March is National Nutrition Month which makes this the
perfect time to make sure that you're eating well.
So we have registered dietitian nutritionist and cookbook author,
my fellow right here in.
Hi, good morning. Good morning. I am so glad to have you on this show.
This year's nutrition month theme is called Fuel Fear
the Future with an eye on eating sustainably.
This is a message you've had for years.
But how do we do a better job of eating sustainably?
So before I even talk about sustainable nutrition,
I have to acknowledge that there are varying degrees of access for people,
meaning that you know,
some people can get access to affordable
nutritious food that's culturally relevant while others can't
with that. So said,
eating more plants is one way to think about sustainability.
In my practice,
we found that when we encourage people to actually
think about what they're going to add to their plate
that really resonates. Alright.
So we've been hearing a lot of things that are good for is bad for us.
I mean everything seems so volatile. Eggs are good one day, coffee is good one day.
Now we know keto diets apparently are not good.
There's obviously a lot of focus of what we should eat
for both health and climate reasons.
But what are some of the things that we should actually be enjoying more of? Yeah.
So plan plants are the things that we want to actually add to our pattern of eating.
They're incredibly nutrient rich and they're supportive of whole
body health with my patients in the practice.
What we talk about is including plants that you know,
you like and ones that are culturally relevant.
The great thing is that you can have plants in so many forms.
Canned, jarred, boxed, frozen dry, all works.
It's all about adding those plants by any means necessary.
Do you have any advice for anyone who just struggles to stick to
eating healthy over a long period of time after a month or two?
They just give up and go back to fast food or processed foods. Yeah.
You know, healthy eating is such a broad term.
And what I found is that it really looks different for everyone.
So what's healthy for me may not be what's healthy for you.
And there's so much implicit messaging about what we're supposed to eat or not eat.
And then there's all this shame and guilt that gets woven into it.
And so what I usually say to the person who's looking to repair
that relationship with food is what does healthy look like for you?
What are the things that you can actually add
to your plate on a regular and consistent basis.
What are the things that are affordable, accessible, culturally relevant
instead of thinking about what to restrict?
Well, on that note, how do you sort of find the balance here?
Because that's the hard part is, as you mentioned,
everybody's bodies are so different here.
Yeah. So balance is complicated, right? This is not a perfect answer.
And what I usually say is when we're thinking about shopping,
we're gonna buy what's accessible to us, all of us, right?
So if it's affordable and accessible and close by,
that's what we're buying. When we're looking to create a balance.
It's about the whole, not a single individual moment.
So think about your pattern of eating on the
long term as opposed to that stand alone meal.
We have less than a minute, but I have to talk about your book.
You brought your cookbook eating from our roots,
inspired by all the different cultures here in the U S.
This is the best seller Gwyneth Paltrow Rachel Ray.
I've heard so many people talk about this book. Tell me more about it.
What should we walk away and what should readers walk away after reading this? Yeah.
So when I was working on the book,
I really wanted to write this love letter to the globe.
I wanted people to enter their kitchens and think about
spice and flavor and actually commuting over delicious food.
So this book is going to encourage you to say, hey, I want to step into my kitchen today
and tomorrow and I want to eat the things that I have prepared. Amazing advice.
Maya Feller, registered dietitian and author of Eating From Our Roots,
which is available for you right now.
Thank you so much for joining us.