Inside the daily routine of the world’s best nutrition doctor - the 6 things you need every day to cut your risk of cancer & dementia

What does a healthy daily routine really look like? In this episode, world-leading nutritionist Dr Federica Amati shares what she eats in a day, from breakfast to dinner, and her six everyday habits that may lower your risk of cancer, dementia and help you live longer. No 4am alarms, cryotherapy chambers, or other protocols - you’ll learn simple tips and trends you can skip. Federica walks us through a normal day, from waking up to bedtime, and gives you six pillars of a healthy lifestyle to focus on to reduce your risk of chronic disease. Learn how Federica builds a healthy morning routine that cuts your chronic disease risk by 80%, how to put together a quick lunch, pick snacks that keep you full, and slip oily fish into meals you already love. Plus, her simple wind-down rules for better sleep. Which big habits are you missing while you chase the small ones? 🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30 🌿Let your gut microbes snack on the ZOE Gut Health Bar Build healthy habits. Download the ZOE app today 👉 Join ZOE Follow ZOE on Instagram. Timecodes 00:00 Intro 04:45 Circadian rhythms: what your hormones expect every 24 hours 06:50 The 6 lifestyle habits that prevent 80% of chronic disease 10:10 Why sleep scientists want to scrap the clock change 13:14 Coffee on an empty stomach: science vs. social media myths 14:46 Is eating the exact same breakfast every day bad for you? 16:57 The high-protein, high-fibre breakfast you can make in seconds 19:05 The no-cook lunch for busy workdays 20:35 Are pre-cooked grain pouches healthy? 23:10 Does microwaving fermented foods destroy their benefits? 25:26 The science of beans: how fibre shuts down hunger for hours 28:23 Why sandwiches cause an afternoon energy crash 32:17 Is pasta actually bad for you? 36:04 The real reason you feel starving at 3 pm 38:14 Nutritionist-approved snacks: sweet & savoury ideas that work 40:22 The clinical evidence on red meat & cancer risk 41:15 SMASH: the 5 oily fish to eat for omega-3 44:38 Tinned tuna: mercury risk & missing healthy fats 46:52 Which cooking oil should you use? 49:19 Do gut microbes control your food cravings? 50:45 The overnight fast: should you eat dinner earlier? 52:50 The 1 screen habit that beats any sleep routine 54:29 The healthy habit wellness influencers get wrong about longevity 58:16 The single most overlooked life skill that makes healthy food cheaper 📚Books by our ZOE Scientists The Food For Life Cookbook Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati The Appetite Reset by Dr Federica Amati Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector Free resources from ZOE The Smart Snacking Guide: How to feed your gut, fuel your day, and snack without guilt The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks Better Breakfast Guide Mentioned in today's episode Daylight-saving Time & Health Identifying Beneficial & Adverse Effects, Eur J Epidemiol (2026) The Interplay between Early Mealtime, Circadian Rhythms, Gene Expression, Circadian Hormones, and Metabolism⁠, Clocks & sleep (2023) Episode transcripts are available here.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Welcome to Zoe, Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  It's four in the morning. It's time for me to rise and optimize. First, I do 10 minutes of meditation, then 10 minutes of gratitude practice, followed by weights and then a cold plunge. I eat breakfast at five in the morning, which consists of a formidable supplement stack washed down with a frothy green powdered beverage. Before bed, I avoid screens for an hour and a half, have 30 minutes of red light therapy, and end the day with a coffee enema. Okay. None of that is true. It all sounds utterly miserable. And if I get up before seven in the morning, I complain about it for the rest of the day. The one I describe seems to be the routines claimed by every influencer and CEO on the internet. For the vast majority of us, they're unachievable,

• 0:57Speaker 00

  and honestly, they feel like they'd suck the joy out of life. Often, this type of content can leave us with a pang of guilt, though. We ask ourselves why we're not as dedicated to health and wellness as we should be. But the important question is this: Are those intense morning routines really how we should all be living? And if not, what kind of daily routine should we keep? What about if we discuss the routine of a real expert, one of the world's top nutritional scientists, who's a busy working professional and a parent? And how they adapt the latest science to the realities of their busy life? Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Federica Amati, nutrition leader at Imperial College and Zoe's head nutritionist. And she's here to share her daily routine with us.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  So if you've ever wondered what a world-leading expert in health and nutrition actually does each day to stay healthy and happy, you're in the right place. By the end of the episode, you'll know what she does from morning to night and which of her habits might make sense for you in your busy life.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Federica, is there one single perfect daily routine that everyone should follow?

• 2:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  Is breakfast the most important meal of the day?

• 2:11Speaker 01

  It can be, but not for everybody.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  Should we all try to give up snacks?

• 2:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  Is it possible to stick to a healthy routine even when your day is chaotic?

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  At the weekends, is it best to have a big lie-in to catch up on sleep?

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Not all the time, but there's always wiggle room.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Today, what we wanted to do was talk about you, Federica, and what you actually do. And that's because pretty much every influencer out there on the internet has at least one video at the moment where they explain what they do in the morning and what they eat each day and how if you follow their routine, you can be as successful, rich, beautiful as they are. And there's a whole bunch of people with whole books laying out their protocols for how they live their day. But as always on the internet, the real question is, whose advice should I be following? And actually, can I trust any of this? And as one of the world's leaders in nutrition science, I'm really keen to know what your daily routine looks like. And also because I know that

• 3:17Speaker 00

  not only do you do all of this incredibly impressive science at work, but you're also a mother, you have a family, you have a real life. And so you're actually having to make all of those things happen without a huge entourage to follow behind you, make everything happen. So maybe we could start chronologically in the morning. I'm assuming that like most influencers, you wake up at four in the morning, you have a fistful of supplements, and then you do half an hour in your cryotherapy chamber, none of which sounds like much fun. Is this a good description of your morning routine?

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Thankfully, not. If I'm up at four in the morning, something's gone terribly wrong with my night. Either one of my children is ill or something's happened. No, I wake up around six to 6:30, which is around the same time my children wake up. I think anyone who has younger children understands that waking up time is not really up to us anymore.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  It is entirely dictated by the small people in our lives. So I wake up around the same time as them. They'll wake me up or I'll wake up just before. And my day always starts with actually just getting up and going downstairs and having a big glass of water, brushing my teeth. It's actually important to drink when we wake up because a lot of us lose quite a lot of water overnight. We tend to breathe through our mouths. And if we have a dry environment, if the heating is on, for example, you can actually lose quite a bit of water.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  How important for you is waking up at a consistent time?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  So we wake up pretty much at the same time every day. Regardless of whether it's a weekday or weekend, I actually find that I wake up naturally around that time because my sleep schedule is pretty consistent. So I go to bed around the same time and I wake up around the same time.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Why do you care about consistency?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  What I've learned and what is pretty clear is that our bodies like predictability. So if you think about our day, we have this 24-hour cycle, circadian rhythm. So there's this really elegant set of hormones that fluctuate throughout the day. And so before you wake up, for example, there's this increase in cortisol, which helps to raise your blood pressure so that when you get up from your bed, you don't just flop to the floor. Very important. And then your insulin follows the cortisol and is primed to absorb as many nutrients as possible from your breakfast, right? So there's this really elegant balance that happens throughout the day. And if you work with it, actually, it helps to maintain what's known as this metabolic flexibility. So this ability of our body to shift and adjust throughout the day

• 5:46Speaker 01

  according to what activities we're doing and what we're eating. And consistency really helps to build that metabolic flexibility in because our body receives the inputs it's expecting from its outputs. So your cortisol is rising to raise your blood pressure to get you out of bed. And if you get out of bed, it all makes sense. And then your cortisol goes back down as you move and you eat something. So you see, you're helping your body do its job more efficiently if actually your routine is pretty consistent. This doesn't mean you have to do exactly the same thing every day. But certainly, what we see in the data is that if you wake up around the same hour every day and you have breakfast around the same hour every day and you go to bed around the same hour every day,

• 6:30Speaker 01

  your metabolic health tends to be better over time. Now, of course, there'll be times when, like we've had Jonathan, you're traveling, you're jet lagged, it doesn't really work out. That's where the metabolic flexibility comes in so that you can still feel good whilst you're doing those more irregular periods. But that can only be built in if you're consistent most of the time. So consistency, most of the times, helps to build resilience when that consistency isn't there.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  So I think one thing that listeners are already picking up is that you're very thoughtful, in fact, about your routine, even if you aren't in your cryogenic, you know, therapy at four in the morning.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's because what are the actual things that change our health? It is not the cryogenic chamber and it is not the handful of supplements, right? What's really clear from all of the evidence is that the major levers for good health, and when I say good health, I really mean like 80% of risk for chronic diseases, type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease, about 80% of the sort of risk that we can help to reduce are all related to what we know as lifestyle medicine pillars. So this is really nutrition is a big one, sleep, movement or exercise, how you deal with stress, social connections, so are you spending time with people you love? And how are you reducing your stress?

• 7:51Speaker 01

  So stress is external, we can't stop it from happening. But how are you dealing with that stress? What are you putting in place to make sure that when stress happens, you can actually respond to it in a way that's helpful instead of unhelpful? Those six levers predict 80% of risk.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  80%.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  80%. And if you can get four of them right, because getting all six is actually quite hard in this day and age, if you can get four of them right, you can reduce your risk of chronic disease by around 60 to 70%, which is fantastic. That is the entire principle of preventative care, prevention, lifestyle medicine, which underpins how we think about helping people reduce their risk. Then, of course, medicine is incredibly helpful to intervene when something goes wrong. And then there are things like supplementation and, you know, cold water swimming, which have a fractional improvement. But if you don't have the sort of base done, then the rest can't really follow. You know, and I see this actually in clinical practice, Jonathan, people who are trying to squeeze in

• 8:50Speaker 01

  a lot of those biohacking culture things end up disrupting their sleep. Or perhaps they wake up early and leave their family and don't spend time with their kids so that they can go and do some crazy workout and then spend some time in a freezing cold bath. But you've just removed a really core part of your social connection and your sleep. So you have to weigh up what's actually worth doing.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Do you have a friend who's committed to building healthier habits? Maybe it's an earlier start, a new breakfast or a walk after dinner? If so, why not share this episode with them? One of the world's leading nutritional scientists walks us through her real routine from breakfast to bedtime. I'm sure they'll thank you.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  I think one of the things that I've really changed my mind about since, you know, been involved in Zoe is sleep, because I've sort of come to the conclusion that I really need eight hours in bed with the light off in order to function, you know, as CEO and as a parent and these sorts of things. And it doesn't make any sense to wake myself up early to go and do some exercise to then wreck that sleep. And it sounds like you have a very strong view that this sleep is, is one of the pillars that you are not willing to negotiate over, really?

• 10:07Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, I mean, it's my, it's my view, but it's also massively evidence-based. So we see that people who have chronic lack of sleep have a much higher risk of diseases like Alzheimer's, but also heart disease, high blood pressure. And there's some really interesting studies that look at what happens when the clocks go back. A lot of sleep scientists really would love everyone to stop doing that, because when the clocks go back, there's a huge spike in heart attacks, strokes and car crashes every year. Just that one hour shift. So people are just waking up an hour earlier than usual. So this is the, when the clocks go back, right? In October, there's this massive spike in the data because our body isn't ready to get up yet. And especially if you're already at risk. So if you already

• 10:49Speaker 01

  have hypertension or perhaps you already have cardiovascular disease, just setting your alarm an hour earlier is enough to trigger a catastrophic event and car crashes because you're not quite as alert as you should be when you get into your car to drive. There's a spike in car crashes globally. There's things that happen when we sleep that can't happen at any other point in our day.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  So you've had your sleep, you've got the kids ready. I did hear you mention that you want to try and deal with stress. I personally find trying to get them, particularly yours is still quite small, like out of the door successfully for school, possibly the most stressful thing I ever do in a week. Like being the CEO of a company seems very easy compared to negotiating with a young child to sort of successfully get out of the house. So have you already undone all the good things with like the stress that happens here? If you're anything like me, by mid afternoon, your brain is thinking about only one thing, a snack. For years, I'd buy the nearest snack bar with health claims on the wrapper, thinking it was a healthy choice. But as a regular listener, you know, those

• 11:53Speaker 00

  bars are jammed with added sugar and artificial additives, spiking your blood sugar, only to cause a sharp crash later. So imagine my surprise when Zoe's chief scientist, Professor Sarah Berry, she had a massive study showing that 95% of us snack daily, making up a hidden fourth meal that accounts for 25% of our daily calories. Shockingly, Sarah's data showed that 40% of people who eat a healthy lunch go on to eat a poor quality afternoon snack, sabotaging their gut health. I was definitely in that category. Sarah believed we could solve this and create a snack that was good for your gut and delicious. And after a year of work with Zoe's scientists, she came back with a Zoe gut health bar, turning that snacking blind spot into a win. It contains a huge diversity of plants,

• 12:38Speaker 00

  preserving the cell matrix we talk about so often to feed your gut microbes. It's got seven grams of plant protein, eight grams of fibre, and over 10 plants in each bar. My favourite is the 70% dark chocolate, but my co-founder, Tim Spector, prefers raspberry and goji berry. I love that it takes time to chew, instead of being hyper palatable and full of artificial additives. Stop giving into snacks that don't serve your health. Head to Zoe.com/snapbar and try it for yourself. Your gut will thank you.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  I don't know. I think, no, it sounds silly, but get the uniforms ready the night before and make sure that actually creating a calm environment in the morning is quite a big part of what I do. So relaxing music on, go through it as peacefully as possible. There are obviously mornings where I'm like, we're already late. Get in the car. Go, go, go. But actually, generally, we have a pretty steady routine. We know what works and doesn't work. So for example, like no amount of TV in the morning works at all. Even if they're waking up early, just don't do it. I actually enjoy that time with my kids because it's often that time when I've got protected, uninterrupted time with them. So I try to frame it as an opportunity to really spend time with them. And that helps me deal with

• 13:50Speaker 01

  the stress of it potentially. For me, it's a privilege to be able to do the school run for them.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  That's lovely. So tell me about your breakfast.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  I don't have a breakfast I have every day. I love variety in my diet. I love food. And what I feel like eating day to day changes. So some days I love eggs and I make some eggs and rye bread and, you know, maybe some avocado with that. Other days, I couldn't stand the thought of eggs for breakfast. So it depends on what I feel like. But I do know that having a good breakfast in the morning really helps me to work at my best and be able to feel good for the rest of the day, really. So I make a point of having breakfast. If I'm not feeling as hungry, then it might be a smoothie because it's just a bit easier and it's less faff. But I always have fresh fruit. I have yoghurt

• 14:41Speaker 01

  or kefir. I have eggs and rye. I really try to mix up plenty of fibre with my breakfast and make it something that I really enjoy. And I also do make a point of like actually sitting down and eating it. I do have my cappuccino before I eat anything. So there's quite a lot of myths about not having your coffee on an empty stomach. It's not evidence-based. For some people, it can trigger like more IBS-like symptoms if that's you don't have it. But I have my soy cappuccino on the school run, so I take it with me and have it before I eat.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  So you are having breakfast, but you're not having it like the first thing you do is you wake up, you've actually already gone and like taken the kids to school, come back, and then you're having your breakfast?

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Yes. So for me, my breakfast is a bit later than the kids. I'm just not that hungry when they have theirs. So that works for me. Then there's some days if I know that I've got to go straight from school, drop off to a meeting, then I might bring something with me and have it. And I mean, our gut health bars are amazing for this, to be honest, because I just put that in my bag, a piece of fruit, and I'm out the door.

• 15:39Speaker 00

  During the week, I always have the same breakfast. And I think it's because I have so much control over what I have for breakfast. And often I'm a lot less certain about what control I will have over lunch and dinner. And I really want to be basically position where I won't be hungry until lunchtime. So I always have Greek yoghurt and kefir because you taught me that if I mix the two together, I get like the bonus of like all the fermented food and the protein and everything. Always a bunch of fruits, like berries, all these things that like have a lot of fibre. Because I remember Tim explained to me, I have like lots of little seeds in this good, so I go for all of that. Always daily 30,

• 16:22Speaker 00

  always add nuts on top. Is it bad that I don't vary that?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  No, it's not bad at all. So I think it just depends on, on your life and what you can do and how you experience it. So if for you, having something different would bring in stress because you have to vary it, then it would be counterintuitive and counteractive to you just having a healthy breakfast. The breakfast you've described ticks all the boxes. It's a fantastic breakfast. And if it works for you, great. Most people sort of want some variety because they might find like, actually, I don't want yoghurt again today. But if it works for you and it's nutritionally balanced, then that's the most important because consistency is king.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  At the weekend, often I might do something different. Like I like eggs. I might do eggs on rye bread. I do rye bread because one of the things I discovered is like my blood sugar control is, is really bad. So like sourdough, whatever, like my blood sugar goes through the roof, whereas the like proper rye, like 100% rye, like I have much less. And then my children will really like to do pancakes. So we do whole wheat pancakes. And basically it's eggs, it's milk, it's whole wheat flour, it's a bit of olive oil and a bit of salt. So it's more like a French crepes style. And the kids really think about it as a treat, but it's whole wheat flour. It actually scores pretty well. And then

• 17:41Speaker 00

  I put lots of fruit on it myself. The kids will cover it in maple syrup. That is something that is delicious and, but clearly not something I'm going to do during the week.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, fine. Whatever works for you and brings you the nutrition you need. So you feel good for the rest of the day. Most of us have, say, three meals a day, four, seven days a week. That's 21 meals a day a week, right? And so what you want is variety across the 21 meals. If your breakfast works for you to be one, one meal every time, that's fine, as long as you see variety throughout the rest of your day. And don't forget, most of us snack. So you also have an opportunity to bring more variety in your snacks. And then you get this lovely graph over the whole week and you can see how many different foods you've eaten. And that's, that's the way to think about it. So don't worry. If your breakfast is the same and you just vary the nuts and maybe the fruits, you're still getting variety.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  And Federica, if somebody's listening to this and they don't have any time to prepare breakfast,

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  you know, on the days that they're working, are there any like quick, healthy options for them where they could still have breakfast?

• 18:38Speaker 01

  I mentioned that there's, you can make a really healthy smoothie in a few seconds in an itchy bullet. Hemp seeds, frozen cherries, kefir, yogurt and some chia. High in protein, high fibre, and it has that lovely combination of kefir and yogurt. You can add some cacao powder as well, extra fibre, extra micronutrients and tastes delicious with the cherries. The other thing you can really do is actually get some rye bread or some healthy whole grain. Maybe it's sourdough, whatever your preferred bread. I do think rye is really good. And then put some nut butter and some berries on top. Make it into a fruit sandwich, I call it sometimes, take it with you. Or you can just have it open if you've got a couple of minutes. So the only time needed there is to lightly toast your rye, spread some nut butter, few berries on top.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Good to go. I think that's a really good, light, easy, portable breakfast too.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  When you say nut butter, that means it could be peanut butter or almond butter or whatever I want.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've actually started experimenting with mixed nut butters. So now you can buy nut butters that are made with like cashew and almond and walnut. So that you can get mixed nuts even better, whatever you like in terms of, you know, change it up, see what you like, just make sure you're adding a bit of fruit. And then if you want to add some Daily 30 or some mixed seeds as well, then you'll be increasing the nutrients there.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  They all sound delicious. Maybe I'll move beyond my one breakfast, but we'll see. Let's move on to lunch. You've done your work and I think lunch can be more challenging because you don't necessarily have all of the control of things start to go awry. So what does your lunch look like?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  You know, lunch is one of those things, it's so easy to not have lunch because maybe a meeting gets put in or you actually need to finish that document. And I'm guilty of this, making time to have lunch is such an important part of A, having a break from work and B, making sure you're nourishing yourself at lunch. It's another opportunity to get the foods that help you stay healthy. So, you know, maybe 20 minutes is all you need. You don't need to take a full hour. But 20 minutes to make a nutritious lunch and eat it away from your computer is really helpful. Also for helping to regulate stress. So take a break. And actually I've become the queen of quick lunches because certainly I try to have lunch at home.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  I find it, if you're eating out, it is harder to find something healthy. So when I'm at home, I have a bowl and I will literally put in some beans. I'll put in some whole grains, so whether it's barley or rye or spelt, put that in. It might be a slice of rye bread as well. And then I'm a big fan of tofu, not everybody is. You can have a couple of boiled eggs. I also love tinned oily fish. So that might be sardines or mackerel. Put that in and then some veggies, some chopped tomatoes. It might be some greens in your fridge or some leftover veggies from yesterday. You can warm that all up in the microwave in about a minute and a half and you have a warm, satisfying lunch. In the summer months, it's more of a salad, but it's very similar concept where you bring together food groups

• 21:35Speaker 01

  that are already ready to go. So it's assembly, it's an assembly lunch. I'm not cooking anything. I'm literally just taking things out from my cupboard that come together. Sometimes it's frozen peas and then you just warm it up and you've got a really nutritious lunch, ready to go in minutes that you can eat.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  And so you mentioned both beans and whole grains. Does that mean you've already cooked them earlier?

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you can buy beans in jars or tinned and they're already cooked. You don't need to cook those. Similarly with whole grains, so sometimes it's actually my lovely mum, she likes to batch cook barley and she'll just bring me some. Or I buy the ready cooked spelt sachets and use those. So there's actually ways where you can buy foods that are really easy to assemble, so you reduce the cooking time.

• 22:16Speaker 00

  And is that healthy? Because I think I always sort of grew up a little bit this sense of like, well, if it's like pre-cooked or if it's like a lot of those like sachets are like sort of in a plastic.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  They are in a plastic.

• 22:26Speaker 00

  Pack like the, what you're describing, like there's quite a few now of these like quinoa or spelt. Like is that actually healthy?

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, so I would opt for the unflavoured ones. So the ones that are literally just parboiled, they're just parboiled or boiled. So they're just cooked quinoa or cooked spelt, or sometimes they're cooked mixed grains. I don't like the flavoured ones, I have to say. So I would just do that and they are absolutely healthy. Don't microwave them in the plastic, put them in a bowl. Because if you heat up food in plastic, you do get some of that plastic migrating into the food. And more importantly, the plastic sizes not migrate into your food. So that's the only caveat is to try and take them out of the plastic to heat them up. There's a quinoa one, which is like black, red and white quinoa. I feel so fancy. I buy that as well. And it just means you can make a healthy nutritious lunch in minutes. You can maybe add some harissa paste, extra virgin olive oil, squeeze of lemon, done. And it tastes amazing.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  Can you talk me through why like that's the combination that when you're at home you're putting together? So help me to understand because you're obviously a nutrition scientist, you're thinking about this.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, so what I'm trying to do is make sure that I'm getting a variety of plant foods that deliver a variety of fibres, which are really important for our gut microbiome. They're important for satiety, so help me feel full. And they're also important to help regulate the movement of my food through my bowel, right? So that's where the beans or lentils, the whole grains, a sprinkling of nuts and seeds in there, using herbs and spices, that all contributes. The whole grains specifically and legumes are two food groups that are incredibly important for good health. They are two food groups that are found in all the healthiest diets. When we, when we look at any sort of centenarian research, they eat whole grains, they eat legumes. So including them in your diet is a really good way to help improve your health.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Legumes is the bean?

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Is the beans or the lentils, chickpeas, green peas. Green beans are also a legume. People think it's a vegetable, it's actually a legume. So eating a variety of those is really great. And there's some brands that are now making them delicious and easy. And you can buy the jars and they look pretty and it's, they taste great. So get those in. If you buy kale or cavolo nero or broccoli, you can very quickly flash boil them. So you can either literally boil the kettle and just pour the boiling water over kale, for example, in a colander. And then you've steamed it basically. There's lots of easy ways that you can make that a quick lunch, part of your lunch. Or leftovers from dinner very often. And then you have like the flavour bombs, the tomatoes. You want to have maybe some like chopped red onion, the things that just bring extra zing to your plate, lemon.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  The other thing to think about is adding some ferment. So I very often add sauerkraut to my dishes at the end. Don't put those in the microwave if you can help it. But put that adds texture, colour, flavour and fermented foods.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Why not in the microwave?

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Well, when you microwave ferment, it kills off the live microbes, which is still beneficial. So a lot of the data we see actually shows that even when live microbes are pasteurised or killed, you still see a benefit. But if you've got them live, keep them live.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  Probably the biggest single thing now, I think, that has changed is that I try and eat a lot of beans. And that is because I've been convinced they're incredibly good for me in terms of they have all of this protein in it and this incredibly high amount of fibre that is feeding my gut microbes. But I think the other thing that's really interesting is basically you can swap them for what you might have had rice or pasta and suddenly like, you know, the score of the meal shoots up. But interestingly, the thing I really notice is you have this wonderful sense of being full at the end of the meal, which I don't think is a way that I was used to ever really feeling after eating, honestly,

• 26:07Speaker 00

  in the way that I ate growing up. And it's not just at the end of the meal, I'm still full two hours later.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:17Speaker 00

  Does any of that surprise you?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  No. So let's touch on a few things. So yeah, they are a fantastic source of plant protein and fibre and other nutrients as well. Some of the chickpeas, for example, are a very good source of iron. You need to combine them with vitamin C containing foods, whether that's a squeeze of lemon or some tomatoes or peppers. So they're very nutrient dense. When you combine these legumes with whole grains, you actually get the perfect amino acid profile in terms of protein. So because legumes have slightly different essential amino acid levels compared to whole grains. When you put them together, they get this like beautiful, like even distribution, very good.

• 26:52Speaker 00

  So if you put both, it's like if you have beans and a whole grain, then it sort of gives you like all the amino acids in the right. In the right combination.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really good for that. And now beans themselves, especially, you know, they are very fibre rich and they have this quite dense, when you eat them, they're sort of, the texture is quite filling. And what happens is as you eat them, they have this volume about them, especially if you're like butter beans, chickpeas. They actually fill your stomach. That helps to that feeling of fullness. But later, after you've eaten like half hour, an hour, two hours later, as they make their way through your gastrointestinal system, they're triggering more satiety responses because they're nutrient dense. And then because they have so much fibre, your gut microbes break that fibre down, release short chain fatty acids, which then trigger the release of GRP1, GIP, PYY in the gut later in the colon. So two, three hours after you've eaten these beans, you have these little messages saying, hey, we still have great food here.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  So beans are a fantastic way to feel satiated. And in countries that eat a lot of beans, so Italy, Japan, you know, Spain. When we eat, right, we say one appetito to start, which is like healthy appetite or good appetite. And then at the end, we say. I'm so satiated. I think a lot of the time, you know, the standard American diet has completely lost the sense of satiety because we don't eat the foods that actually result in that long term satiety, like long term feeling of not hunger. We're used to feeling full temporarily in our stomachs, but you need foods like beans to be satiated.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  Now, what you've described is like, great, you're at home and you've got time to make something. But lots of us are not at home at lunchtime, right? We're out and about, maybe we're at work or wherever. And this happens to you as well, right? So what do you do then, Federica?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  So if you know where you're going and you're going to be there for a while. So for example, if I'm coming into the office, I'll bring packed lunch and I will just have it and I'm excited about that. Great. If you if you rush out the door like I have this morning and didn't have time to pack anything, then it's about finding solutions that can help to combine some of these food groups. So you can still go out and see, can I buy like a nice bean based soup? And then can I add a piece of fresh fruit to that? So there's ways that you can combine foods even from the supermarket. I would sort of walk past the meal deal because honestly, that's not a good solution most of the time. For example, if you go to the supermarket, you might be able to buy some rye bread, buy some hummus, for example, spread that on top. Perhaps you buy some feta or maybe you get some sardines,

• 29:25Speaker 01

  put those. So you have to sort of get a little bit creative or you can go to outlets that specifically let you build a bowl of healthier foods. And there's a few of them. Certainly here in London, you can get more more choice, more access. If that's not possible, then I would actually recommend eating a piece of whole fruit, some mixed nuts, and then waiting till you get home or buying like a plain yogurt, putting some nuts in there and some fruit and waiting until you get can have a healthier meal. Because otherwise, you might buy something that won't actually feel, make you feel satiated and may just impact your energy levels later.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  I think a lot of people listening are going to be thinking, well, why don't you just get a ready made sandwich?

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know, ready made sandwich isn't going to make me feel great. And some sandwiches are better than others. You can buy a sandwich perhaps that has, as I said, you can get like a hummus and roasted veggie sandwich, maybe on a brown bread. I wouldn't not buy that. But a lot of sandwich options can be completely devoid of fibre. And so they won't help you feel energized and satiated an hour later. So for me, it's like a waste of money. I'd rather buy something that's going to help make me feel satiated until I can get somewhere that has good food.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  And so what is it about the standard ready made sandwich? Or, you know, I think in the States often maybe it's not ready made, but you get somebody to make this for you that you're like, well, I'm not going there.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  So often, these sort of sandwiches are made with highly refined flour. So it's like a white bread sandwich. And then perhaps there'll be some mayonnaise, perhaps some cured meat or luncheon meat. And then there might be a pickle or a salad leaf, but not much in the way of plants. And that will deliver some fats, but they're not really the type of healthy fats you're looking for. And it will deliver some protein, but not really enough to help you feel satiated. And also actually processed meat is not where we want to be getting our protein from. And not enough fibre to help with satiety or to help your gut microbiome, or to regulate the absorption of that very white bread sandwich. So you're more likely to have like a more elevated and persistent increase in

• 31:26Speaker 01

  your blood glucose level that then might, in about 30% of people, result in a crash that makes you feel really hungry, really tired about, say, an hour and a half later. Now, listen, sometimes that is the only option. I've been in situations where the only option is like a tuna sandwich from the petrol station. Fine. You buy the tuna sandwich from the petrol station, you find some mixed nuts and you add an apple. You can make it work. I'm just saying, if you have a choice or an option, you're best off sort of having a healthy snack and then wait until you can have a proper meal. I realise I'm really lucky in that because not everybody has that level of choice. But it's also because I've been doing this for a while, I know how crap I feel when I don't do it. And so I think oftentimes is when you make this change in your diet, you're like,

• 32:08Speaker 01

  oh, I don't really, I don't want to break that because I know I'll feel rubbish afterwards. So it's very much something that I'm lucky to have a choice to do. And I've found out ways to work around it if I need to. And healthy snacking is a really nice stopgap if for whatever reason, you can't get the kind of lunch you want.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  What about the weekend? What would your weekend lunch look like?

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, so weekends also have got the kids. I love to get them involved in cooking and they love to get involved. And that really depends again on like the season and what we're doing. But for example, they love spaghetti vongole in the summer. They're obsessed with it. They have a vongole song. And so we might make a seafood pasta. If my in-laws are coming over, I'll make like a traditional roast chicken for them with like all the trimmings, all the like vegetables, just way more vegetables than you'd expect. And my potatoes are roasted in olive oil. We like to have family meals on the weekends. I'm from Rome, Jonathan. Pasta with beans is like our everyday food. So like a really delicious slow cooked pasta with bolotti beans, they love it too. Yes, it just totally depends on on the weather and what we're doing and what they feel like. They do

• 33:14Speaker 01

  get to dictate a little bit. We're like, hey, at least one meal. It's like, what do you guys want to eat?

• 33:18Speaker 00

  You mentioned pasta. One of my big swaps has been to move to whole wheat pasta instead of like the white pasta that I grew up with as a kid. And I've actually grown to like just genuinely really like it. So it's one of these things that I'm not feeling that I'm missing the white pasta. In fact, to be honest, I now prefer the whole wheat flavour because I guess I just got used to it. It's also interestingly, the kids never mind about it. So I found with lots of things, it's a real struggle to get them to eat. Interestingly, they've always, they think whole wheat pasta is delicious. They always had. So I've never found that difficult. I'm looking at you as, you know, as an Italian.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 00

  What sort of pasta do you eat?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  There's actually quite a big difference in pastas. Okay. So if you buy like a quick cook pasta, it's a very different nutritional profile to like a slow air dried durum wheat pasta. The protein content is different, the micronutrient content is different, the texture is different. So how slowly you chew, it's a very different food, Jonathan. It's not the same. I buy the very good Italian pasta.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  Which is therefore still white, not a fat whole wheat.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  I do buy whole wheat, but the point of pasta is it can be an extremely healthy vehicle for all the things you have with it. And actually, if you buy a really good quality, high protein, so the durum wheat, the slow dried pasta, and you cook it al dente, so don't overcook it, it can be a healthy food. Like it's a low glycemic index, it has higher protein content, higher iron content. It's a good food, but you have to have it with the right sauce.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  What about after lunch? And, you know, I'm a big snacker. There's no way I can go from lunch to dinner without snacking. Are you a snacker?

• 35:02Speaker 01

  I I do snack. I love fruit and I love to have dates with a piece of dark chocolate. I love our bar. I like the dark chocolate bar in the afternoon, but in the morning, I like the raspberry and goji berry one. I don't know why. So in terms of snacking, usually it's if I'm actually hungry or if I'm going to work out or if something's happening. But I don't find snack foods attractive. Again, very lucky that I don't, like I don't really fancy biscuits. I don't really reach for that sort of thing.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  And you don't have this sort of energy crash in the afternoon?

• 35:33Speaker 01

  No, typically I don't. I don't tend to reach for foods in the afternoon and I don't tend to have that that desire for a sweet food in the afternoon. But in the past, when I used to have less healthy diets, I would definitely get that afternoon desire for like a little something sweet. And honestly, that for me personally, that's entirely gone ever since my breakfast has become so nutritious. So actually, it's not even lunch. Breakfast has the biggest impact on how hungry I feel around three or four PM.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  If I eat anything which is like, it's normally all these highly refined starches, you know, like bread or even your durum wheat white pasta, or, you know, lovely panna cioccolata or whatever these things are, I really feel that over the next couple of hours and I feel this energy crash. And then, and also interestingly, I'm really hungry, even though I ate this stuff just a couple of hours before. And it sounds like, A, you're quite disciplined about what you eat, but B, that actually doesn't bother you as much as for some people?

• 36:35Speaker 01

  No, I think it's not even discipline. I love eating the food I eat. So I get a lot of joy of eating the way I do. And I think the I have a high fibre diet. So I just avoid the the sort of peaks and troughs, mostly thanks to fibre, honestly. So the days when I'm not able to eat that way, I do feel it, the difference. For me, it exhibits more as headaches. So interestingly, I think I'm just, I'm lucky that my hunger signalling isn't that loud, but I get headaches instead. And so sometimes I'll know that I haven't eaten well, and I'll get to around that time and be like, gosh, I'm getting a headache. And it's because I haven't eaten enough food. So, you know, we're all so different in how we react. And for me, it's less about discipline because I'm actually, as I said, I have different food every day. I don't plan it.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  I'm in awe of people who batch cook for the week and have it all ready to go. Can you imagine how amazing that would be to be like, I know exactly what I'm eating. Like, I'm not that disciplined in that way. But what I do know is that if I don't feel like myself and if I don't eat the right foods, then I will suffer with it, but just in my own way, which is headaches and just not feeling a hundred percent.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  And Federica, if you were advising me as someone who is a regular snacker, and I think there's a lot of listeners who are the same.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  If you were preparing my snack, what would it be?

• 37:52Speaker 01

  I have to say, I eat dinner early. That's probably why I can get away with it. I eat with the kids. If I was preparing your snack, I would, first of all, do you want savory or sweet? So if you want something savory, a combination like definitely hummus and veggie sticks and cubes of cheese, like cheddar. If you're someone who loves savory, that is going to just taste delicious, right? Olives, yes, add some olives in. Brilliant. If you're more of a sweet snacker, then definitely like bring in fresh fruit. Fresh whole fruit is so good for us. Two to three portions a day is ideal for reducing heart disease risk. Fresh whole fruit, perhaps you're going to add some yogurt there or maybe a handful of nuts, some dark chocolate, seventy percent or above. If you're a sweet snacker, that's going to see you through that little snack. You can make healthy snacks at home as well.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  So if you're someone who loves baking, for example, you can make really delicious dark chocolate and nut based biscuits and then take them with you. If you're out and about and you're looking for a healthy snack, that gets a bit harder. That's why we created that health bar. But you can opt for things like seaweed crisps. I actually love them. My kids love them too. And you can get hummus pots now that you can buy. Cream cheese on like a rye bread or, you know, the, you can get really nice whole grain bagels. A cream cheese and smoked salmon bagel is an elite snack. So actually, my kids sometimes have that after school.

• 39:10Speaker 00

  So dinner is early at six. What does it look like?

• 39:13Speaker 01

  So I'll eat whatever the kids are eating. So that might look like salmon with some broccoli, some other greens. And perhaps they might have, they don't love whole grains as much as I do yet. I'm working on it. But it could be some sweet potato or it might be some roasted potatoes that they're having. Then sometimes it's soup. So we're going into soup season now. So they really love minestrone soups. They love ribollita. They also love pumpkin soup. So we'll have some of that. I don't eat meat, so if they have a meat, I'll make myself some tofu or have some beans. If I've had a very long day and haven't had enough to eat, I also love making pasta fajari. So that is my comfort food. It's bollotti beans, sofrito, tomatoes, lots of parmesan, olive oil and some pasta. It's very nice.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  And you just mentioned that you don't eat meat.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 40:01Speaker 00

  Is that a health decision?

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So for me it is. So my father passed away from colorectal cancer. And so for me, reducing red meat and processed meat was a really obvious choice.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  Could you explain why?

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we know that red meat and processed meat consumption increases your risk of colorectal cancer. And so I'm doing everything I can to reduce my risk and that includes removing those from my diet. It doesn't mean that my children never eat them. Once a week, they'll have some form of red meat, whether it's lamb or beef. And I try to buy it as responsibly as possible. Because I cut out those meats, I don't enjoy eating meat anymore. It's a funny change in taste preference. I don't really eat chicken or anything either, but I do eat oily fish. So we do have fish at home. If they're eating any kind of meat, I will swap in either some oily fish or some tofu, which I will make for myself.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  And when you said fish, you immediately said oily fish.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yes. So the oily fish, best way to remember is SMASH, which is the acronym that's used. Salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and herring. I don't know who still buys herring. It is delicious, but it's quite hard to find. So it's worth mentioning also sprats and trout are considered oily fish. That means that they have high levels of omega three fatty acids, which are an essential fatty acid. Very good for our health, for brain health, vascular health. Our gut microbes love omega three fatty acids as well. And you don't need more than three portions a week to get enough.

• 41:21Speaker 00

  And that's an important part. You were describing when you think about your like, your routine now on the week. You are actively thinking, have I hit my three of these?

• 41:29Speaker 01

  And especially under kids too. So obviously children are growing. Children's needs for omega three fatty acids is really high as their brains continue to form. So have we all had our dose of oily fish?

• 41:40Speaker 00

  I think for a lot of people, salmon has become quite a, like a well-known fish. And it sort of replaces like a chicken or something like that, right? So it's sort of quite straightforward how to do it. But what about these other oily fishes, which I think for me and for lots of other people, it's like much less obvious really how you would fit them into like just your normal eating patterns. So for you, how do you consume the rest of these?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  So trout is very similar to salmon. Cook it, treat it the same way, just a bit less cooking time. It's less fat, so it goes dry if you ever cook it. The girls have seen me eat sardines out of like a jar or tin so much that they got curious and tried it and quite like it. So with sardines, you can just serve it with vegetables. You don't have to do anything. You can buy them tinned or jarred and they're perfectly good to go. If you're on holiday or if you have access to fresh sardines, fantastic news. You can cook them in the oven, you can grill them, they taste great. Mackerel is another one. It's interesting. A lot of people don't like cooking mackerel because it's quite fishy smelling when you cook it. But if you buy it in, again, in a tin or a jar, it doesn't smell of fish at all. So a lot of people have put off cooking oily fish because of the smell.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Give it a go. Lots of herbs and marinating can help with that and also the mode of cooking. But if you're not sure about it, buy them tinned or jarred. They're just as healthy for you. And then you can add them to pasta dishes. You can just add them to things that you already love. So for example, if you enjoy like a pesto pasta with broccoli, you can just add in some sardines and it just adds to the dish. If you don't like the idea of mixing it up, you can start by making like a rye bread tartlet. As I said earlier, with like some hummus, some rocket and put a couple of sardines on top and see how you like that. Anchovies are incredibly versatile. They make everything taste umami and salty. And my ideal pairing is garlic with anchovies.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  You melt that in a pan with olive oil and then you add broccoli and some beans. And you can use that as a sauce for pasta and you won't taste the anchovies. It won't taste fishy. It'll just taste umamary.

• 43:39Speaker 00

  So it's interesting that you're like a sort of almost as adding this into a dish that you would have cooked anyway. Just throw it in on top and you're saying it doesn't completely like wreck the recipe as you would have had it before actually. And a bit sort of like.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  A bit of flavor.

• 43:53Speaker 00

  You're like secretly improving your kids' diets without them even noticing.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Yes. Anchovies are a very easy one to insert. The hardest is herring. I mean, you either like herring or you don't, but that's just one of them. So there's lots of ways you can introduce these into dishes and it won't be a big deal. So if you like pasta with tuna, that's great. Why don't you try that as pasta with mackerel, tinned mackerel instead of tinned tuna?

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Tuna is not as healthy.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Not an oily fish. So tinned tuna, tuna is not an oily fish and it's actually one of the fish that has the highest amounts of mercury. So you can eat it, but I wouldn't recommend eating it more than two, two times a week really. And if you're pregnant, even less than that.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  As we're describing all that, one of the things that comes to mind is what you cook your food in. Because it's one of those questions that we get all the time. And I have had, you know, people like question my own choices at home. So what do you cook with?

• 44:47Speaker 01

  I mean, I cook with extra virgin olive oil. I cook with it. I dress with it. I love it. However, you know, for example, with tofu, sometimes I'm like, I want a different flavor profile. So I'll use like a white sesame oil, but I just find extra virgin olive oil works for us. I think that a cold pressed or a rapeseed oil is also a good option if you want less of a flavor profile. So some people find the flavor of extra virgin olive oil quite strong. The price is also going up. So for some people, it's just not an affordable way to cook. And in that case, you can use olive oil or a rapeseed oil or any kind of other seed oil will do the trick in, in healthy cooking. It's healthier than butter.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  Are there any health benefits to using extra virgin olive oil over other cooking oils?

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So extra virgin olive oil has this amazing amount of polyphenols, these bioactive plant chemicals that are protective. And eating extra virgin olive oil is one of the best ways to get them. So if you cook with extra virgin olive oil, even at quite high temperatures, you will get some oxidation from the cooking. But the high levels of polyphenols mean that it counteracts any oxidation damage. So it's a really good way to get these, like things like oleic acid, which are really good for your heart, your blood vessels, your brain. It also contains vitamins and minerals in itself. The thing that it has less of is alpha-linoleic acid, which for example, other seed oils do have more of. But there's other sources to get those fats from. So I prefer extra virgin olive oil because of its complete nutritional picture.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  It's also when we look at research, nutrition research, extra virgin olive oil plays a specific role in improving health when we look at the Mediterranean diet. It's a key element of the Mediterranean diet. So it actually confers additional benefits to the overall dietary pattern.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  I've had a bunch of people tell me that cooking with extra virgin olive oil is downright dangerous because of something to do with its smoke point and that this is actually unhealthy. And other people tell me, well, it's a complete waste because like you're just like burning it. So it doesn't do anything.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the smoke point is higher than people think. It's about two hundred and twenty degrees Celsius, which most of us don't cook at that temperature. You might get up to a hundred and ninety, two hundred, but two twenty is pretty high. Even if you're reaching two twenty where it starts to smoke, so the ox, it's starting to get oxidized. It's getting like damaged and it will have some oxidative parts, but because the polyphenol count is so high. So just to give you some context, right? An extra virgin olive oil can have anything between 200mg and like a thousand milligrams of polyphenols per litre. And then you compare that to like a really expensive cold pressed walnut oil, which is high in polyphenols. It's got like maybe 60mg.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  So it's like 60 versus like 200 to a thousand.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So it's a huge difference. Now, those polyphenolic components themselves reduce oxidative stress. So even if you're having extra virgin olive oil that has been heated, so it's oxidized and it's got to a smoke point, it's going to be counteracted by the antioxidant effects of the high polyphenol count. So it's one of these myths where it's like, oh, you can only keep it cold. Actually, no, that's more relevant for the oils that have a lower smoke point, like some of the seed oils. You don't really want to use those to too much heat because there's no polyphenols to counteract the oxidation effect. Extra virgin olive oil is the healthiest oil to cook with, to dress with, to bake with.

• 48:10Speaker 00

  This is another area where I've completely changed what I, what I do because originally I would not have used extra virgin olive oil for anything other than like putting on a salad. Our colleague, Professor Sarah Berry, actually explained to me that if I fried my eggs in extra virgin olive oil, I was actually making them healthier than if I poached them. Because the extra virgin olive oil is so healthy, it's like, that's actually lifting the whole meal. And I think maybe one of my biggest surprises is how rapidly you can change your view about what tastes good. I mean, let's be honest, butter still tastes great. So I'm not saying that butter doesn't taste, but you know, I use very little butter now because I've learnt that that's really not very good for you and, and the olive oil is great.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And, and that change in flavour preference is something that we think is at least in part mediated by a change in gut microbes.

• 49:02Speaker 00

  Is that right?

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if you imagine your gut microbes are just trying to survive, you're just a vessel for them, right? And so part of the way they try to survive is to send specific signals through the vagus nerve to encourage you to eat the foods that are going to keep them alive. So often people who start to eat broccoli or chickpeas and they're like, oh, I never used to like them, but now I look for them. And it's so weird. It's like, well, we think that at least in part, this is mediated by the microbes that are now thriving in your gut, being like, send us more food. And I just think that's so funny when you think we're just being steered by these tiny microbes. Pavlov was correct, not just about dogs, but also humans. We learn to associate how we feel after certain behaviours. And so when you start to eat differently and you feel better, it reinforces that loop of repeating that behaviour. So you feel good.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  That's fascinating. So you've eaten your dinner quite early with the kids. Is that the last time you eat? Or do you eat more later in the evening as well?

• 49:57Speaker 01

  This is where dark chocolate plays a role in my life. I love dark chocolate. So I'll have some dark chocolate. I might have made my like date dark chocolate and peanut butter bar, which is so good. And after we've had that together, I don't tend to eat anything after that at all. I might have a herbal tea or I'll definitely drink some water. But because I also go to bed quite early, right? So remember, I get up at six. So I'm definitely in bed by 10.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  And so you'll have finished eating by about what time?

• 50:24Speaker 01

  By like between six and seven.

• 50:25Speaker 00

  Six and seven. And then the next morning when you have breakfast, how late will that be?

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Around eight, eight thirty.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  So you're doing like 13 to 14 hours of fasting each night. And mainly that comes from eating early, but eating early and not then snacking later into the evening.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Yes, definitely. And I think the, the evidence now shows us that actually eating earlier in the day, so stacking your eating hours earlier and finishing earlier tends to be beneficial for most people, not for everybody. Some people absolutely hate having breakfast and they much prefer having a later dinner, especially Tim Spector. So it's not for everybody. But for the majority in the data, we see that shifting our eating window earlier is beneficial for your metabolic health. In my stage of life right now with young kids, it also just makes sense. So it does need to make sense in your social context. We've spoken briefly about the importance of social connection. If your family and your friends and everybody you love likes to eat dinner at 8pm, removing yourself from that is not going to be good for you. So think about what works. But certainly, we

• 51:28Speaker 01

  do see that trying to not eat late at night and certainly not eating too close to your bedtime is beneficial for your sleep quality and metabolic health. You don't have to have 13 or 14 hours overnight fast. I mean, my eating window changes throughout the year. So as we get to summer holidays, for example, if we go on holiday, then I find that actually we all eat a bit later and go to bed a bit later. So don't forget that these things have a bit of movement in them throughout the year, seasonal changes. It's not a problem. But just if when you look at your entire year, you'd see that there is a consistent pattern, but just a bit of leeway because life happens and things change. And when it's like summertime and it's daylight until 11pm, none of our kids are going to bed before nine. It's impossible to do it. So things shift around and that's absolutely fine.

• 52:14Speaker 00

  I love that. Let's come to the final part of the day, which is really like the run up to bedtime.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:21Speaker 00

  You know, a lot of influencers have a 15 point plan that, you know, starts three hours before they go to bed. Have you got one of those?

• 52:29Speaker 01

  No, no, definitely not. You've had your dinner, catch up, then there's homework, right? So I, I think it is quite nice to have some time before bed, maybe an hour before bed where it's quite calm. So that's when screens would go off, like no TV, no movies, just doing some homework, reading, maybe having a nice warm bath and getting ready for bed. The only things I will say for sleep hygiene are those is keeping screens out of bedrooms, like really strict about that. Try to avoid television before, like an hour before bedtime if possible. Sometimes that doesn't happen, but that's okay. And then try to observe like a nice routine where your bedroom is nice and cool and it's dark and it's calm. I think those things, like then of course you get the typical like rough

• 53:13Speaker 01

  and tumble just before bedtime, where everyone's running around screaming their heads off. Cool. But I think it's important to observe sleep hygiene for ourselves and for our kids because it really impacts how they can learn and, and how they then pick up behaviours for themselves as adults. And so I think one that I've really become very keen on, especially in the past 18 months or so, is like absolutely no telephones, no screens upstairs at all in the bedrooms. It makes a big difference.

• 53:40Speaker 00

  That's really interesting. And I have got ever more serious about the screens. I think, you know, the more you read about it and the impact and realising how much I'm addicted to this and I never meant to be and you just wake up. I think it's fascinating hearing you describe your routine. And it is very different from what we tend to hear from people describing their very fancy routine online. So I'd love to finish with a final question. Is there anything that a lot of wellness influencers swear by online that you actively don't do? Hosting this podcast means I quiz world leading scientists every week. But for a

• 54:21Speaker 00

  long time, my snacking was completely out of sync with the science. I'd hit an afternoon slump, grab a snack bar and inhale it in two bites while looking at my phone. I knew it was full of artificial additives, but I was hungry and there was nothing else available. Then Sarah Berry explained the physics of snack foods on the show. Highly processed bars are engineered to be eaten fast, causing a sharp blood sugar spike and then a crash that collapses your energy. In my opinion, it's a cynical move by big food companies to make us eat more. I was pretty furious. So when our team built the Zoe Gut Health Bar, we did something completely different. We left the natural cell structures of the plants intact. Because the bar preserves that natural food matrix, it's wonderfully

• 55:04Speaker 00

  dense and chewy. You physically can't rush it. It forces me to slow down and savour it, delivering over 10 plants to feed your microbes without that sudden sugar spike. Both flavours are delicious, but as a chocoholic, I personally made sure we had the 70% dark chocolate option. Swap your additive laden snack bar for something designed to be good for your gut health. Head to Zoe.com/snapbar and order a box today. Your gut will thank you.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  I think a lot of these influencers really never talk about the importance of social connection and spending time with the people you love, right? They never have that. You never see them being like, part of my biohacking is to spend time with my best friend. And so for me, anything they're doing, which takes them away from having real social connection is just a no. The big levers, as we've said, are nutrition, eat mostly whole plants, be regular with what you do, sleep, movement throughout your day. So walking, doesn't have to be a super expensive gym class, you know? Social connection, avoid risky substances, don't smoke, don't drink, don't take illegal drugs, don't take substances that haven't been tested in humans because someone tells you they might help

• 56:13Speaker 01

  you be more like Wolverine. And really focus on what you're doing to help mitigate stress. We have quite a stressful life in countries like the UK and the US. So actually building time in for rest, building time in for a lunch break to pause is really important. So I encourage people to do that over trying to fit in like one more biohacky thing into their day that's going to add to the stress.

• 56:35Speaker 00

  I love how grounded that is Federica and I'm not going to do like the normal type of summary because I think it's like almost trying to walk you through your whole day doesn't seem to make any sense but the thing that I'm really taking away from this is you have all of this amazing knowledge really about how the things that we can do in our life can affect our health and you apply that a lot in fact to how you're living. So it's not like your work and your personal life are completely separate. You are really applying a lot of this but in a surprisingly non-rigid fashion. And I was really struck by you said like there are these six pillars that are responsible for like 80% of your disease risk. So actually if you can fix those six, like it's transformational for

• 57:19Speaker 00

  your health. And what's striking about them is they're not like weird red light things. I am going to list those because I'm just trying to say what you eat, how you sleep, whether you're moving, social connections, which you emphasize a lot today, right? Which is you talk a lot about being with your friends and your family, like avoiding risky drugs and how you deal with stress. And then as you're describing your day, I think the thing that I'm most struck by is of course food is central. Not surprising knowing you and you talk about it with such joy and love that you combine in a sense the sleep and your family and the and sort of the social connections and the avoiding stress all sort of bit wrapped up with trying to say, well, I've got younger kids. So actually I'm going to go to bed early and then I can be able to wake up early. So I'm not exhausted and

• 58:02Speaker 00

  I'm going to be able to be with them. So you've sort of designed your life to to fit together. That is really striking. And I think the other thing that for me I was struck by is there are certain foods, quite specifically that obviously really important to you.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  So I could see that for you as like beans and whole grains, like you need to find a way that you're putting them together in the same meal, like a lot across your diet. And similarly, when you were talking about the oily fish, then again, you're thinking like, that's really important. I need to get three of those and not all going to be the same fish even. And it's important for me, it's important for my children. Whereas elsewhere, actually, you're relatively relaxed. Like you know what's good. You're trying to put this together. You know that you want to eat at least 30 plants. You want to make sure you're getting all of the fiber from this, all the rest of it. But actually, it's the opposite of rigid. It's actually all quite fluid. And I guess part of that is that you have a lot of confidence in what you're doing. So because you know really,

• 59:02Speaker 00

  really everything about what's going to be healthy, it's quite easy to find your way through this.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  That. And also, I've been lucky to learn how to cook. So I'm no chef, but being able to cook for yourself is an absolutely essential life skill if you want to be able to look after yourself. I'm lucky I learnt it from my family. But I do encourage people, if you haven't been lucky to have that, learn how to like go to a course, learn how to cook. There's lots of videos online, YouTube videos. Once you start to learn how to combine foods and make it delicious for you, eating healthier becomes easier and more enjoyable. So it's really worth doing.

• 59:37Speaker 00

  And cheaper.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  And a lot cheaper. Yes, exactly.

• 59:59Speaker 00

  As you can imagine, hosting this podcast, running Zoe, juggling family life, it all keeps me pretty busy. So I try as best I can to stay energized and show up well in all those parts of my life by fueling my body with the right food, by exercising, and by adding a scoop of Daily 30 to my meals every day. If you haven't heard of Daily 30 yet, it's the gut supplement designed by our gut health scientists here at Zoe. It's made of over 30 high-quality, hand-picked plants, including seaweed, fungi, and different types of fiber. Better yet, it contains ingredients that support gut health, digestion, and energy, which is ideal for packed calendars and busy lives. Simply add one scoop a day

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  to any meal for an extra boost of fiber and plant diversity. And because it tastes delicious on just about anything and adds a satisfying crunch, it quite quickly slots into your life, becoming a daily healthy habit you'll always have time for. By the way, whenever we talk about Daily 30 is a good source of fiber, we're required to say that it contains four grams of tautle fat per serving. Obviously, that's all amazing healthy fats from plants. So order yours today at zoe.com/daily30. Thanks for listening and see you next time.