Dr Rupy: It's Dr Rupy here today on my own. I'm going to be rounding off 2021 with just a monologue episode. Some people have suggested in the past that they really enjoy it, so it's my duty to try and make it as entertaining as possible. I sort of take issue with the idea that me just talking into the mic is going to be entertaining for anyone, but apparently for some people it is, so you can let me know in the comments afterwards, good or bad. Anyway, let's get started. First of all, I am in Australia right now. I'm isolating. It is the rules when entering New South Wales. How on earth I made it to Australia, you're probably asking yourself. I am a permanent resident. I used to work here for a couple of years. It's where I actually started the Doctor's Kitchen project. I was working in A&E and ITU. My partner's Australian, my family are all over here now, so yeah, there's a whole bunch of reasons why I get to experience Australia during the summer. I don't mean to say that to make you jealous, even though I'm sure a lot of people probably are very jealous right now. If you hear kookaburras in the background or any other erroneous noises, they're not sound effects, it's because I've got the window open because it is pretty damn hot in here. Anyway, I'm going to get that out the way.
Dr Rupy: Today's podcast, I want to borrow the format that I use for the newsletter. Now, if you're a subscriber to the newsletter, you'll know that every week I try to send a bit of positivity into your inbox by sharing a recipe, hopefully a delicious recipe that you can enjoy, as well as something to watch, read or listen to. And those can be of varying subjects. Sometimes gratitude related, sometimes they are to do with an action you can take, sometimes it's meditation, sometimes it's just something super uplifting that I've come across in my musings or sometimes it's things that people have shared with me. And I love sharing that with people and we have a feedback mechanism on the on the email where people can give their thoughts, good, bad, neutral. I read them all and it's really helped me shape the the content and and also allows me to develop a stronger relationship with the community of people on the newsletter as well. So if you haven't seen it, you can check it out on my on my socials and the links and all the usual places. And you can see all the previous newsletters as well where you can jack all the recipes. So go ahead.
Dr Rupy: So we're going to start with reads. So we're going to do reads and and then we'll do listens and then we'll do watches at the end as well. So my reads. So we're going to talk about some of the best books that have come across this year. And when I before I say this, I I just want to point out, I I don't want people to fall into the same trap of buying yet another self-help book or buying yet another diet book that is the latest craze or the latest thinking about nutritional science. Nutritional science has not changed for years. What is ever more difficult is to maintain a healthy way of living considering our environment is changing rapidly and our environment is conspiring against us. I said this before, I think in a in a previous monologue. And so really what we want to be focusing on are things that enable consistency, that enables motivation without waning and also designing an environment, this kind of comes into consistency and habit formation, but designing an environment where your health is optimized by default. So what does that look like? Well, it's it's really where finding a strategy where, sorry, that's my puppy barking in the background, not my puppy, my my partner's mother's new puppy who's very, very cute. It's it's finding a strategy where like movement is the default in the morning. So for me, someone who wakes up super early, the reason, one of the reasons why I wake up super early is because it gives me ample time to work out in the mornings. It means that I don't have the excuse of I couldn't fit the gym in in the morning. And it also means that I'm harnessing that natural energy, that natural high that you get after working out, that will fuel at least the first half of my day. So I'm super productive in that in that day. So that that's just like one hack in which I I've made movement the default. You also need to sort of detail where you tend to slip up, where you find yourself in environments where processed foods are available and you don't have anything to eat. You know, something I found myself in a situation I found myself very often when I was working in hospitals, which is, you know, why I never leave home when I was working without my tupperware. And it's also why, you know, some of the work I'm doing with the NHS food review is looking at healthy options, not just for patients, but also for the staff as well, who are just as vulnerable, if not more vulnerable than the general population at a whole bunch of lifestyle related illnesses. So, think about if you are going to invest in a book or it's not just investing the money in a book, it's the time and effort to study a book, think about those kind of books.
Dr Rupy: With that in mind, I'm going to give you some of my some of my suggestions. One of them is How to Live Well by Professor Robert Thomas. He was on the podcast this year, fantastic gentleman, amazing researcher, someone who truly believes in the medicinal power of food, and and lifestyle and has invested a lot of his time and energy into researching how and why this is possible and and why it's so necessary to to educate everyone on this. How to Live is like the manual for lifestyle medicine. I I think it's a a truly remarkable book and hopefully there'll be future editions of it to update it whenever we have some more information about some of the supplements that he's talked about or some of the the foods and and and all that kind of stuff. How to live is is brilliant. It's it's one of those books that I think should be mandatory in in medical school. And if you, you know, if you're going to use one book to to read that is a novel and and and of this that time, this current period, that's the book I would go for. I think it's a it's wonderfully written. It's it's super dense, but it's structured in such a way that it's quite digestible as well. So, Professor Robert Thomas, he's been on the pod a number of times. We've talked about long COVID, we've talked about the last couple of books he's written as well as as he's an oncology professor as well. We talked about food, sugar, inflammation, a whole bunch of topics that a lot of people would sway away from. He he's he's brilliant in that way and and speaks very, very eloquently on it. So definitely listen to those pods if you haven't, but do buy his book. I think it's brilliant.
Dr Rupy: Another one in the same line is it's a book called The Pain-Free Mindset. If you're an avid listener to the podcast, you would have heard me speak to Dr. Ravindran about this, Deepak Ravindran. Again, another pioneer in this field. He's an anesthetist, he has been in pain medicine for decades. He's really far along when it comes to the thinking around chronic pain. As well as I mean this is all born out of his frustration of not being able to tackle the root cause of why people were coming to see him in chronic pain. And chronic pain, I think, you know, for for medics listening to this, we immediately think about the pain ladder. We we've been trained to think about, okay, how do we how do we provide a management plan using pharmaceuticals for this? We don't immediately think about things like acupuncture, psychological therapies, anti-inflammatory diets, all those elements that are lacking in our medical education that I had to learn at a very late age, you know, almost a decade into my training post medical school. These are things that I'm I'm now, you know, becoming a lot more confident in prescribing and talking about to to patients. So, you know, it's I just think it's a wonderful book. I did write this on the show notes actually. If you do know anyone that works in the NHS, it doesn't matter what level, what seniority, whatever, if they're a manager, administrator, nurse, doctor, they should all read this book. And the reason why is it's not just because pain is this silent epidemic affecting millions of people across the UK and globally, but this book is really about changing our approach to healthcare. One that is more about patient empowerment rather than patient service or treatment. It's about enabling people to take care of themselves as much as it is about the ways in which we as practitioners can also take care of about patients. So it it's more of a mindset shift for practitioners as much as it is for patients as well. So definitely recommend if you are going to get a Christmas present for someone who works in the NHS or in any way related to healthcare, treatments, whatever, patient facing, definitely read that book and and gift it to them. It's fantastic.
Dr Rupy: So that that's two so far. How to live well, pain-free mindset. The other one is not a new book. It's it's not a new book at all. It's called The Paradox of Choice by Professor Barry Schwartz. It's also it's basically I think it's the reason why I'm saying it in in this 2021 podcast end of year episode is because I think it's never been more important. This book is all about how the the amount of choice paradoxically leads us to have less of a positive experience. It instead of, you know, having to use a very simple example, having 25 different options for the perfect fitting jean, instead of that being a more satisfactory experience, what it essentially leaves us with is the sense of, ah, did I make the right choice? Or is this truly what I wanted? And you know, you can apply this to a number of different things. Diets for one. Am I making the right dietary choice? This one looks a bit better. And with the with the incredible number of diets that occur every single year, the new fads or whatever, the the rehashes of old ones, whether we're looking at a Dukan diet or Atkins diet, you know, no shame if that's worked for anyone. I I'm completely agnostic when it comes to dietary regimens or whatever you choose to eat. But the sheer number of these new regimens, I think also plays into this same analogy, the same issue of FOMO, of like an uncertainty about whether we've made the right choice or not. So I think, you know, Paradox of Choice, very, very good book. It kind of breaks down the psychology of excess choice and how that leads to worse sort of outcomes, at least in the thought process of whether we made the right choice or not. So I think that's a great book for 2021 going to 2022, particularly as we move into an infinitely digital world where we spend more and more time online. The the metaverse, if if you will. And instead of it, you know, the metaverse being this this time where we all wear augmented reality headsets or VR or whatever, I I read this tweet by a tech investor called Sean Puri. And it's instead of thinking about the metaverse in in the context of all those sort of headsets and the the matrix sort of reality or minority report or whatever, you know, you you want to use an analogy with. It's more about the amount of time that we actually spend online. So if you think about how much time in a day you actually spend looking at a screen, whether it's WhatsApp, whether it's Facebook, whether it's Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, insert device where that you interact via, maybe the metaverse is actually a point in time where that becomes 60%, 70%, 80% of our time. And if you think about that, that's sort of an all the the point where we dive into the metaverse. So we dive into the internet. We spend most of our time on the internet. And I think that reality is something that we need to get really comfortable with today because it it it seems like it's going to happen in in whatever way that looks like, you know, hopefully it won't be with Facebook, but you know, anyway, I'm going on a tangent now. So the paradox of choice, Barry Schwartz, fantastic book, old one, but a goodie.
Dr Rupy: All right, listen. So we're going to go for things that I think you should listen back to from this podcast, right? And I'm going to give you kind of like a cheat sheet for a bunch of them. So, the last one that I spoke to Nick Fuller about, we've done another one with Nick Fuller about food addiction, but one that I think is a really, really good listen, particularly at this time of year, is about sustainable weight loss. So, we have this biological desire to regain weight, which means we fight our body's weight loss protocol. If you're on a weight loss protocol, your body's imperative is to fight that. We talked about it at length on the podcast, but I think it's very important to reiterate this at this time of year. After you've had your indulgence at Christmas and you're feeling guilty and it's January, February time and you're unhappy with the way you look or maybe you're getting ready for something, whatever the excuse is, just remember that fad diet leads to worse outcomes if you just look at the data. It just it just it just prevent yourself from falling to that trap of going to that low calorie deficit diet because yes, it's worked for some people. Yes, it will work in the short term. I don't have any any evidence to suggest otherwise, but long-term outcomes, they are terrible. So, if you look at the contestants from the biggest loser, this is a a study that gets pulled up a lot of the time, they regained most of their lost weight plus more because their metabolism remained lower. So you you have various mechanisms that will pull you back to your weight set point and lower metabolism is just one of them. You also have increased hedonic signaling as well, that will drive the desire to gain weight. So your hedonic signal is essentially what the the pleasure seeking behavior that you have toward food, and it will override your homeostatic pathway. So it will override the other pathways that lead to weight maintenance. And so, you know, the the the crux of this episode, which is called sustainable weight loss with Nick Fuller, Dr. Nick Fuller is a an obesity researcher in Sydney, is just don't fall into the trap of going to a diet. I can't stress it enough. What I'd prefer people to really focus on is the strategy of a healthier lifestyle that is maintained, that you can maintain for the long term. So, look at consistency rather than calories. Look at for look for things that you know you could do every single day or six days out of seven, rather than something that you feel that you can maintain for four weeks or six weeks with the with the goal of a of a short-term outcome. So, you know, the the overarching theme that I get from a lot of people is that people aren't failing. It's how we've been designed and your body is fighting against those sort of aesthetic pulls towards whatever you're dieting for or whatever you're trying to lose weight for. So that's that's definitely something to listen back to. Listen to that podcast episode. It's uh called sustainable weight loss with Dr. Nick Fuller.
Dr Rupy: All right. So, the second one, which was this year, is the one with Dr. Carl Stewart. It's called Watercress as Medicine. I love this episode. The three key messages that came out of this one. The first, the chemical profile and clinical usefulness of a plant can be changed by how it's grown. So if you think back to some of the podcast episodes where I talked about phytochemicals and their hormetic effect, this really comes into play here. So a plant expresses its chemical profile, these phytonutrients, in response to stresses. So your stresses have funky names. They can be sorry, the the phytochemicals can have funky names, isothiocyanates or sulforaphane or indole-3-carbinol, whatever it might be. Those are response chemicals that are produced when the plant is stressed. And a stressor could be lack of water, lack of nutrients in the soil. The more a plant or insects as as a big one because they act as insecticides as well. The more you can stress a plant, the better it will produce that profile of different phytochemicals that confer benefits to the human host as well. And this is kind of tricky to get your head round, but if you listen to the episode, it will explain it in a lot better way than I've just tried to then. The other really interesting thing about watercress, and this is just purely looking at watercress, and there are going to be a whole bunch of other use cases. This isn't just an edge case example. There are going to be lots of other plants that we can fully investigate. They're looking at urease inhibitors in watercress that can eliminate ammonia production and can potentially be used as a novel antibiotic, a new antibiotic. And if you listen to another episode all about antibiotic resistance that I did with Dame Sally Davies, and a number of other people looking at the the impending issue of antimicrobial resistance, this is pretty groundbreaking. And this is just looking at watercress. And if you listen to the pod, Dr. Carl literally talks about how he came up with a process of trying to investigate the properties of watercress, boiling it in a saucepan and and putting it through a centrifuge and isolating some of the chemicals. I mean, they were literally fiddling about with watercress leaves, something that you can buy in supermarkets across the UK, in in his kitchen. So, think about the other cases, you know, what kind of root vegetables could be used? What kind of other green leaves could be used? Are there different herbs and plants that we haven't even fully utilized? You know, we we only eat something like less than 10% of the potential plants that we can possibly consume. And as we know, variety is the fruit of a healthy existence, you know, there there are so many other ways in which we can be utilizing the same sort of thought process to to find answers to things as varied as antimicrobial resistance, as well as nappy rash, which is going to be one of the first use cases for for his chemical profile in in watercress. So, definitely have a listen to that episode. I think it was one of the one of the most enlightening episodes because I just sat there learning all about watercress for about an hour and a half. It's brilliant.
Dr Rupy: The third one, isn't one from 2021. It's actually one from before, but I think this would be super useful for a lot of people, particularly women listening to the podcast who perhaps hadn't come across this episode. It's with Dr. Lisa Mosconi, and it's all about the female aging brain. And I think a lot of people don't realize, myself included before I recorded this podcast with with Lisa, is that women's brain health is one of the most under-researched and under-treated fields of of medicine. Historically, women's and men's brains have been viewed the same. And I think, you know, if you think about it, you can understand why it's quite easy to make that sort of blanket assumption. But then when you you then you further think about it, you realize, hold on a minute, there is a a point in a woman's life where there are drastic hormone changes, more so than during the menses, where estrogen is is is plummeting. And then if you think about it further, estrogen keeps women stronger, younger, more resilient. The the the hormone estrogen is a neuroprotective hormone. And the idea that women's health excludes the brain is is it's it's pretty ridiculous. We we try to think about women's health from the perspective of women's breasts and women's reproductive health. We don't really think about women's brains. And when you after having a listen to this this podcast episode, you'll realize why it's so important to have a dedicated research centre for for women's brain health. If you you put on top of that, two-thirds of all Alzheimer's patients are women, and it's a disease that starts in mid-life, you kind of join the dots that there is something super, super it's something very, very unfair going on. There's a there's an episode that I'm I'm recording with a menopause health specialist that will provide a lot of answers and a lot of pushback against some of the results from the women's health initiative that unfortunately has plagued the concept of hormone replacement therapy that could have been and is pivotal for for women's health. I'll save that for another time, but do listen to that episode if you haven't listened to it. I I think the the concept of the female aging brain is something that we all need to get used to. And I think with those stats in mind, it's a it's a really important episode, which is why I wanted to bring it up again for this end of year 2021, even though it wasn't recorded this year, it's one that I I want to do another episode with Dr. Lisa Mosconi about because it's it's a it's a great episode and it's one that I think it needs a lot more attention as well.
Dr Rupy: So, those are my reads and listens. I'm going to round it off with watch, watches, and it's going to be a bit more lighthearted. This is we're not going to be talking about studies and all the rest of it. Oh, by the way, some of the studies that I I've referenced from those those shows will be at the end of this podcast show notes on the doctorskitchen.com website as well. So if you do want to dive into, you know, some of the stuff about the perimenopause and the emergence of Alzheimer's, cognition, mood, sleep, and the menopause transition, for example, and some of the other things that I was talking about with regards to phytochemicals and antioxidants, all those references will be at the the bottom of the show notes on the doctorskitchen.com. All right, so watching, what things that I suggest people watch. So there was a a documentary called Meet Me Halfway. Unfortunately, it's not on all the major streaming platforms right now, like Netflix and Hulu and and all the others. But I think it's definitely one of the most balanced documentaries that I've come across. And it's it's not got a it when I initially saw the title and I read a little bit about the documentary maker, I naively assumed it was going to be a very pro-vegan, pro-plant-based documentary. You know, there's nothing wrong with with watching those documentaries, but I think what a lot of them lack is nuance and open discussion. And what this represents, this documentary that unfortunately hasn't made it onto the major platforms, even though I think it's probably one of the most useful, is exactly that. It has those really open, difficult conversations about the real impact of a purely plant-based diet, the the what are the ramifications of introducing more processed foods into the environment, you know, with the with the noble goal, the the the moral goal of reducing animal slaughter, but really having those difficult conversations about those. I I think it was a brilliant, brilliant documentary. And also, it's um it's appreciative of the fact that we can't make everyone plant-based, not in five years, not in 10 years, probably not in our lifetime, if I'm honest. I don't see how that is possible. And I think if you try and enforce a perfect scenario or a perfect way of eating on anyone, regardless of whether that is purely plants or not, it's not going to work. And so meet me halfway is really an approach that I think is cognizant of the inherent issues of trying to change people's habits. No matter what the moral imperative is, no matter how strong that imperative is, I think you're always going to struggle if you're trying to force people away from their inclinations. So, it's a very well-made documentary and I think it's highly recommend it to to everyone.
Dr Rupy: Another one is called High on the Hog. Now, one of the reasons why I think food through my perspective, food is so important and it it's it's almost more important than all the other parameters of lifestyle is because it crosses the boundaries of culture, environment, technology, as well as as health and well-being, as well as the direct impacts of nutritional medicine. You know, when I think about food and I prepare meals and I I I think about my, you know, my upbringing, it it invokes memory. The taste and the flavours are so much more than the the chemical constituents of it. You know, we're just talking about watercress. It's so much more than the the brassica profile or the um or the anti-inflammatory signaling. It's uh about my first tastes when I was five years old. It's about the smells of my kitchen. It was about going to the Indian store and buying like a big bag of lentils and then watching uh my we don't have to do this anymore because there's there's machines that do it, but like watching my parents or my my mom pick out the stones from the lentils so we didn't have stones in the lentils. I mean, people who know what I'm talking about uh if they're of my age group and they'll realize, you know, that's what what food is to me. And and this documentary called High on the Hog, which is on Netflix, um is all about the uh the African diaspora and the the influence of African cuisine on American cooking that unfortunately has been lost. So when I think about Creole cuisine, Southern cooking, I think of all those beautiful flavours, those spices, the cayenne, the oregano, the um the paprika, the blend of sweet and fiery flavours and savoury and umami. That's what I think about. But I the the influence of West African cuisine on that cuisine was was really lost and it's it's a really hard-hitting documentary because it crosses some very uncomfortable truths about the um the influence of slavery on American cuisine, uh and the forgotten history of those poor people that were forced across the Atlantic. Um it's a it's a I think it's a four-part series. And it's as much a celebration of food as it is a recognition of our of our past. And I don't mean to, you know, mention this as a as a virtue signaling exercise. I think it's a very important um part of food as medicine and the nutritional medicine culture to really appreciate the deep impact of food, um beyond the the nutritional benefits, to to really recognize how culture and um and memory uh influence the the process of eating, the the the the the way in which we can appreciate food, I think is a lot deeper than its nutritional qualities. And this program and this documentary is a reminder of how not to forget uh the history and the the background of food and where it comes from, the farmers, the uh the process of growing, um uh the influences of of how we develop flavours and um and and add depth to the cooking. You know, that that's kind of where I want people to sort of really master that appreciation for for food. Um and this documentary does that very well. It sort of crosses uh the uncomfortable background of food and and the the influence of like, you know, like where rice came from and how rice was uh managed to reach such um uh prominence in in America. Unfortunately, it was the back of of people. Um so yeah, it's a it's a brilliant documentary. I highly recommend it and there are some incredible recipes in it as well. Um so yeah, definitely watch that.
Dr Rupy: The last thing I'm going to suggest to watch is something I recently watched, um and it's Anthony Bourdain's uh documentary. Uh it was a documentary obviously done after his his death. It's called Roadrunner. And it's about an hour and a half and it basically chronicles his sort of rise to fame, his background. I didn't realize that he was um a former heroin addict, uh had a really difficult past, um and had like a real undulating uh experience of being in the media and writing his book, Kitchen Confidential, and then um, you know, exploring uh food in in different areas of the world and becoming a bit more of an activist and and um not necessarily politicizing food, but really recognizing how political food is uh beyond anyone's intervention. I I balled my eyes out at the at the end of the movie. Um no shame. It was such a touching documentary. Um and also, you know, it it just reminds me, it's a great reminder for for everyone to really check in with people because there's a there's a lot of instances where there's a lot of regret from his friends and you're not really reaching out and and and stuff. I think it's a it's as much about food as it is about connection and about um really exploring the world through people's dishes. And hopefully that's something that I I aspire to do through through my cooking. It's really to remind people of not only the the health benefits of food, but also how we can communicate through different cultures through uh a shared celebration of of each other's recipes. And you know, someone who is blessed to have grown up in um in England where we have an array of different cuisines at our fingertips, you know, I I I never really want to lose sight of how grateful I should be to have those experiences because I understand just that little bit more about other people's cultures through their cooking and through the process of how they've developed that, those those flavour profiles and and what's local to them and you know, how that might influence their uh their attitudes or the you know, their experiences or or whatever. Um so yeah, no, it's a it's it's a brilliant documentary. I highly, highly recommend watching those three. So that's Roadrunner, High on the Hog, and uh Meet Me Halfway.
Dr Rupy: All right, and if you are an avid listener to uh not avid listener, an avid uh reader of the uh email, you also uh know that I do something funny at the end of the newsletter. It's usually a meme or something nutritional related. Obviously, I can't show you a meme through a podcast, so I'm going to tell you a couple of jokes. It's going to be horrifying for me because I know these aren't very funny. So anyway, I'm going to I'm going to go for it. Uh something funny to round off the year. My nutrition store ran out of protein powder today. I was like, no way. Okay. I don't know why I'm laughing. It's not even funny. Okay, fine. Let's go for another one. Let's go for another one. When do you go at red and stop at green? When you're eating a watermelon. I know that that joke's probably going to be lost on a lot of people because uh we're not we don't have watermelon in the UK right now. Okay, fine, fine. We'll do another one. We'll do another one. Uh why does kimchi love going to museums? Because it's cultured. Okay, I'm going to put everyone out of their misery. That's three terrible jokes that I've told to round off the year. Hopefully, you'll still go back and listen to the other things that I mentioned. Um those documentaries are super hard-hitting, but I think they're brilliant. Uh and thank you. Thank you so much for A, uh enduring those jokes if you're still here. Uh and B, uh being an avid listener to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast. I promise we have some incredible guests coming up this year. Uh we have topics like uh food addiction, the menopause, uh we're going to be talking about the health benefits of coffee and how to extract the most out of something like coffee uh whilst mitigating against the potential downfalls of having too much caffeine. Uh we have a whole bunch of uh new guests as well as old guests coming back on. Uh and also uh an announcement about my app as well that is going to be launching late January. If you're on the newsletter, you'll be the first one to hear about it, but uh it's going to be game-changing and I really hope that you can support me in that. There'll be some more information coming up soon, but just watch out for that. Other than that, nothing else to say, but have a great festive period and a new year and uh I look forward to, well, I look forward for you to joining me on the podcast, uh hopefully in 2022, if you have not been put off by all those terrible jokes. Take care and I'll see you here next time.
