Can you believe that this is the 50th episode of EAT THIS with Lianne? I sure can’t.
From where we started about 18 months ago, this podcast has evolved, pivoted and dare I say, grown over the past year and I guess the pivot is really to do with the crazy times that we’ve been living in for the nine months. Out of the fifty past episodes, twelve were recorded in person in the NewsTalk1010 Radio studio in Downtown Toronto, and the next 38 with me in my clothes closet. Actually I was told that it’s now called the ‘cloffice’. My incredibly talented executive producer, Chris Kant, who as I look at him on my Zoom screen, is in his bathroom studio, and every week we record an episode, and he works his magic. Without his office at work, Chris edits from his at-home studio and so what you hear today, and all the previous episodes, is really the work of a ton of research, mixed with fun, creative performance, and most of all Chris using his talent and expertise to create what you listen to every week. This truly has been a collaborative effort. Sure I’m the one bringing the content, the concepts and expertise, but my team that includes Chris, Mike Bendixen, program director of NewsTalk1010, every single expert that I’ve interviewed, my community and of course YOU, my loyal listener for tuning in to each episode. For all who have been involved, bringing my words and vision to life, putting out out to all the podcasting platforms is truly a dream come true. So to all involved, I say a very heartfelt thank you.
Back in the day… ok maybe that’s a bit much. Like 18 months ago when we first started recording EAT THIS, we started off with around 20 minute episodes and now Chris is cramming it all into under an hour! Our first in-studio episodes included Myth or Miracle, remember that? We talked about Are Oats Gluten Free, then we did “Is old time wisdom the miracle solution for avoiding hangovers” that included dried bull penis, and do you remember Chris? One of the last ones, “Earwax as lipbalm”. Ewwwwww. Good thing we phased out when we all had to quarantine in March. That and Body Boost of the week went by the wayside and we pivoted to what we do now. Me writing a weekly script of about 10 pages in a Google doc that then becomes the show notes, and Chris and I recording in our home studios every Friday. I am super proud that Chris and I have continued with this, despite all that has happened in the world over the last 9 months. Added to that, Chris and I haven’t seen each other in person since March, and we’ve managed to figure out how to give this the best sound quality, the best that we’ve got really, and we are still here, standing – well sitting – and connecting with YOU.
At a milestone like 50, looking back is kinda the done thing, right? When Chris and I batted around ideas about this 50th episode, we decided to share our top 5 episodes and some of the gems shared in each. I also checked in with my community to see what they loved the most, so I have a shout out or two with the feedback that was kindly shared.
So let’s get to it!
#1 – How alcohol affects your body health
The top episode, hands down, with Dr Davis Brockenshire, talking about what booze does to our body. He has a way of explaining the complexities of the body in a way that I learn more from him every time that we speak, on the podcast or otherwise. He’s a very clever colleague who I have known for about five years, and he takes care of me and my kids as our a Functional Medicine expert. We drive down to Michigan–when the border isn’t closed for our check-ups. Chris, we’ve had a bunch of laughs on the two episodes that Dr B has joined us. I wanted to have a better understanding of what alcohol does as it goes from our lips, and down the hatch and he took us through it’s journey to the stomach, liver and how on earth it ends up in a headache, feeling awful or even vomiting, as I have suffered in the past few of years. It just doesn’t seem fair to not tolerate a glass of vino or two, but it happens.
My big takeaway was the journey of the booze as Dr B explained, from the tongue, to bitter receptors in the mouth, then the stomach says ‘are you kidding me’? The genes get activated, the stomach sees the booze as a threat and gets ready for what’s coming. Dr B painted the picture of when the bile starts running, genes get switched on in the liver, he said there’s some damage to the stomach lining (that will repair) then the pancreas, and so on and so on… Thank goodness after taking us on that rather depressing journey, brightened the day with insisting on B vitamins to help detox the alcohol. He did say that alcohol is tolerable, if you’re not on a bunch of medication, your kidneys and liver are in ok shape, and you’re well hydrated, sure drink in moderation. Sorry, what’s that? Have you ever noticed that bottomless glass of wine? When your well meaning friend, partner or whoever keeps toping you glass up and you’re not really paying attention? That has even happened to me with a martini. Since Dr B reminded me, I’ve been religiously taking my N-Acetylcysteine or NAC that helps the liver make glutathione, that’s needed to detox alcohol. You can take the Glutathione itself too–and you’ll find both on SproutRight.com’s store. I also loved him sharing the difference of wines from around the world and why drinking French red wine is a better option than North American red. Well, that had me headed to the Vintages section of my local liquor store and buying up a few French red’s tout suite! His explanation of how and why we end up with a hangover, why those hot flashes get worse, all about that morning brain fog and the rest of the unpleasant symptoms after a drink or five, made me listen up more intently to his best booze recommendations to choose and the cocktails to avoid that mess us up with more of a toxic burden on the body. Honestly, it was an episode that was like a mini-biology and chemistry lesson. There were a lot of laughs about a canoe in shallow water, Sesame Street and he finished off with the best how-to so you can avoid the hangover, or if you missed out on the prevention and found yourself in the middle of a boozy evening without food, he also saved the day with what exactly to eat the next morning to start to feel human again.
#2 – Is Sugar Evil? / Living the Sugar-less Dream
The two episodes all about sugar were second in popularity, and as I seem to need to do because there is to share and talk about, we ended up talking sugar in two parts. The first was called “Is Sugar Evil”, that was episode 7 and then “Living the Sugar-less Dream” in episode 8 with my interview with four time world juggling champion, Barry Friedman. He has been living a sugar free lifestyle for 8 YEARS! His book “I love me more than sugar” has been read by many listeners who let me know that they tried going sugar free for 30 days and could NOT believe how amazing they felt. Right off the top, he talked about the emotional side of eating sugar and said that from childhood, sugar is what we use to bribe, punish and reward us and how it all starts in childhood. He explained that it’s a multi-purpose tool that parents and culture use on us and that there’s an expectation around it, and how we are hooked in and hooked early. Barry started his journey and ditched the sugar for 30 days, then just kept going. The habit of eating sugar, it making its way into just about every packaged food on shelves, makes it more difficult to avoid. He said that it starts with little habits, like no sugar until noon, and then you go from there step by step. He managed not to eat sugar by slowly making changes. He replace junky snacks with nuts or peanuts. He went off all added sugars but still eats fruit and dried fruit. His shared that his life changed more than he could have ever imagined: from his waistline to his skin, his energy levels, and if you can believe it, he sleeps 6 hours a night and feels like it could be too much. When he was eating sugar he said that he sleep for 8 hours and that often wasn’t enough. Without sugar he’s sharper and has more ready-to-face-the-world energy. Well his energy that he brought to that episode, was incredible and I know inspired listeners to jump right in.
#3 – Food Fads and Trends
Now if there is a man who can tell a story, it’s NewsTalk1010 radio host and my good friend, Jerry Agar. That man can recall and share a story, the details, bring up the emotion, paint the picture so you feel like you were there, all while tearing up himself. That man has a big heart, which you wouldn’t always know when you listen to him on the radio – all gruff and grumpy. While we argued for at least two years on TV first, then for about five on radio, we talked about Food Trends in episode 4. I wanted to have Jerry on in one of the early episodes because he has been a part of this journey to get to here, pushing me to do better, argue better, present more specifics that listeners want to hear. Talking food trends, brought some really funny stories! Jerry thinks that he might have been the last person to eat a Twinkie, back when they were off the market. He didn’t know that they came out in the 1940s and it was originally stuffed with bananas. Then rationing happened and there were no more bananas. He brought up Spam being a food that his father loved, and because of that, his dad became the best fed soldier–it would seem that not many liked it. Check out this stat – the Military purchased more than 150 million pounds of SPAM. Jay Hormell who came up with SPAM got hate mail from the soldiers because they hated it so much! Jerry shared how he thinks that instant coffee is an insult as it seems that he is as much of a connoisseur of coffee as I am of oysters. He knows his coffee. I loved how he called our poke bowl lunch a ‘banner day’ because he actually enjoyed something that I suggested and said that he would ‘eat it on purpose!’. Oh Jerry. My mission to get this man healthy is ongoing.
Thanks, Louis!
As I often do, I ask my community to weigh in and this week, Louis did that in spades. Louis kindly wrote me a long email that I almost needed a cup of earl grey and a shortbread to read. Louis, your feedback and detail was tremendous to read, so thank you, my loyal listener.
“The episode that taught me something which l implement on a daily basis is episode 47 on Plant Based Milks. This episode taught me that not all products are created equally. In the case of this episode the discussion was on plant based milks. After listening to the episode, l learned that l really needed to start looking at the ingredients in a product. As well, to dig deeper on how the product is manufactured from start to finish. So this episode helped me to become a wiser shopper and consumer of products. Because of this episode l switched over some of my usual products to better ones. That’s going to make a difference on my health and in the way l feel each and every day.
The episode that made me laugh the most is episode 40. That’s the client consultation episode, when the client hints to Chris he hasn’t said anything about wine yet. This goes back to prior mentioning of the client enjoying wine. Well when the client asked Chris about further wine consumption, Chris goes on to say instead of the client putting cream in her coffee she can go ahead and put wine in her coffee. He goes further and suggests she put the wine on her blueberries and granola. Just use more wine instead of the cream is what he heard you say! Hilarious! Then he goes on to say “Don’t let her (referring to Lianne) be a bully Roseanne. Stick up for yourself!
My most favorite episode to this day is episode 24 on Self Care. It taught me to practice gratitude each and every day. I’m grateful for the body and health l have even though it may not be 100% perfect. I’m grateful for all the healthy foods that l’m able to have at my disposal. For nature and for this gift of life. I’m grateful for all the people in my life. I’m grateful for Lianne and her Eat This podcast. For all the valuable information she shares so that l can take my health to the next level. And no l haven’t forgotten Chris, for bringing his humor to the podcast. I could be so focused on the serious information being presented and the next minute l’m laughing away at one of Chris’s remarks or suggestions! Even our approach to health can have a little bit of humor thrown into it. Thanks Chris! Life is all about self-care in so many different ways. It’s up to us to discover what that consists of and to practice it each and every day.”
Louis had some great next episode suggestions too, so look out for those coming next year!
#4 – Intuitive Eating
Intuitive eating was an episode that I was most fascinated to dig deep into. And while I’d say I’m quite intuitive myself and use it with my work to feel out and sense what is right or not for a client, especially when I’m testing someone with sound therapy and my tuning forks, but Intuitive eating was kind of something that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. And still haven’t 100% to be honest. Tara Whitney did a tremendous job of helping us understand Intuitive Eating as a non- diet, that it’s about listening to our body, and we don’t have to give up the JOY in food that can so often happen when we’re focused on dieting and deprivation. This episode was a bit of a therapy session for me as I shared with Tara my experience of diet culture growing up, and how my own mother saw herself, having an altered body image, tied that to self worth and would focus so much on her own weight, that it had an impact on me. Of course, that led me to think about the influence that I’m having on my two teenage daughters as they work through their struggles with their body image. Tara really brought home that we all have a relationship with food being one that you need to be connected to your body. Diet culture is engrained in us, going on a diet to lose weight, especially as we head towards a new year and the time of resolutions, if you’re already thinking of what you’re going to change come 2021, then circle back to episode 28. It’ll be well worth the 45 minutes to hear what Tara has to say about even the judgement of someone who is healthy being a better person than one who is a cheeseburger and drive thru lover. Such an important conversation to have and wake up to.
#5 – Collagen 101 / For the Love of Chocolate
For the fifth top episode, I think it’s a tie. We did immunity episodes called Bullet Proof Your Immunity and Viruses and Immunity – COVID-19, of course those rank up there with all that’s been going on. But the two recent episodes that seem to have had more impact, that I’ve heard about anyway, are episode 46 all about Collagen and episode 49 about called For the Love of Chocolate. The two have nothing to do with each other in the health arena, but they seem to have had an impact. With all the supplements out there – and you know that I have my own line of foundational and energetically balanced supplements called TAKE THIS with Lianne, but some supplements out there can look more like a fad, you know, when you see those raised eyebrows and an expression that says, like really??? Is this really going to do all this for me? It seems that those who have tried collagen are LOVING it’s effects. Maybe people are taking more of it, like a scoop or tablespoon more after Dr Nick drilled down on how much to take, I’m not sure. I have heard from three clients this week that they are loving how much their nails are stronger. I’ve been taking more too, and yep, nails are better, skin isn’t as dry and maybe my aches that are still lingering after a sailing accident two years ago have eased. One of my followers, Amanda on Instagram shared “I had been hesitant about the whole collagen thing until I listened to your podcast. Now I make sure to add some in every day. The benefits have been amazing.” And then chocolate with Marie, how she shared the love of chocolate and we got to get clarity on how much it can help us, even from the first sniff. Farhana on IG said: “I just listened to the chocolate one. I already liked dark chocolate and loved knowing how it’s healthy”.
Well, I’m now on a mission to try a whole bunch of quality and ethically produced chocolate and have a list that listeners have helped me start. So thank YOU for chiming in and speaking up.
This was kind of like choosing one of your children to be your favourite because the episodes on brain health and also mental health, when I talked about Superfoods, the HANGRY episode was a lot of fun, then there was the series about deficiencies that turned from one to three. It took me 45 episodes to do that deep dive into the microbiome and really drill down within what I have focused a lot of my career on being gut health. In all these episodes, I’ve put hours and hours of thought, research, interviews, writing and editing the extensive show notes and then finally recording with Chris. Sharing the episodes on social media, and even hearing our promos on radio when I’m in my car with my kids, I end up with a big fat grin on my face. When I listen to each episode as it’s released, I realize that I’m smiling throughout. Often amazed that it’s me, that it’s me saying all the things, bringing you all that I know with the hopes of having an impact. I teared up as I wrote this… Reading your comments, hearing back from you that something said in an episode has changed your life in some small way, upleveled your health, given you a new way to think about food, or how you think about yourself. Knowing that you’ve chosen your next mouthful, to be emotionally and physically nourishing for you, well that makes all that I do, that we do, worthwhile. So thank you, Chris. Thank YOU, my loyal listener for being here. For wanting better for yourself and having us along on your journey.
