we get you eating in a certain way consistently? Because moderation, I think is sort of a term that I love, don't get me wrong, but it's almost used as a bit of an excuse. Like every single day, you're like, a couple of brownies, moderation. Maybe not so much. And I I think the moderation term can be used kind of loosely. I don't get me wrong, I do it myself as well.
Hannah: We do have ice cream tonight. Which is from my book.
Dr Rupy: I know, you said ice cream. I was like, yes. Which is from my book. Yeah, yeah.
Hannah: And I did ask about alcohol. I got very confused what to do about drinks. Anyway, sorted it all out. That to me, I guess it's your own interpretation of what moderation is, right? So for me, that's a bit of moderation. One drink. Um, so one of the things that I listened to your podcast with Tim Spector last week when it came out, which was, I I love him too. Um, and he, you asked him a question that I thought was brilliant. So I'm going to ask you the question. And that was, you get asked a lot of questions by a lot of people, but what question would you like to answer?
Dr Rupy: Yeah. That was a great question. I thought, brilliant, I'm going to ask him that one. Yeah. Yeah, I know Tim for a little while and uh, he's been on the podcast a couple of times, I think before. And um, you know, when you're doing these sort of book PR events, they all seem very sort of similar. Not this, by the way, this is really different. This is very different. And I love it. A special shout out to Sarah for organizing everything as well. She's she's wonderful. Um, I everyone sort of asks the same questions of the interviewee. It's like, you know, Dr Rupy, what are the principles of healthy eating? Dr Rupy, like, what tell me about this, tell me about saturated fat, tell me about cheese. Um, and that's why I like to sort of open up a conversation about whatever my guest wants to talk about, what what really like gets them fired up. And I think it's honestly, it's the the subject around consistency, the subject around the celebratory elements around food, about how we can create a culture of healthy eating within this country. Um, but aside from that, it's creating a generation of medics who can appreciate nutritional medicine, creating uh an environment where we can actually enjoy healthy food in the workplace, which is why the hospital food element, just to clarify, I'm not working currently on hospital food for patients, I'm actually working on hospital food for patient visitors and staff, because people who are stuck in these hospitals, as a consultant friend will will attest to, you know, you're going to be there for 12, 13 hours sometimes in a day, particularly the administrators, the porters, the nurses and the and the junior medics as well. And where do you have to eat? Well, you've got, I don't know, I'll say the names again, but you know, you don't have very healthy options. You usually have like a a baked item, a white bread sandwich, you know, a meal deal. And these are sort of quote unquote normal, but we know that's not normal. We know that that can spike your glucose level up. We know that it's lacking in fibre. We know it doesn't have any healthful elements to it. It's just something for sustenance. And that's just not good enough. And that's why I'm really passionate about completely reforming those spaces in which we eat and normalizing what healthy and good lunches look like. Um, so those are probably the things that I'm most passionate about and where I want to direct my attention. But I tell you the other thing that you mentioned, uh, the pre-cook. That's really interesting because the other side to what I do with the Doctor's Kitchen is I just started my my app um about a year ago. And right now it's um a library of recipes that you can filter according to health goals. So me and my research team, we look through the dietary patterns and ingredients that align with um anti-inflammation. So we use something called the dietary inflammation index. Um, cardiovascular health, so we'll look at Mediterranean diet guidelines, for example, or healthy eating index guidelines. And that allows the user to just quickly filter through all these delicious recipes without really having to Google, what should I eat for? One of the things that we've consistently got feedback on is how do I make the whole process of generating a shopping list easier? How do I just click a button and then my whole week is sorted for me or my family or my partner or my kids, all their tastes and allergens are sort of catered for and our health needs as well in the click of a button. That's something that we should already have. And that's
Hannah: Do you think that's possible? Because this is where I'm going to start a debate with you, because one of the things that I think is really important about making choices about what you want to eat is actually making the choice. So if you have a weekly food shop and you have the same food shop every week, you're not engaging with what you're doing. So you're not going and stopping at the vegetable shop on your way home and going, oh my god, that cauliflower looks amazing. That's what I'm going to make. You're not starting the process before you've even started. Your choice is already made and it's a very passive decision. So one thing I like to encourage people to do is actually search out what they want to eat when it comes to the fresh fruit and vegetables because then they're already excited about it. Whereas if they're unpacking their shopping and thinking, bloody hell, cauliflower again. That's not exciting. So I think it's a really difficult thing to to actually manage because that requires more time because then you're required to actually go to the shops rather than sit at your desk and multitask and order it online. So it's it's a real tension, but I think that when you want, like eating well is the I think from a totally non-medical or nutritional perspective, one of the best forms of self-care because you are thinking about yourself and what you want and meeting your needs and and really thinking about what will make you feel good on that day. And I think when you start the process like that, you're less likely to fall down the rabbit hole of grabbing chocolate because you haven't eaten and you're too hungry and you're less likely to spike. So that's where I feel and I think creating that is going to be really, it's it creates a tension because people are becoming numb to those decisions. It becomes everything we're doing is so automated. And I think when you think about what you want to eat, the excitement starts when you start thinking about it before you've set foot in a shop or in your kitchen or anywhere else to start the process. So that's the way I like to think about it. And I'm completely obviously food obsessed, so it helps. Um, but one of the things you said, I just want to come back to which was kind of family eating together because I think that's another, I think when you share food with other people, it becomes a celebration. You're less likely to eat looking at your phone or watching TV and it becomes less of an issue about what you're eating, but who you're sharing it with. And one of the things that was really interesting about your book is a lot of the recipes are for two people because while sharing food with other people is a celebration is really great, we don't, most of us eat meals with other people all the time and it's about taking the time and the care to actually feed yourself. And sometimes just to celebrate that solo meal. And I think it's really accessible from your book. And I think when you start thinking that way, then it probably helps filter down and maintain the consistency.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. You don't think when I'm eating on my own, I'm going to have a piece of, you know, I'm going to have a pop tart, but when I eat with everyone else, I'm going to eat, you know, a lovely Indian vegan feast I've cooked. You know, it's the consistency starts and so that's what I thought was so helpful in kind of helping, you know, educating us in almost like uh removing the romance or the beauty of cooking uh by automating out, you know, all the recipes and taking that headache away from you. I I I agree there's a balance to strike, right? Because I love like going to, you know, in a true sort of bougie uh fashion on the weekend, I go to my my farmer's market. Every Sunday. Mine's on a Saturday, but I go on a Saturday after. I go there, I chat to my grocers, I chat to the fish. I I I love it. But but, you know, I'm a real foodie. But then things come into season, you're excited about them. Like rhubarb's here, amazing. Totally, totally. But then I chat to my mates. Yeah. And then and particularly my my male friends, I can say that because it's all in here. Um, and I chat to them and they're like, uh, never been to a farmer's market, you know. What do you mean? And and it's a bit of an issue. And so I would say there is definitely a balance to strike where you want some foundational level of something looking after your health that you can automate out, but then also, you know, you can open up one of your delicious cookbooks at the weekend and then enjoy something there. That might it might not be the solution for everyone, but for a lot of people, they need that sort of foundational.
Hannah: 100%. I agree. No, I completely agree, but I'm just saying there's also that tension because if you only do that, then but also there's like a whole, I have another philosophy of cook once, eat twice.
Dr Rupy: Oh yeah, I mean, leftovers is a is a big thing in our house. Yeah, it's like the best friend. Yeah, absolutely. But some people are very adverse to leftovers as well. It's almost like, you know, what happened with Google Maps. You know, when I was at med school, uh, 20 years ago now, uh, we didn't have Google Maps. I knew London like the back of my hand. We find our way. I knew the buses, I knew everything. Now, if if I had to walk home, even though I'm not too far from here, I'd get lost. I I would literally get lost because I don't I haven't had to exercise that.
Hannah: It's not even that you would have got lost. You don't even have to think about it. It's not something that even has to cross your brain. You don't even have to because someone's already telling you.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, exactly. So therefore you're not looking up and taking note of the streets and everything.
Hannah: I have an issue with that. And there, yeah.
Dr Rupy: I can tell. So and you know, I I appreciate what I've lost, but then the the convenience option that I've gained is okay for me. And people always have the option of, you know, well, I don't want to do that. I'd rather go to the market and find out what's good for my cauliflower and use the principles of healthy eating and I can figure it out myself. For a lot of people, they they don't even want to do that.
Hannah: So my question is, if they're not doing that, it's how do you engage them? So that's really my question. It's not, it wasn't like, it was it was more if you are living in this more automated, repetitive, disengaged because you're not thinking about it. Like the way you're not thinking about your route home because you don't need to. You're absolutely fine with that. It's fine. They don't have to think about their list, but then how do they get excited? And that's really, I think that's the challenge almost.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I I think the excitement can definitely be brought out, but in a slightly different way. Um, you know, I I can't say I get excited about my Google Maps uh route that's going to be taking me pretty home.
Hannah: But you do in some people and what you're doing because you've got like, I think you're doing it, but I'm just saying like that, I think when it comes to cooks and encouraging people to eat, that is, I mean, if you can be excited and engaged, then you automatically will do it more. It helps, it's like setting the wheels in motion, if you know what I mean.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Hannah: I'm going to open up the floor. Now, as I said, Dr Rupy gets loads of questions. So we'd love you to ask questions. He is going to after this, I should I should have I've gone this all backwards, sorry. I should have told you at the beginning how this is going to work, but I didn't. We all just sat down. Um, I'm going to bring out some food, some samples for us to try from the book. We're going to have some masala cauliflower which has a cucumber raita. We have a, it in the book it's the celeriac, roasted celeriac salad. There was an option to have sweet potatoes and turnips and parsnips. So I've done all of them on a bed of radicchio, uh, with some brilliant. Substitutions or additions, either one. Yeah. Um, or all of it because I thought we're a lot of people. Um, we're also having some Tunisian chickpeas which have harissa in and they're served with some tahini. Um, and we have some cornbread which has some hot honey on top. Everything has a punch and a kick that comes from a different part of the world, which I love. And then once you've done this, plates out there, we'll bring out all the food, we'll clear some of the chairs and then we have some apple crumble with ice cream. The apple crumble is vegan, the ice cream is not. So just state if you don't want to have it. It's got miso in it and it's absolutely bloody genius. It's so good. I was actually a bit upset when I was eating it because it was so good. Um, so it's really amazing. The miso, I was like, that is so clever. Anyway, so clever. Um, so Dr Rupy's going to ask some questions. I think if we can keep more personal questions for afterwards when he'll be signing books and we've got books to sign and if there's more general questions, um, that'd be great. So open up the floor and then when we're done, we'll eat.
Guest: You spoke about a food, a healthy food revolution, and there's clearly a cost of living crisis and enormous amount of food poverty in in schools. How do you, how do you change the culture and especially when so many people are under the poverty line and getting school meals and what if you can you is there anything that you can recommend or
Dr Rupy: Yeah, totally. I mean, like, so we're we're trying to tackle this in in different ways. So within culinary medicine, which is the nonprofit that I started, uh, back in 2017, um, that was really geared towards trying to educate the new generation of medics about nutrition during their training, because I'm not too sure if anyone's aware, the average training is about five hours in the context of a five to six year degree. Um, there was a recent study that like mapped it all out and it the range is from zero to 20 hours. So some people are not getting anything. Um, so we're trying to overhaul that. Culinary medicine are also creating, um, healthy budget meals, uh, that we're giving out via other culinary schools across the country. I did something very recently with BBC. Um, so we created recipes based on the latest supermarket prices as of November 2022. Um, and we managed to get down the portions, uh, sorry, the servings, um, between £1 and £1.40. And I made sure there was three portions of vegetables in an every serving as well. And it's like, it's being very creative with the ingredients that you're using, using frozen, using tinned or canned, you know, all these different things that your average home cook, particularly if you're time poor, um, you're you're feeding multiple mouths, you're not really going to have that creative. So we put that out there and Jack Monroe does obviously a lot of stuff. There is an insidious line where no matter how cheap I get a budget recipe down to, it's never going to be enough. And food banks have a massive responsibility, unfortunately. I remember having a conversation with Professor Guy Standing. I don't know if anyone's heard of Professor Guy, but he's a big proponent of this concept of universal basic income, which is where everyone in the country gets a base layer of cash. And I proposed to him this idea of, well, wouldn't it be great if everyone just got healthy food, for healthy items in every single household. He actually didn't take kindly to the idea. Um, he uh, he actually said that because you're chaining people who are below that poverty line to what they can consume or not, like whether they choose to spend money on food or choose to spend money on other things. That loss of control is actually worse for their their feelings of of being trapped. But on the other side, there is a a charity called the Alexandra Rose charity. He was on my podcast recently, Jonathan Paul, he's a fantastic guy. He's um, uh, launched a pilot where they're giving Rose vouchers. Rose vouchers are 5 to 20 pounds and you can only spend these vouchers, these these literal money in the markets where they they sell fruits and vegetables and generally healthy items. So there are some schemes being piloted where that would actually be for free. Um, and it stimulates the economy, there's a whole bunch of other um, beneficial outcomes as well. So there are things there that are definitely happening. My hands are sort of tied as to what I can have an impact on, but I I definitely think it's going to be a blend of universal basic income, uh, healthy food vouchers, uh, and greater um, responsibility from the government and schools about how we can provide healthier options for for children.
Guest: This is due with the Zoe study, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Yeah. Um, so where, you know, you give some samples and they give you back specific information about the diet you should eat. And also you get a glucose monitor if you opt for that. I'm wondering, would that be useful for people, for example, who come in, uh, who have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, whose diet isn't that great? Do you think in the future this would be something that would be rolled out in the NHS?
Dr Rupy: So, yeah, I uh, personalized medicine, also known as P4 medicine, if you look at it in the literature, is basically predictive, um, it's personalized, and there's a couple of other Ps that I've forgotten. Um, but basically it's what you what you've just described. It's where you have uh continuous wearables that monitor everything from the fats in your blood, your sugar responses to certain foods, your microbiota and how that changes day-to-day, even according to your your periods as well, it can also change, the stresses in your life, the seasons, all these things have an impact. And we don't really know what's under the hood at the moment. We're sort of like eating blind. The caveat to that is I think most people can garner the benefits of healthy eating by just doing healthy eating principles. And actually that extra 10, 15% of extra personalization that you get from those different tests might be able to fine tune a little bit, but actually we need to get the basics right. And that's why my my honest opinion is these are great and I think uh they're for a particular type of person who loves the analytics, who loves learning exactly what's going on. I'm one of those people. I wear an Oura ring, I monitor my sleep, I do a whole bunch of tests periodically throughout the the year. But ultimately, how much has changed my dietary habits? Probably not that much at all. And really it's about, I always come back to it, it's boring, but it's consistency. It's really about consistency. So my obsession is really, how can I create an environment where you can make the right choices regardless of whether, you know, you should be having this particular brand of crisps or this particular brand of oats. You know, it's really about the consistency part rather than Uber Uber personalization.
Guest: Throughout your journey, you must have met some amazing chefs, authors, and had some great experiences. So what has been your best foodie experience?
Dr Rupy: Oh, uh, doing Saturday Kitchen. Uh, without yeah, without without a doubt. So Saturday Kitchen is my favourite show. I've watched it for absolutely years, you know, back when James Martin was doing it. Um, and when I got the opportunity to cook on it. So I've been on it a couple of times. The first time was during the, it was it was branded the Daily Kitchen. I don't know if you remember it during COVID. They did a couple of weeks where they did a daily kitchen and they got me to come on and you know, give my sort of two cents about how you can use uh store cupboard spices because we couldn't buy anything from the supermarkets at that time. Um, and then when I got invited to do uh a recipe on the show, that was like a dream come true for me. So that was probably the height of like my career. Um, in terms of the foodie stuff. Um, yeah, and then um, uh working with Jamie, I think on one of his shows a couple of years ago. You know, he's been a big inspiration of mine with what he's uh what he did with school dinners. We were talking about it before, like ultimately it hasn't been a success, but for one person to generate that much attention to it, the fact that we're still talking about it 20 years on, pretty impressive.
Hannah: I think it was successful in some ways though.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, the interesting uh and complicated world of service contracts when it comes to public sector catering. So, um, I've got to be careful about who I talk about here, but there are a number of multinational corporations that basically own uh all the contracts uh across everything from MOD, uh prisons, hospitals, schools, everything. Um, and they work on economies of scale and efficiency. So everything is generally made in a centralized kitchen and then it's farmed out to all these different things. Industrialized food. Industrialized food, but also the reason why they are able to have those contracts is because they're the only ones that can actually achieve that level of distribution based on the budget that they're given by the government. So I believe it's around a pound a plate in hospitals for the entire day. Um, and and so it's it's it's eye-wateringly low amounts um that these corporations have to deal with. And so it has to, it basically becomes industrialized as a as a as a product of the amount of money that's been injected into it. So just from my very short time looking at hospital food, I understand why things like Jamie's school dinners was so tough because he basically needs to lobby the government to put more money into it, which he did, but then, you know, you've got a whole bunch of middlemen, you're dealing with all these different service contractors, people have different interpretations of the rules. It's very, very hard. Um, but there is definitely a way. I think there's, I mean, that's why I still want to do something about it.
Hannah: I tell you who's making really, really big waves in this is um, Chefs in Schools. And Thomasina Miers is, you know, one of the patrons of that. Um, she's demonstrating that their model works at the price point uh that governments and and local authorities have set. Um, and I think that's definitely one to watch because if she can do that in schools, then we could also do that in other public sector environments like hospitals as well. But it it really comes down to staff training and actually getting more people involved in in the catering industry because as everyone is probably aware, there's a huge shortage of of chefs. It's very hard to get um staff these days. Um, and and from my experience of going to multiple different hospitals, you have some staff that are like really energetic and really skilled, others that are really unskilled and don't have the capacity to actually produce really good food other than, you know, just putting something into an oven and taking it out and then serving it. So there's a real like skill uh imbalance as well.
Guest: So this is a question about fish. Thank you so much for the discussion. I feel like I've read so many opinions about fish that even the fish must be confused. That's a really good description. I'm going to use that. And and just any, any advice on, I understand moderation, but really what kind of fish should we eat?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. It's so hard because like you read one thing uh in the literature around the environmental pollutants that are concentrated particularly in shellfish, for example, in big fatty fish like salmon, even wild salmon. Uh, and then you're like, okay, we'll go farmed. Farmed, they've got their own issues. They're fed on a on a weird diet that's not natural. They suffer from lice, they suffer from, yeah, there's a whole issue of fake fish. And then you you ask yourself, okay, well, why are we eating fish? Is it for protein? Is it for omega-3s? Is it for other elements of, you know, uh the the diet that we need? I I love eating fish. Um, and I will have it in moderation, using that word, uh, probably once every uh week, if not once every two weeks to mitigate against any potential environmental pollutants that can be concentrated in fish if it's not farmed properly. I do eat small fish quite a bit. So things like anchovies, herring that are uniquely delicious and very good for us as well. And you have less of an issue with the environmental pollutants because they're quite small. Um, but it it's a real tough choice because we're also told that to save the world, we shouldn't be eating any fish at all. Um, and there is evidence to suggest that as well. I think it really depends on the holistic picture of your diet, where you can choose different proteins and getting diversity as much as possible. That's sort of my strategy because there is no, I'll be honest, I you know, I would love to sit here and be like, this is these are the only types of fish you can eat and this is what you can't eat. There is no clear cut answer. And anyone who suggests that there is is most likely not being truthful to the evidence. So I would say around once a week, uh, go for small where possible. Um, and I would also uh envisage things like oysters and and shellfish like that, um, to to to have like once every two weeks or so because there is an environmental pollutant risk.
Hannah: All right, guys. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure and an honour to start the book tour here. So congratulations. And thank you all for coming. And let's tuck into some snacks.
