Healthy Nutrition
Food can do many things, it fuels us up, keeps us going, brings friends and family together. A healthy diet, so many positive effects on our lives. But during times of stress, it can be hard to keep the motivation.
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Special Guest
Alli Jones is a health promotion specialist at CFB Esquimalt.
Highlights
- Canada’s new food guide looks way different.
- Micro and macro nutrients.
- 7:13 MUFAs and PUFAs.
- Eat a variety of foods.
- A few good habits.
- 15:21 Having a plan is setting yourself up for success.
- Staying motivated by you’re cooking solo, or cooking solo for kids
- Staying motivated through isolation and loneliness.
Quotes
“All of us engage with food very differently. So it’s really about figuring out you know, what triggers you? You know, if you’re feeling low or if you’re feeling lonely? Is your comfort found in food? Do you crave those maybe those higher fat foods when you’re feeling low or when you’re feeling tired? The first step is awareness and understanding, you know, what drives me to make these choices or what triggers me to make these choices.” – Alli Jones
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Thank you
- Thank you to Organized Sound Productions for their help bringing this podcast to life.
Transcript
Alli
All of us engage with food very differently. So it’s really about figuring out you know, what triggers you? You know, if you’re feeling low or if you’re feeling lonely? Is your comfort found in food? Do you crave those maybe those higher fat foods when you’re feeling low or when you’re feeling tired? The first step is awareness and understanding, you know, what drives me to make these choices or what triggers me to make these choices.
Intro
The military lifestyle is all encompassing. It’s difficult, but rewarding. Dynamic, very, very dynamic. Unpredictable. You are in the Canadian Armed Forces, or a family member connected to the military. You know the lifestyle can be a challenge. The military lifestyle is always changing. In this podcast, we explore the world of deployments, postings, and transition. This is The Military Lifestyle. Here’s your host, Jon Chabun.
Jon
Food can do many things, it fuels us up, keeps us going, brings friends and family together. A healthy diet, so many positive effects on our lives. But during times of stress, it can be hard to keep the motivation. Alli Jones is a health promotion specialist at CFB Esquimalt. She’s here to talk about all things nutrition. Let’s start off with Canada’s new food guide. The healthy meal plate now looks way different. Tell me a little bit about that. What does it look like? Describe it visually for us.
Alli
Sure. So back in 2019, Canada came out with a new food guide. And it was probably about time, Gone are the days of the food groups where we used to have the four food groups that looked at veggies and fruits, grains, milk and milk alternatives, and, meat and meat alternatives. Now the Food Guide is a lot more visual. So you see the representation of a plate. And we see when we look at it, it’s divided kind of into three segments, half of the plate they’ve allotted for vegetables, and some fruits. So that’s telling us still how important getting those vegetables are in our lives. And then they’ve got a quarter allocated for proteins. This time, we’ve seen a lot more beyond just meat. So we’re seeing things like tofu, and legumes, so things like peas and beans and nuts, eggs, other options. Outside of that typical steak or pork or chicken that we traditionally used to see with the old Food Guide. And then the other quarter of the plate is reserved for whole grains. And really, there’s been a huge shift towards whole grains, meaning that we’re getting the whole grain. So when we looked at grain products before many of them were refined, which means they took the grain and they’d strip it down, and we would just get the endosperm, which contained the carbohydrates and the protein. And now with the whole grain, we’re including that bran. So that outer layering that really provides the fiber, and we’re getting the germ in there. And that’s where all the vitamins and minerals come in. So you’re getting a much healthier quality. When you get those whole grain choices. They also help to keep you fuller longer because it takes more time to break them down.
Jon
Well, what are some examples of whole grain?
Alli
You could look at breads, for example, when you go to the grocery store, you’d flip your your label over and you would look for a whole grain flour. So you might go to the grocery store. And you might see a bread that’s you know, called Super 16 grains, and you’re like, oh, that must be whole grains. But when you flip the bread over, it’s actually a whole wheat bread that they’ve just added grains to. And for most of us, we have a really hard time breaking them down, because we don’t have the acidity to process all those exterior shells. So looking for a whole grain flour would be a way to know that it’s actually a whole grain product. So you could look for pastas, bagels, a lot of what you would typically think is carbohydrates. One of the things where people get confused is that in addition to grains being in the carbohydrate category, so are fruits and vegetables. And so this idea of like people thinking that their plate is getting full of carbs, well, it is because half of its being attributed to vegetables and fruits. So one of the really cool things about Canada’s new food guide is that this time for the first time ever, when the Food Guide was created, they looked at scientific inquiry. And what they did is they excluded all industry commissioned studies. So what that means is that any study that was paid for by somebody in the industry, whether it be food and beverage or the dairy farmers of Canada were excluded. So for the first time, we actually got strong evidence from the scientific community that backed up what we should be eating and why. So if we look at Canada’s previous Food Guide, we had a category that was called milk and milk alternatives, which shouldn’t be surprising, because when you flip the Canada Food Guide over, you would have seen that it was sponsored by the dairy farmers of Canada. So this is a huge step when it comes to transparency and really taking out that bias out of what Canadians should be eating. The other thing that’s really interesting about this new food guide is there are a lot more recommendations not just about what you eat, but how you eat it. So looking at the importance of connecting with friends and family over shared meals, connecting with what you’re eating, so being mindful of where you’re choosing your products from, looking at cooking more often at home. So you get a more a greater understanding of what type of products are going into what what you’re eating, rather than eating these packaged foods that certainly were very big in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s, we’re kind of starting to see that shift back to whole foods, and really engaging in the kitchen again, and it reminds Canadians how important it is to read those labels to truly understand what it is that you’re eating.
Jon
What does your body need to be healthy?
Alli
Well, lots of things. Primarily, when we look at nutrition, we divide our nutrients into two categories, micro and macro, and macro meaning big and micro meaning small.
Jon
I got it.
Alli
So yeah, so in our macros, we see carbohydrates, so those things like vegetables, grains, fruits, those types of things, we have simple and complex, so simple, meaning more sugar, things like your jams, your syrups, that sort of thing on your complex ones, where we talk about those whole grains that we previously discussed. And then we have proteins. So looking at those lean proteins and reminding yourselves that there’s way more to proteins and just meat products, and then fats, and we’ll explore fats a little bit more, because fats for many years got quite a bad rap, that you know, fats were making us fat. And certainly there are some unhealthy fat options out there.
Jon
They need to change the name because, they are called fats.
Alli
It’s true. It’s true. So we’re trying to educate people into this idea of like, there are some really healthy fats out there. So they call them mono unsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. And if you are into blogs, and that sort of thing, they’re starting to call them MUFAS and PUFAs to make them a bit more, I guess, sexy, and they’re they’re naming. So MUFAS and PUFAs are where you want to go. And that includes things like avocados and seeds and nuts and things like that you see in olive oil, and then we’ve got kind of those unhealthy categories, trans fats is one. And in Canada, we’re really fortunate that we’ve banned trans fats. So that happened several years ago, we put a ban on trans fats. And then we also followed that up by putting a ban on partially hydrogenated fats, which means we’ll reduce the level of trans fats even further on our products. And then the last category of fats are ones that we call saturated fats. And this category is one that we want to limit. And the reason we want to limit it is because it is known to have kind of adverse health consequences. So saturated fats are usually coming from animal products. So things like you know, your, the fat you’d find in your steak, or what you’d see in butter and creams and cheeses, what happens is that it actually causes plaque to build up in our arteries. So it contributes to what we call bad cholesterol, or that low density lipoproteins. And that plaque sort of narrows the arteries, so they call it atherosclerosis, which just means that you’re going to reduce the ability for blood to flow through your arteries. And in the consequence, you’ll probably have an increased blood pressure, and it can also lead to heart disease. So it’s one of the ones that a lot of industries, or I suppose health industries are encouraging people to limit.
Jon
We got the full spectrum of fats. Thank you very much. It’s one of those things where I just I never knew what what the name was. I could some one of these ones are good. One of these ones are bad. Yeah, which one should I? Yeah. But a well balanced diet is important. What are some things that people can do to have a well balanced diet?
Alli
I think the biggest thing is to eat a variety of foods. So foods are so interesting that with every different color usually comes different nutrients. One of the recommendations is always eat the color of the rainbow. And no, this is not a promo for Skittles, but it’s looking at like, if I look down on my plate, is it colourful, and the more color that’s there, the more different types of nutrients I’ll be getting. And that’s where those micronutrients really fall into place. So those vitamins and minerals that would be present in the foods, and one of the questions I always get is, you know, should I be taking multivitamins or should I be taking supplementation? And that’s often a really hard question to answer because the answer really is it depends. It depends what you’re eating. So if you’re an individual, who let’s say, does not like meat products, you’re a vegetarian or a vegan and for you, then you need to be very mindful of, you know, am I getting enough iron. And so some people might benefit from taking supplementation, but you need to know what it is that you’re taking in, in order to see perhaps what you’re lacking. Because most of us are taking supplementation, whether it be a multivitamin or that sort of thing. And it’s not really serving us. You know, one of the things I often read is North Americans have the most expensive pee, because most of the vitamins we’re taking in our water soluble just means they’re getting flushed out every time we go to the bathroom. It’s always a difficult question to answer. But those micronutrients are really important part of a balanced diet.
Jon
What are a few good habits?
Alli
Good habits?
Jon
Yeah, I’m thinking of stuff to keep. We’re covering a lot of the scientific stuff, you know, kind of background material. But now get into the nitty gritty of everyday actionable items that can now us be healthy.
Alli
Yeah, so I think for a lot of Canadians, and certainly myself is one of the hardest things I think is portion control, is monitoring how much we’re actually taking in. And I think a lot of changes have happened over time, I think we’ve seen portion sizes increase exponentially. And so when we go out for dinner, we’re getting more and more food put onto our plates. And so we start to expect that. One of the things that I know happened, I can recall, probably 10 years ago, I moved in with my partner, and he had all these really big dishes. And I noticed that I was starting to put on weight. And what I realized is that my portions were really driven by my eyesight, looking down to see how full my plate was, how full is my bowl. And so I had all these new dishes that were huge. And so what ended up happening is I was eating like three times the food I used to eat, just because I was using my old habits of all just scoop it onto my plate looks full. So looking at you know, how can we portion control ourselves, maybe we need to look at the size of the actual dinnerware we have, or if we sit down on the couch, and we’re going to have some chips as a night snack while we watch Netflix or something. Have we allotted an amount of them? Or did we just take the whole bag with us? Because I know for certain that there’s been times where I’m sitting on the couch, and I can feel my fingers kind of scooping around the bottom of the bag looking for those leftover chips. And there’s no more left.
Jon
What? You eat chips?
Alli
Absolutely.
Jon
This is the worst.
Alli
Life in moderation. Everything needs to be in balance.
Jon
So basically, you’re telling us we can eat chips?
Alli
Yes.
Jon
Alright.
Alli
In moderation. 80-20. 80% healthy options. 20% those less healthy within moderation.
Jon
Personally, I know some things that worked for me. Just little thing is like eating at a table.
Alli
Mm hmm.
Jon
Like getting into the habit of eating at a table, eating with other people. Yeah, and when you can, and cooking food yourself. Those are things that I’ve definitely found made me healthier. If I make something myself, maybe it still can be unhealthy. But it will be less unhealthy than if somebody else were to make it. Does that make sense?
Alli
Yeah. And I think more care and attention goes into it. And you’re also more aware of what you’ve put into it. So there’s less hidden things in the food, when you’ve been part of the making process, you have a better idea of what’s there. And certainly connecting with others like it can slow you down. A lot of people have kind of entered into this mindless eating and not connecting with their food. And so if you’re there with others, it kind of slows you down, because you start enjoying the conversation with others. And so you perhaps you don’t eat as quickly, you might chew your food more. One of the things that I often teach kids is put their fork down between every bite so that you actually have to chew your food. So not only does that help with digestion, but it also helps you kind of get into eating and feel the textures of the food and get the true flavours out.
Jon
Well that’s a good point, the taste of food, the texture and the smells to really take it all in. And I find that way with my daughter I’ll I’ll be talking about might be seasonal food. These you know your strawberries, your blueberries, corn, things that come maybe only once a year locally that is and you know, just in ppreciate everything right the full experience of it.
Alli
And we’re so lucky living here on the island. There’s so many farmers that live in our community. I mean in Esquimalt there’s the farmers market every Thursday so you can go and get fresh produce that was grown here on the island and you will taste the difference. You will definitely taste the difference than something that has traveled a long distance to get here.
Jon
You have no idea how good carrots can taste until you actually buy them or grow them yourself. And spectacular.
Alli
One of the fate my favourite thing is I used to grow. I grew up on a farm and there is nothing better than eating berries right off the bush. Just like raspberry berries or blueberries, just grabbing them and stuffing them in your mouth. That was one of my, my highlights of my childhood that I continue to do as an adult. And every time I walk, the E & N trail to work, there’s all the blackberry bushes. So I have can stop for a healthy snack on my way to and from work every day, which is great.
Jon
Any other good habits that you would recommend to people?
Alli
One of the things that is helpful is having a plan. And really knowing what your triggers are. So when I say having a plan, I mean, like, if I’m going to go to the grocery store, do I know what I want to cook that week, because that way one, it sets me up for success. I know lots of people are trying to not go into the grocery store as much these days. So having all the ingredients you’ll need to make meals, a really helpful tip is sticking to the outside of a grocery store. So kind of doing the outer loop, that’s where you’re going to find your veggies, your fruits, your meats are out there, your eggs and milk and grain products, and then just going into the aisles to get the specific things that you might need rather than cruising through all the aisles, because those are usually where the more processed products live. So if you can kind of stick to the outer edges of the grocery store, you’re, you’re doing pretty good. One of the things that grocery stores have become more aware of his probably people like myself giving out that tip, because you’ll start to notice now that there’s lots of displays that are on the end of aisles now to really capture those of us who are spending our time kind of on the outer ring. And without a doubt, it’s always the tastiest snack foods that seem to always be on sale. So they’re really using their marketing power to try and kind of lure us in to grab those less healthy options when we’re in the grocery store.
Jon
You speak of meal planning? Mm hmm. No, do people do this anymore?
Alli
Yes, some people are diehard meal planners, they’ll prep for an entire week, they’ll get cookie sheets out, and they’ll cook all their vegetables and stuff. And they’ll divide it and pre portioned it. And that works great if that’s what you’re into some other people really adopt this, they make the decision of what they want to eat that night. And then they go buy the ingredients for that. And others are starting to look at different companies like there are companies like Hello Fresh, or Be Good Foods, where they deliver them right to your door, they give you a recipe, they give you all the ingredients. And then it really takes about 30 minutes to put it together. So finding what works best for you. If you’re someone who doesn’t like meal prepping, you hate chopping vegetables, don’t put yourself, don’t go to the grocery store and buy a whole bunch of vegetables, you have to chop because you’re setting yourself up for failure. Go in and look, you know, is there a veggie tray that I can buy where everything’s already done for me. So taking away those barriers that prevent you from eating those healthy options, or, you know, going in and saying I would really like a salad, but I don’t have a lot of time for salad, buy one of the prepackaged ones that come all together, you literally add dressing and away you go, it’s a much better option than no salad at all. For some people meal planning just seems like another step, something else they have to do. And I think for some people, time is limited. If it’s not something you enjoy, it’s really hard to put the time into it. So for those who find it difficult to meal plan, there are other alternatives. And I know that for some people, it’s just not as easy. I find that when my family’s all together, it’s much easier to meal plan. But when my partner deploys, it becomes harder because then it’s just me. And so I find that I put less effort into meal planning, because I just kind of adopt this, like I’ll eat on the fly, I certainly know that my options naturally become less healthy as I don’t have a plan. And I’m just kind of going by whatever’s in the house. So I really make sure to have what I call like my snacks for the go. And for me, those are usually like pre packaged vegetables, or a big fruit bowl. So that you know, instead of dipping my hand into the cookie jar, when I need a quick snack, I’ve got an healthy option there that is pre packaged. And I can just grab it as I run out the door. So that I find to be really helpful. There are other things that people can do, like if you do cook, make a lot. So when I’m at home by myself, and I’m going to put the time and effort into making a big meal, I’m going to cook a lot of food. And then I’m going to freeze it all. So in the morning when I might have a busy day, or I won’t be getting home till late. Or maybe I only have you know that one hour between work and my next obligation. I could take out one of those pre made meals that I’ve made myself, leave it to thaw that day. And then I can just reheat it, whether it be in a microwave or back on the stove, and then I’ve got that healthy option again. Because otherwise when we start to get pressed for time, that’s when usually those unhealthy options sneak in. That’s where we find ourselves, you know, driving through the McDonald’s drive thru, or picking out something on the fly because we just didn’t prepare ourselves for it for the day ahead.
Jon
Deployment. Staying motivated by you’re cooking solo, or cooking solo for kids. It can be hard to keep that motivation can’t it?
Alli
Yeah, absolutely it can. So there are some really great programs out there. This year I did the brewery and the beast online homeschool cooking series. So they once a week had basically a cooking session. So it was like having private cooking classes, but within my own home, connecting with friends, having others over to make a meal together, also can be helpful. And if you have kids involved, get them involved, it’s a really good opportunity to spend time with your kids in the kitchen, giving them tasks like grating the cheese, or peeling the vegetables, and you can talk to them, you can hang out, and they get an opportunity to connect with their food at a young age and really get the value of cooking and understanding what to do in the kitchen. Deployments are tricky, because it certainly changes family dynamics, definitely with a partner being away. And so looking at ways to set yourself up for success. And that might mean perhaps you look at different options. There are lots of companies who make meals for families. So if you’re struggling to eat well on your own, you might look for another organization to help you with that. Provide you with maybe two or three meals a week that are already made for you and all you need to do is heat them up. And then you only need to attend to those four meals, maybe that’s a bit more manageable when you’re when you’re on your own. Because certainly it is tricky to cook solo, a lot of people say, you know, I’ve spent all this time making this wonderful meal, and then I just sit down and eat it by myself. And it’s not there to share with others. So I would encourage people to connect and whether it be you know, inviting people into your home or, or even having dinner over a Zoom call, having someone else there to to engage with and enjoy the meal. With my friend group, what we have done is we’ll all pick a recipe, and then we’ll all make the same recipe. So it’s like we’re eating together, everybody’s eating the same thing. And then we talked about, you know, did you tweak the recipe, so that way you can kind of get an idea of what maybe other people have done as well.
Jon
Isolation, loneliness. Those are things that can happen with the lifestyle. It can happen if there’s a pandemic. Yes, I know people talk about yeah, eating junk food overeating, under eating. How do you how do you stay motivated?
Alli
I think one of the things that people really need to spend a bit of time doing is figuring out what triggers them. And what I mean by that, like, are you someone who eats a lot when you’re feeling stressed? Or are you someone who when you’re feeling stressed, you kind of forget to eat? And all of us engage with food very differently. So it’s really about figuring out you know, what triggers you? You know, if you’re feeling low, or if you’re feeling lonely, is your comfort found in food? Do you crave those maybe those higher fat foods when you’re feeling low, or when you’re feeling tired? The first step is awareness and understanding, you know, what drives me to make these choices or what triggers me to make these choices? One of the things that I sometimes do when I’m I’m kind of getting to that that loneliness feeling. And it usually happens if my partner’s deployed for a while it usually kind of happens at that midway stage, is I write halt on my fridge and I put it right where I see it as I open the door. And halt stands for Am I hungry? Am I angry? So like, am I feeling emotional? Am I feeling sad? Am I lonely? Like am I bored? Am I just here? Because I have nothing else to do nothing else is preoccupy me, or am I feeling tired? Like, am I just tired, and I’m just looking to go eat something just because it’s something to do? And I’m not really thinking because I’m just so exhausted. And I think you see that a lot with parents who have new children that they go to the fridge when they’re feeling tired, just as like, it seems like a safe place to go. And so that acronym really helps remind me of like, why am I in the fridge right now. Because I think we spend so much time going in and out of our fridge throughout the day. It just seems like a natural place to gravitate towards. And then we find ourselves in the fridge outside of a meal hour pulling out all this stuff to eat. And it’s like, so why am I here? Why am I doing this? And I think that awareness piece goes a long way in helping people understand why they’re making those choices. Another thing for me is that if I know that I’m feeling lonely, I avoid buying the foods that I know aren’t healthy for me. So if I have the big Costco sized bag of chips in the cupboard, I’m going to go eat them because I know that they’re there. So instead I decide, you know, hey, I really want some chips tonight or some cookies tonight or whatever it might be that those treats we kind of call them and I go buy a small portion of them. I go by the mini bag. Certainly it’s a little bit more expensive. You don’t get the big value you would if you went and bought in bulk. But I know if I buy it in bulk. I’m eating all of it. So whether I eat it in one sitting or over three days, all of its going to be consumed. Whereas when I have those small bags, even if I’m making that choice to self soothe with food. It’s not at a huge cost, and a huge cost, meaning I’m not consuming all those unhealthy calories, I’m getting what I need in that moment. And then it’s no longer there. So I don’t feel those urges. For some people just having it in their house presents a huge, not so much a barrier, but like, a risk, like, they’re almost vulnerable, because they know it’s there. So they just want to eat it. Some people, I know that they have cupboards that they, they’ll lock, and then they’ll give the key to somebody else if they feel like they really want to eat those foods to really keep them away, or they just don’t buy them. And I think for me, that’s definitely something that if it’s not there, it’s really hard to eat it. Because then I need the motivation to get up and out of my house to go get it. So how much do I really want it is what it comes down to.
Jon
Well, thank you very much. Thanks for coming.
Alli
Thanks for having me.
Jon
For more information on Health Promotion at your base, visit CAFconnection.ca.
Extro
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Military Lifestyle. To learn more about this episode and to check out our other resources like the deployment app, go to EsquimaltMFRC.com. A special thanks to Organized Sound Productions for bringing our idea to life. Please share this podcast with your military family or with someone living the lifestyle. Subscribe to The Military Lifestyle on your favorite podcast app. Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening.
