Dr Rupy: Should we be reaching for the dinner plate before the pill bottle when treating mental illness? Well, my next guests certainly think so. Michael Dixon and Uma Naidoo are back on the podcast talking about the Food for Mood campaign, a really exciting idea that literally started around the King's dining table last year. This idea of food as medicine is truly taking shape in the UK, but without strategies to ensure people can actually attain a level of nutrition to unlock these potential benefits, we're simply reverberating ideas in an ineffective echo chamber. Michael and Uma are taking up the challenge and launching the Food for Mood campaign that engages multiple stakeholders, including government, supermarkets, and of course, medical practitioners to promote the idea as well as practical strategies to introduce nutritional psychiatry at scale. This is a great open discussion about the challenges of bringing things like fresh, nutrient-rich ingredients to the masses, changing our supermarket landscape, and the way in which we practice preventative medicine. As a reminder, Dr Uma Naidoo, who's been on the podcast before, is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist. She's also a professional chef and trained nutrition specialist, and her nexus of interests have found their niche in nutritional psychiatry. She's also the national bestseller of This Is Your Brain on Food, a fantastic book for all things to do with mental wellbeing and food. And Dr Michael Dixon, again, who's been on the podcast, is chairman of the College of Medicine. He's been a general practitioner at College Surgery in Devon for over 35 years. Since the early 1990s, he's been a leader for the GP clinical commissioning movement with his aim of allowing frontline clinicians far greater roles in improving local services and health. And since 2007, he's also been visiting professor to the University of Westminster Integrated School of Health and also appointed visiting professor of University College London in 2012. Remember, you can check this podcast out on YouTube. We're recording all of our episodes in high definition and people are absolutely digging the Doctor's Kitchen YouTube channel. We're going to be doing a lot more there, recipes, a lot more content from myself, doing deep dives into subjects as far-ranging as organic food, the body burden of pesticides, and more lighthearted topics, deep diving into ingredients like blackberries, sweet potato, brassica vegetables, and all the clinical evidence and the nutritional medicine science around those as well. If you're interested in ingredients and all things food as medicine, as I'm sure you are if you're listening to this, you will love the Seasonal Sundays newsletter that you can subscribe to on the doctorskitchen.com website. Every week, we do a dive into a seasonal ingredient, looking at the history of its cultivation, the nutritional science behind its uses, and how you can practically get it into your diet every single week. And if you love recipes and you love nutritional medicine, you will love the Doctor's Kitchen app. You can download that from the App Store right now. Just type in the Doctor's Kitchen in the App Store, and Android users, yes, we are working on Android as well. On to the podcast, I really hope you enjoy this fascinating discussion with Dr Uma and Dr Michael Dixon.
Dr Rupy: So I think a great place to start would be where the Food for Mood campaign actually started. Why don't you tell us a bit about that?
Michael Dixon: Well, it's a very interesting story, Rupy. It, in fact, started at last year's conference when, if you remember, Uma was a great speaker, and remember Dean Ornish and one or two other American guests, and the Prince of Wales was keen to meet them to find out what the conclusions had been. And halfway through the conversation, he said, wouldn't it be great if there was some agreement as to what people should eat healthily, and if it was fairly simple, and if people could get it easily. And Uma took up the challenge. And now a year later, here we are with the Food for Mood campaign, which I hope meets his expectations of something very simple that people can actually use.
Dr Rupy: Fantastic. So this, you hear about a lot of ideas starting around a kitchen table, but this is, this was the Prince's kitchen table.
Michael Dixon: It was a rather special kitchen table. Actually, it was a dining room table.
Dr Rupy: A dining room table. Okay, fine, yeah. Uma, tell us about why you took up this challenge and and how you're tackling it.
Uma Naidoo: You know, Rupy, I think it comes from the fact that I listen like a psychiatrist, that's my training. So in the room when we had this wonderful conversation, what I heard was a real desire to help the everyday person eat healthier. And I think it's really hard to translate down information into really simple language so all of us can understand. And at the same time, mental health is burgeoning. We know that from statistics from the World Health Organisation, we know that from suicide rates in teens in the United States, and we know that from the mental health rates in the UK. So how do we put those ideas together? It seemed if you can eat better for your mental wellbeing, your physical wellbeing will follow. So that was really the evolution of the Food for Mood campaign because we think it will target people's physical wellbeing, but also help them understand that there's this connection between food and mood.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. And for those of us who perhaps haven't listened to some of our previous podcasts or the stuff that we've done on nutritional psychiatry in the past, what are the key things that people need to understand to really get a grasp of food for mood? How do we eat for our mental wellbeing?
Uma Naidoo: So it starts off with the gut-brain connection, which is one of the ways that we understand the food-mood connection. People don't understand that our brain and our gut actually originate in the exact same cells in the human embryo. They remain connected throughout life by the vagus nerve, which is the 10th cranial nerve, which allows for text messaging between these organs of chemical messages. And then when you realise that 90 to 95% of serotonin, the happiness hormone, is in the gut, made in the gut, and the receptors are there, which by the way is why if someone takes Prozac or fluoxetine or other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, they often have gastrointestinal side effects. It's really that reason. When you help people understand that connection, you start to unfold the food-mood connection. So food that you eat, as it's being digested, is going to interact with the gut microbes and going to have positive effects or not so positive effects. And once people grasp that, they realise that food is more than what you eat for your waistline, the number on the scale, or you know, just a family history of type two diabetes. They start to put it truly together with their actual mental wellbeing.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And so it's the gut-brain axis, it's understanding where these neurotransmitters are created and how this impacts our overall wellbeing. In terms of the foods that we should be concentrating our diets around, what are they? And then perhaps, Michael, we can talk about how we're translating that into everyday choices in the supermarkets or when we're out and about.
Uma Naidoo: I mean, I'll start off with an example of the foods to be aware of to avoid, because often people know unhealthy foods, but they don't make the connection to mood. And one of those things, which we know that sugar, refined sugars are not great for us, but something that I taught at the conference last year was 4 grams of sugar is one teaspoon. And so in the US and and here, we just try to help people understand the number of teaspoons or grams of sugars they're eating, even if they have a yogurt which is a half a cup, but it could have eight teaspoons of sugar. So a plain yogurt with berries is very different. So just understanding the things to be aware of. Another example, Rupy, is someone trying to give up a sweet soda or a cool drink, goes to a diet version, but the artificial sweeteners disrupt the gut. So it may not help them. But the foods you can actually start to include on your plate, yes, those colourful veggies, uh, vegetables, I should say, colourful berries and and fruit and vegetables, everything that makes it, because the polyphenols interact with the gut microbes and those actually benefit your mood and your mental wellbeing. Fermented foods, huge study done, um, published in 2021 in Cell, which looked at fermented foods lowering inflammation because inflammation is now being seen as the underlying factor that causes or worsens depression, anxiety, cognitive disorders, and more. So any way we can lower inflammation is good for our mental wellbeing. Then it's, you know, the probiotic-rich foods, it's spices. I mean, I know you cook with a lot of spices, we love that. So turmeric with a pinch of black pepper, oregano, saffron, all actually have good data in mood. So just starting to include or expand your repertoire of what you're cooking starts. Those are just a few food groups to get started, but another one people overlook are leafy greens or green salads because these are rich in folate or vitamin B9, and low folate is associated with low mood. So the more times you're eating green salads, um, in a in a healthy way with a squeeze of lemon or some salt and pepper, is a way that you're taking in vitamin B9, which is helping your brain.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Michael, I have this saying that I always talk to people whenever I'm explaining the science of nutrition. It's the science is complex, the solutions are simple, implementation is super hard. So the science around the microbiota is fascinating, it's complex, it's vast, it's confusing. The solutions, as we've just heard, very simple. It's more berries, have some herbs and spices, clean up your diet in terms of having too much refined sugars, be aware of industrial processing. Implementation, that's the hard stuff on an everyday basis. So talk us through, you know, you're a practicing GP, how do you tackle this problem today and how could we be tackling it with the campaign that's starting?
Michael Dixon: Well, I think there are two levels of implementation. One is making ourselves as clinicians and patients aware that this is really important, that it ought to come first line before reaching for the antidepressant. I don't know if you saw that Panorama programme last week, but it said the placebo effect of an antidepressant was 40%, this is the biggest trial ever done, and the active effect was 55%. So you're only helping one or two people for every 10 you give an antidepressant. So it's almost a no-brainer that you should try other things first. And when as we heard this morning from Uma, that 70% of people with depression get better simply from having dark chocolate, well add in everything else you've just been talking about and, you know, why not try that first, especially as it's not damaging you, it's only helping you. Um, and for me, you know, the light bulb moment was that 4 grams equal to a teaspoon of sugar. I mean, I've lost a stone and a quarter since I last saw you last year. You look very well. Well, I've been reading the side of the packet. And and I've been absolutely amazed how much sugar is in ordinary yogurts, ordinary stuff. So I've stopped eating any of that stuff. I eat very well and I'm losing, I've lost a stone and a quarter in weight. So there's a bit of seeing is believing as well. And I hope that, you know, my clinical colleagues will try these things themselves and then they'll put them into action with their patients. Um, so, but but I think the main thing is a change in attitude, realising that we really have to take this seriously and this should be first line, pill second, diet first.
Dr Rupy: And what I'm hearing is, you know, it really comes down to clinicians themselves embracing these ideas and putting them into practice. I guess the secondary point is, okay, now I know what to eat, I've got those sort of health reflexes of looking at the packet as soon as I pick up anything, whether I'm in a store or a grocery aisle or wherever I find myself around the world. How do we translate that to patients so we can actually see those effects at a population level?
Michael Dixon: Well, I think, you know, we in social prescribing we talk about patient activation index, which is the degree to which you're in charge of your own destiny. And I think that is the crucial factor. You know, if if things are so bad in your life, you don't care whether you live till tomorrow or not, this is going to be irrelevant. Um, and so, uh, this is where social prescribing comes in in a way because often it helps those with the worst inequalities to get their debts, their food, their jobs, their housing, etc. You've got, you've got to be in that sort of place before you can even start on this. Um, and then, uh, it's a question of creating the motivation, activation, and also it becomes a rollercoaster. What I'm finding in the surgery, Rupy, is an increasing number of people who are beginning to grab it, especially middle-aged men, especially when their HbA1c's are almost diabetic. And I say, well, you're on the brink. And they say, no, I've got to change my life. And they do. They do. Um, so I think the message is getting out there. Um, uh, within the individuals. I think in terms of communities, we really do need to try very hard to change the local culture and norms. The only place where we've ever seen a real change is San Jokin, Finland with childhood obesity, which was halved over three years. Um, and that was because everyone was working together, the local authority, health, the nurseries, the retailers, everyone was working together. That's what we must do. And of course, with those eat well communities of the, you know, the the the food strategy, we could do that because we'd be giving free fruit and vegetables to those who couldn't afford it. We'd be changing the culture in the schools, we'd be giving people, making sure people could have allotments, etc. But it's got to be a whole community change. And it'd be lovely to do that and to showcase a community that had actually hacked it like that place in Finland.
Dr Rupy: Talk us through that, that, uh, that example in Finland because I'm not too sure if everyone listening to this would have would have understood what happened there.
Michael Dixon: Well, well, it's it's slightly controversial because unfortunately the improvements didn't accelerate as they were meant to and some people have questioned the statistics, but there's no doubt that they at least stabilized and slightly reduced childhood obesity. And that was because, um, everyone was aligned with the purpose. Um, Finland starts off in a slightly better place because they've got much better community connection and you know, that's what we're trying to recreate with social prescription, etc. But, um, uh, what they did was they connected all the people involved with food together and got the parents, um, uh, motivated as well as the schools, as well as the nurseries, and you know, even planning, you know, cycle lanes, pedestrian lanes, allotments, these sorts of things. I mean, we could do, I think, so much better in the UK if we really tried it. And my real sadness is it was in the food strategy, it was in the white paper, we've heard nothing about it ever since. Uh, it was only 7 million, uh, for this project over three years. It's so sad to see government dragging its feet over something which I think could be so important in terms of paving the way to what we can do. A bit like David Unwin in his surgery where he's shown you can, uh, reduce, stop 80% of diabetics about to become diabetic from being so. I think we could show the same in a community, but we just need that support from government and NHS England to do so.
Dr Rupy: Just on those, those statistics, 80% of transition into type two. It's unbelievable, isn't it? It is phenomenal. Those are phenomenal numbers.
Michael Dixon: I mean, overall it was, I think a third of his diabetic patients, but of those that had only had diabetes in that year, it was 80%. Wow. Yeah. And actually, I think that's the cusp when I find that, as I said before, it's when the HbA1c has gone 43, 45, 46, 47, suddenly the light bulb strikes and I say, okay, well, we can give you lots of tablets and they have all these side effects, or would you actually like to change your life? And they say, all right, doc, I'll change my life. Yeah.
Uma Naidoo: I was going to say something about diabetes because we had learned an interesting fact this morning that 14 billion being spent on diabetes care in the UK. And I had found out that 14.9 billion is being spent on mental health care. So if you think about that, it's almost, it's 14.9, so it's almost 15 billion, a billion more. If you think about that, maybe that could be a motivating piece to help our clinicians because I do feel, Rupy, one of those intervention points is what we, we, what clinicians, health coaches, nutritionists, everyone in this integrative field is doing because if we convey the message, then our patients learn the message. I think implementation is always hard, but I start off with the individuals who come to me because they want to make a change. They have it in their head that it's either the hemoglobin A1c or that their numbers are not looking good and their doctors, you know, trying to get them to do something different, and they're petrified to take a medication, or they don't want to start a mental health medication. So what can they do? And they're actually a group that will buy in to the concept. So that's one thing. But I also feel the other lever is what do our clinicians speak about in the visits? If you, if you happen to be, and I don't necessarily think this should be the first line, but if you're going to prescribe an SSRI, why aren't you talking about diet? Are you offering that individual other things they can be doing? Um, it really shouldn't be, you know, and I speak from the US because it's it's very prescription-based and I don't agree with it. I think it's necessary to save lives of people who are truly sick, but there are other integrative health measures that we can be using.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, it's almost like we need to generate our own prescription reflexes where we question whether the script is the best first line, uh, treatment. And in many cases, it is the option that is required, and maybe there's a collaborative approach with lifestyle and food.
Uma Naidoo: Along with lifestyle and food. Exactly. That can be done.
Dr Rupy: So no one is saying if you need a medicine, you shouldn't take it. Just what can you do?
Michael Dixon: I mean, I think alongside it, it's very serious, Rupy, but I think I question if if it's mild to moderate, say, depression, and we know that often that lasts a month or two and actually, uh, gets better anyway. And we know that, for instance, if you take up a hobby, you're three times more likely to come out of that depression, let alone eating, um, black chocolate and the rest of it. Um, when if it's a 40% placebo response, uh, if you add the positive response of what I've just said, maybe that comes up to pretty nearly your 55 or 60% of giving the antidepressant. So, and given the Panorama program's, uh, emphasis on how difficult it is for some people to get off these these drugs, then I think, you know, for me, it's a no-brainer that they should only come for the very serious cases where where really all else has failed, almost.
Uma Naidoo: Where it's going to be life-saving. So active suicidal ideations, you know, active symptoms where that can't, well, food can always be part of it. So I, but it can be alongside. But I completely agree, Michael. There's so many people, especially, this is what COVID taught us, that the number of visits that were shown and the number, the wait for someone to even see a therapist. These are, if if this is a program that can reach the public, these are things someone can literally scan on their phone in the supermarket and be looking at, as we develop out the program, look at what are the symptoms I'm feeling, um, these are the foods to try, and click through to see this is why, this is the mechanism, and then here's a recipe. So, you know, it's it's sort of a chain reaction. We want to take people on that journey and make it as simple as possible. So not using medical terms, just saying why you should eat a green salad. These are the nutrients and here's a recipe. You know, so that that's how we're building the program and and it's meant to be something a person can implement easily.
Dr Rupy: So talk us through the campaign in a sort of in a summary. So what are the key things that you're aiming for to be results of the campaign and how does that relate to the program that you've just been mentioning?
Michael Dixon: Well, I think what we want is the public to be more aware, we want the professionals to be more aware. Um, but I think as Uma has just said, almost at the point of contact with a supermarket for people to be aware. Um, because, uh, you talk about reading labels, well I think people won't have to read that many labels because they'll be eating stuff that doesn't have labels to start with. But when when they do, hopefully, um, our app will allow them to think, well, actually, I won't buy the carrots today because, uh, I'm a bit worried, you know, everyone's getting flu, colds in the family. I'll buy the the dark greens and I'll buy the berries, etc, etc. So, as you go around the supermarket, you could actually tailor make, um, uh, your your shopping basket to your the current state of of your health. Um, and it's much more than just treating illness. It's it's about preventing illness in the first place. You know, the general mood of the country would be so much better if we ate better. Um, and therefore we wouldn't have to start reaching for the antidepressants.
Uma Naidoo: I think a lot of people know, uh, what what healthy foods are, Rupy. You know, people know what's unhealthy, they know we shouldn't be eating ice cream and cake every day, but they don't often know why they should do it. And I think that nutritional psychiatry and this food for mood series based on just healthy eating principles, um, is meant to fill that gap. Like, why should you eat the broccoli? Well, there are a couple of things that would make your kids really smart if they ate them. You know, people care about those things. They care to feed their families well. And offer them budget-friendly ideas. So some recipes would have tinned sardines or tinned salmon because these still are rich in omega-3s. Um, and they're cost-effective. But they also will have vegetables. And to Michael's point, they're not worrying about a label because it's actually just whole foods they're eating. But to encourage more of that and why, I think makes that connection and hopefully just a simple way to cook it is, um, is a way that makes it more, um, easy to do. We want to make it easy, you know, for people.
Dr Rupy: I I 100% agree. And I think sometimes the pushback I get when I explain this to perhaps other colleagues that won't be at an event such as the personalized medicine conference, uh, or, you know, avid listeners to many other podcasts like my own, will say, well, the facts are, 80% of what you see in supermarkets are ultra-processed foods. Most people don't have the skill set to use fresh foods that are often cheaper. Uh, they wouldn't have the culinary creativity to utilize those. Plus, we have a backdrop of a cost of living crisis where the unhealthy foods are being heavily marketed as cheap and affordable for them. And putting my sort of, you know, capitalist hat on, I guess, uh, supermarkets are not really incentivized to push the cheaper whole foods and vegetables compared to the other products that have much higher margins. And so we're fighting quite an uphill battle, I get, I guess, when when you frame it like that. How how are you sort of navigating those sort of, uh, difficult truths of the of the environment?
Uma Naidoo: So I think that's a great point. And I'd love to hear what Michael thinks of this as well. But the way that I think about it living in the United States is that I can either, I choose my battles. Am I going to take on, um, you know, Big Pharma and their prescriptions? Am I going to take on the food industry and how they, um, you know, have marketing that suggests that the least healthy foods are actually healthy for people? And they're not, trust me, they're not trying to be, um, they're not trying to be tricky. They actually are doing it within food guidelines that exist. So what do I have as a clinician, as bringing my research and my training forward that can help? What I do have is the ability to educate people. And a lot of my programming now is on educating clinicians of different kinds. It doesn't, you don't just have to be a doctor. So we've started a program at Mass General to train clinicians, um, using nutrition and mental health. We also have one that will focus on nutrition because that's a gap. And then educating the consumer. So the Food for Mood campaign is about putting it in their hand to know more because they can make a difference. They can decide where to spend that pound. Should it be on eight yogurts that are laden with sugar, or can they buy plain yogurt and and chicken and cook it or a frozen version, but stay as as much as we can away from the frozen dinners and the frozen meals because we know those are unhealthy. I think that they have the voting power with their with their money. And by education is one way. It's not the only way, but it's one hope that I think you can change. And and I think that while we do that, we also see what we can do in Parliament. I support that. I do that in the US. Um, but it's that is a slower route. And and reaching the consumer and the clinician first is one point, one way to to change that conversation.
Michael Dixon: I agree. You can work with the system or you can change the system. Within the system, I think there's a lot you can do in education, particularly in schools for children. And you ought to interview James Fleming, a GP in Burnley, who has these, uh, is introduced in children at a very early stage to growing fruit and vegetables, how to cook them, and of course they're taking them home and changing things there. And and one of the College of Medicine's, in our manifesto, we said everyone should have access to somewhere where they can garden. That that should almost be a a civil right, um, to to a bit of an allotment. Um, and in that way, you I think you move the gradient a bit. But fundamentally, yes, we have a national conspiracy to make sure that the poorest get the worst food. And that's something we've got to change. And you can either change it as I described by having a community approach like the Eat Well community, or you can actually get, I think the food producers, the farmers and the retailers in the same room. I mean, there's a lovely, do you remember the the chief executive of Sainsbury's saying a few years ago, he was glad there was there was a limitation on sugar levels because that meant all of the supermarkets had to have a level playing field. He actually liked the superimposition of that rule. Um, and and all this stuff we've heard in the press this week about nanny state, it's complete rubbish. I mean, okay, I mean, you can't nanny people too much, but at the moment they don't have free will anyway because they're part of this system conspiracy. Um, and uh, I've tried to bring all these parties into a room and realized how totally locked the system is. And the only way you can change it actually is by changing almost the currency. I heard that from Patrick Holden on on Saturday at the food conference. And and that means taking into account all those hidden costs, the social cost of, um, high chemical farming, you know, destroying hedges, uh, people not being employed on the land, etc. All the way through to pollution of the rivers, um, uh, etc, etc, etc, and climate change. And if we take all those costs into account, I think we would change our farming practices and we'd also change the food that we're selling in the shops.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I think I I I agree. I think having transparency over the true cost to society of unhealthy food being promoted to, you know, the most vulnerable and the less well off, I think that needs to be accounted. But it's very, very hard, isn't it, for government to be aware of that? They don't really, I mean, like, take the example of, um, polluted rivers, for example, as a result of manufacturers who are, you know, based a few miles away. They've got the permissions to do so, but it's impacting our rivers, which impacts, uh, the chemicals in our water supply, impacts wild swimming, impacts the local agriculture, uh, local animals. So, you know, there's no joined up thinking. And I see the same parallels within the food industry as well. And so it would be great to have transparency across that. Is that something that is on the cards for the the food for mood campaign?
Michael Dixon: That's exactly what we're trying to do, Rupy. We're trying to create a momentum and a snowball effect amongst people and clinicians to make this happen. Because as you say, it's not going to happen on its own. I mean, I think we're going to clear sewage from rivers by 2050, is it? Long, long after I'm dead. I mean, for heaven's sake, let's have some ambition at last. You know, let's start thinking seriously. I mean, if you wanted to spot pollution in the rivers tomorrow, you almost could with technology. It take two or three years to get the sewage systems going, but you know, we're not trying hard enough. And that's and that's what's heartbreaking. People aren't, you know, people are dying through bad food, they're dying through depression, they're dying through diabetes, you know, and and we're just not tackling it. And there we are, you know, as GPs, being handed out bits for filling in boxes and making diagnoses. No one's paying me yet to cure them of diabetes or to change their life with through diet if they're depressed or anxious. We've got to change the whole funding system and we've got to have a will to do so. And and we believe in this campaign, the point of this campaign is to mobilize the public and the clinicians and then finally the press and very finally the politicians to do something.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I'm very much a glass half full kind of person. Um, but the skeptics might say, you know, okay, if you if the government's got some very blunt tools. There's taxation, so we can put taxes on the processed foods that we know are harmful to our budget through indirect costs such as healthcare and on society and happiness levels that we should be actually using as a marker beyond, you know, just GDP and the wealth of the country. Um, so that's a very blunt tool that is actually somewhat of a regressive tax. And then also, if you introduce guidelines like we did decades ago with fat, you reduce the fat, the industry will say, that's fine with us, we'll just load it full of sugar. And right, if we reduce sugar, we'll load it full of artificial sweeteners. And so we're we're sort of kicking the the um the uh proverbial can down the road when it comes to actually getting to what we really want, which is more whole foods in the supply chain and essentially providing tax breaks and cost savings on those to the general consumer. So with those tools in mind, like paint a picture for me in 5 to 10 years of what you really want to see happen when a patient walks into a supermarket or into a into a clinic, how are we treating these people so we can get a real vision of exactly what we're after and and and painting that vision to to MPs and the government would be a lot easier that way.
Michael Dixon: If you come to my surgery in 10 years time, I mean we've already got four gardens, we've got a herb garden. Your surgery is perfection already. Well, we're about to introduce a community garden so people can actually learn how to garden so they can learn garden. But but the change will be you won't be able to get through the front door for all the fruit and vegetables and messages on them. And then you go into our canteen, which isn't producing desperately healthy food at the moment, but it will be. It'll be like your doctor's kitchen. And and we'll do the things we did before COVID, have diabetic evenings, have stress cooking evenings, whatever. Um, and my and the doctors will all be enthused with it. So so that will be the clinical thing. In society generally, um, good food will be cheaper. Um, and um, and not only will you have to have the college app, but actually it'll be marked on it. It'll say on those carrots, um, this contains beta-carotene, which will help you with with sight, reduce, improve your immunity, and ditto when you go to the blueberries, it'll help you, um, with your immunity, possibly help you forget cystitis or a cough, affecting the phlegm, and ditto when you go off to, I don't know, the broccoli and the rest of it. So, so, and and so we'll be that aware. It'll be in our DNA. At the moment, it's peripheral. It needs to become mainstream.
Uma Naidoo: I'd love to share an example of someone in my extended family. So we have, you know, a large extended family and some of the younger parents had a baby. And they decided that with both little boys who were about a year apart, that they were not going to eat processed foods. And they were not going to, even if they went to a birthday party, they were going to find a new way to navigate that. And when I caught up with them when I visited in England, guess what their trigger foods are? Berries. They love strawberries, they love any berry. When they had a snack, and I I kid you not, I mean, I looked, I looked in absolute amazement. Their snack was hummus. They love hummus. So their mom makes hummus or she buys it and she has little packs with little carrots that they eat. And what it taught me was, okay, that's N of one, but what it taught me, it taught me is it starts with how we think about food. How do this, these parents decided that was how, at least till the age of five or seven, when they could make a choice at a birthday party, wherever it is, no one has actually restricted them from eating anything. And someone in the family had brought over a box of chocolates, they weren't eating the chocolates. They were at the table eating the berries. And I think it's it's there are many ways in, in addition to what Michael shared, I think it's how do we treat food? How do we think about food? My ideal navigation of using this system would be going to the supermarket and realizing the number of healthy foods you can eat. For example, cold season. Yes, you should eat your oranges, but actually there's higher vitamin C in kiwi fruit and red bell peppers. So just red peppers, having those in your salads, in your stir fries, in your anything that you're eating, can get your, you know, can be a boost to help everyone's immunity in the family. Little things like that could be changing the way we think. And I'm not saying it can happen overnight or that it's perfect, and we're launching this understanding that it's something we want to develop and we want people's feedback and we want it to grow. But we we figured we have to start somewhere with this. And so I see a way for people to literally navigate, not everyone, but like these parents who want their kids to eat healthier, just be able to navigate the supermarket differently or the farmers, wherever they get their their foods. And we are very sensitive to making sure that there are not only budget-friendly options available, given the the food crisis, um, that people can spend on, you know, bags of beans and healthy healthy foods or or tinned foods that are healthy. Tinned carrot is different from tinned salmon, right? Because the tinned carrot doesn't have the nutrients anymore, but tinned salmon has the omega-3s that someone can eat. So the more information people have in a digestible, easy way, that they can make the choices right there, right where they where they're paying for the food. And I think that's powerful, you know.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, at the point of purchase, they're making those informed decisions. I think that's really powerful. And you know, I think the campaign is fantastic. More joining up of the dots is required. I think a lot more clinicians, as evident by the fact that there are so many people at these conferences that we're putting up across the year is wonderful to see. If I had a a wish list of things that I think should be sort of introduced, if I was sort of, you know, nutritional medicine czar for the for the day, the things that I would, yeah, the things that I would, uh, request would be culinary medicine to be a compulsory module on all medical curricula. So right now, UCL is the only one that has it as compulsory. Um, and the second thing I would try and work on is affiliating all GP surgeries with a cooking school. So a community cooking school. There are many GP surgeries that do that, but they're in the minority rather than the majority. And the reason why is because you can have those cooking classes for stress, for type two diabetes, for menopause, whatever health complaint, uh, where you can a, teach them about the impact of nutrition, but also build a community within communities as well. And I think that's really, really powerful. And it doesn't necessarily need to be like a state-of-the-art cooking school that's literally bolted on to every GP surgery, although that would be wonderful, but an affiliation where we can actually point people towards registered nutritionists or dietitians, health coaches to promote those journeys as well, as well as actually having a final, because a lot of GPs come to me like, I don't have time within my eight-minute consultation to talk to them about nutritional psychiatry. This gives them a a prescribable way of being able to enable it.
Uma Naidoo: I love that.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Michael Dixon: I think it's brilliant, especially for mothers with young children, you know, you could aim it to because you start with them young, as it were, and get the whole, and I think you can get that community effect you described, you know, which James Maskell talked about earlier this morning, which is, you know, it's you're not doing it on your own, you're doing it with other people and you're getting feedback and and of course, actually quite an economic way of maintaining health through groups, um, rather than our individual consultations. Um, so maybe let's get these eat well communities going and let's get a kitchen in every GP surgery and a kitchen in every school, um, and everyone able to grow their own if they want to. Uh, and, uh, and then I think we can drag everyone else from the supermarkets downwards, dragging and screaming into our own plot.
Dr Rupy: Well, Michael, you've got the ear of some very influential people. So I think there's there's definitely a chance this could happen in the next few years. And, you know, you're right, the eat well communities and, you know, we're going to hear from Jonathan Pauling and Dr Chichi on Saturday about their, uh, prescribing fruit and vegetables, um, and the free vouchers that stimulate the local economy, the local markets and actually have had some profound effects on the people who are recipients of these vouchers, purely by increasing fruit and vegetable consumption and doing nothing else. Even if you don't have to take away the unhealthy foods, just adding more vegetables to your diets is has been wonderful. So, look, you guys have got the power, you've got the ear of influential people. I think this is going to be fantastic and I can't wait to see what happens in the next few years.
Uma Naidoo: Well, thank you, Rupy.
Michael Dixon: Thank you for everything you do because, you know, this needs to be a combined effort.
Uma Naidoo: That's right. We we appreciate your support. And and to your last point, I I appreciate what you said because this is an inclusive program. You know, I come from a mentality in the US of eat this, not that, which exhausts me fighting it every day in the press. So it's really about how can you add more? Because the more of those healthy foods you add, the unhealthy ones just kind of dwindle. And we actually notice in people that they no longer have some of those cravings as they're eating the healthier foods. So that's a subtle effect that we hope for.
Michael Dixon: But what people need is the authority of someone like yourself, a Harvard nutritional psychiatrist who can say this and that. The trouble is at the moment in the UK, you open your tabloid newspaper and some rather attractive looking girl is saying this week everyone should be eating apples or or licorice or whatever comes into her brain or his brain. Um, and and and I think, you know, and unfortunately that sells newspapers. But you know, the trouble is people end up confused. They don't know.
Uma Naidoo: People do end up confused. And I think that's an excellent point, Michael, but also, um, Tik Tok, you know, and social media. Now, many of us, like Rupy and myself, use it as an educational tool. And I was asked by media to provide a a comment on how people were, they had this zero calorie water craze on Tik Tok. Zero calorie water? Zero calorie water phase. So it's consume your water. Sorry, zero sugar. Oh, zero sugar. Yeah. So, um, so I was very curious to know what it was. And it turned out that they were encouraging a healthy habit, drinking water, keeping hydrated, but what were they filling it with? Things like Skittles powder. So Skittles is a candy in the United States, and it's made into a powder and they were putting it into the massive 40 ounce, which is almost a liter, actually more than a liter, of water, encouraging hydration. But I'm like, but you're putting, you're just putting pure sugar in the in the water, right? So, but this craze was taking off and that's why the reporter contacted me. So it's exactly these influencers are, you know, trends that happen. You see them all the time. But how do we still provide just knowledge to people?
Michael Dixon: Some sensible information.
Uma Naidoo: Sensible information, you know, less attractive maybe, you know, less, you know, less less hype, less dramatic, but just just the sensible information that people.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. We're going to make it sexy. Thanks so much, guys. This is great. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having us.
