Nutrient Density: The Future of Nutrition is Being Birthed As We Speak!

Are you catching wind of the nutrition revolution that is rumbling at our feet?
In this episode of "Blasphemous Nutrition," Aimee delves into the evolving conversation around nutrition, highlighting key players such as Sarah Ballantyne, Marty Kendall, Stacy Sims and Andreas Eenfeldt in the evolution of nutrition from restriction to an inclusionary focus on nutrient density and protein intake for blood sugar regulation, weight loss, and overall health and vitality. Listen to this episode to discover the far-reaching impact this will have not just on enhancing satiety and boosting energy, but changing the world we live in on a personal and collective level.
 
 Key Takeaways:

• The shift in nutrition conversations towards nutrient density and satiety signals a move towards a more positive and sustainable approach to health.
• Conversations happening on social media as well as in professional settings indicate a powerful shift is underway.
• Addressing nutrient deficiencies can have a profound impact on mental health, energy levels, and longevity while reducing chronic disease risk.
• By nourishing the body with key nutrients, individuals may discover that improved health leads to radical changes in how they live their life. When done on a collective level, the potential for transformation is profound. 

Resources:

Blasphemous Nutrition on Substack

Work with Aimee

Photography by: Dai Ross Photography

Podcast Cover Art: Lilly Kate Creative

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Transcript

0:00

Hey Rebels, welcome to Blasphemous Nutrition. Consider this podcast your pantry full of clarity, perspective, and the nuance needed to counter the superficial health advice so freely given on the internet. I'm Aimee, the unapologetically candid host of Blasphemous Nutrition and a double degreed nutritionist with 20 years experience. I'm here to share a more nuanced take. On living and eating well to sustain and recover your health. If you've found most health advice to be so generic as to be meaningless, We're so extreme that it's unrealistic, and you don't mind the occasional f bomb. You've come to the right place. From dissecting the latest nutrition trends to breaking down published research and sharing my own clinical experiences, I'm on a mission to foster clarity amidst all the confusion, and empower you to have the health you need to live a life you love. Now let's get started.

MacBook Air Microphone: 1:00

Greetings, dear listener. Welcome back to Blasphemous nutrition. I'm your host, Aimee and I just can't stop eating string cheese right now. I don't know. What it is. If it's the calcium or the salt or both. Then I'm just really Jones. And after. But damn, I got to tell you, I'm loving me some string cheese these days. But that's not why I'm here to speak with you. I'm really excited to see the shift in conversation happening in the nutrition spaces. I am well aware that the algorithm may be fucking with me by showing me the same message from different sources. But even outside the internet. I'm seeing a really welcome shift in the conversation about what it means to nourish ourselves. When Marty Kendall disrupted the low carb conference in 2022 with his lecture on nutrient density and satiety. But was affirmed later by Quito advocate, Andreas Eenfeldt not sure that I've pronounced that. Right. But he's known as the diet doctor on the internet and he did a talk on satiety and protein. At the same conference. And it was in that moment that I knew there were changes coming. Since then I've been seeing more and more big names in the space, giving time and value to protein, as well as the notion of satiety; that if we're going to work our way out of the metabolic mess that the west has gotten itself into, we are not going to be able to do it while being famished. This talk of more protein and more satiety is a massive shift in mindset from the restrictive mentality that we've grown up with. Now, instead of focusing on what we need to eliminate and restrict, we're having conversations on what to reach for, what to include, what to aim for! Instead of nutrition, being about running away from disease, we're now speaking to how to run towards vitality and health. Um, God dammit. I got to say it is about damn time. If the last 70 years has taught us anything, it's that restriction and deprivation are an unsustainable way to accomplish anything. It's a set up that requires we always think in terms of no, rather in terms of yes. If there's anything humans are not built to withstand. It's a lifetime of nos. From dieting to prohibition, to sexual abstinence. It just doesn't work for nearly all of us. And when we make that collective aim to. Strictly avoid something, right. We repeatedly see this failure to adhere on a population level. The American prohibition of the 1920s is a great example of this. For us to recover our health as a nation, we must learn what it means to include the foods that heal in a sustainable way. Rather than just saying no to the hyper processed cheap shit that's ever present in our environment. And what is happening. Is the beginning of a focus on nutrients for health. This is what will save us all. Humans are a biological animal in a biological world that supplies us with the materials to keep our biological body running. Without these materials, we begin to break down. Bruce Ames came up with what he calls the Triage Theory back in 2006, to describe an idea emerging from his research that the body will preferentially allocate nutrients to what will keep the body alive today at the expense of future longevity. For example, vitamin K is essential for both blood clotting. As well as bone health. So. Vitamin K is absolutely essential. If we are going to have our blood clot, should we get a cut. And vitamin K is absolutely essential to preventing osteoporosis. If you do not eat enough green veggies, which are rich in vitamin K. You may have a subclinical deficiency. Symptoms of clinical deficiency are acute and extreme, such as bruising because your blood vessels are not able to clot and repair after being damaged. Right. The idea behind triaged theory is that the blood will take any vitamin K. It can from food. And ensure that your blood clots should you get injured? Because this is obviously critical. And then use anything left over for other less urgent needs, such as bone health, vascular health, and cancer prevention. But as we age, this perpetual lack of nutrients catches up to us and leads us to the chronic diseases that we are now all too familiar with. Now, this theory makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint and it is supported by research So we can't do randomized controlled trials on these ideas because of massive human rights violations that it would entail. And even if that were not the issue, it would be impossible to follow a whole generation through their life, controlling their diet, to the degree that a randomized controlled trial requires.

MacBook Air Microphone-1: 7:06

We see that several key nutrients that are lacking in the diet, such as Foley and vitamin K can lead to DNA damage over time. Aging the cells and the body and increasing the risk of mutations that lead to cancer, heart disease, and more..

MacBook Air Microphone: 7:24

One reason why we may be seeing chronic disease happening younger and younger. In subsequent generations is that we are now several generations into subsisting on mostly processed foods. Therefore, our children are literally not built with sufficient enough materials to withstand the test of time. Nor are they getting it from birth onwards? Unfortunately, the work of Bruce Ames and looking at nutrition from a nutrient specific angle is not yet the norm. However, when Sarah Ballantine is able to publish a book about nutrients and health intended for the mainstream population and Marty Kendall gets 10,000 people in his online community. I know that the grassroots efforts of many of us that I've not yet even heard of are having an impact. What we are doing on a more mainstream level. Is shifting the conversation away from restricting food groups, restricting calories to including macronutrients such as protein. To discussing the importance of satiety as a means of both sustainability in one's health maintenance, as well as itself being an indicator of nutrient density from the food that we consumed. If we continue to lean in this direction, we are inevitably going to fall into a rabbit hole that will lead us to the work of Bruce Ames and utilizing nutrients from foods to restore and maintain vibrancy. When we stop having knee jerk reactions and observe what is happening in the body and begin to question why it is happening and what we need to do to support robust health. We will make significant headway in healing. A classic example of this has gut health. Now, collectively our guts are pretty fucked up from multiple rounds of antibiotics in youth. To antibiotics still like in the tap water, like our tap water is tainted with antibiotics because of prescriptions and animal husbandry practices, et cetera. To not having a diet itself that supports a healthy microbiome. Many people suffer from digestive challenges. IBS, bacterial overgrowth in the bowel and other conditions lead to bloating, constipation, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, heartburn, and so on. Historically. We have addressed this. By treating the symptoms. Take more antibiotics to kill the overgrowth in the intestines. Eliminate the foods that cause symptoms. And that was the end of the story. But this has brought people to me who are on such restrictive diets that they're underweight, their hair is falling out and they are clearly nutrient depleted as well as being pretty damn miserable. And terrified to expand their diets because they don't want their symptoms to return. Others come to me after multiple rounds of antibiotics or antifungals that have still not fixed the problem, and sometimes have even created additional health issues as a side effect. When we start looking at what the inflamed imbalanced gut lacks,.We can support it into being able to tolerate more of the foods that it currently struggles to digest. In a functional nutrition clinic. This may look like adding in beneficial bacteria to counterbalance an opportunistic infection. Systematically retesting foods to see which are tolerated because very, very, very, very few people our initially sensitive to all foods containing FODMAPs. Or all foods that are recommended to be eliminated in an auto-immune paleo protocol. In addition to this, it is important to address stress that is carried in the body and foster a mindset to be receptive to change. As the mind and the gut are inextricably linked and research supports the notion that gut feelings are fricking legit ass shit. The mind impacts the guts and the guts impact the mind. Many people who have IBS will straight up tell you that is true. They get to live it day-to-day. And imbalanced gut often lacks, microbial diversity as well as key metabolites, such as short chain, fatty acids that have a multitude of benefits upon the body. By addressing what the diseased body lacks. We can restore health. Instead of focusing on stopping the symptoms. We can recover and reclaim our health by asking what is needed here. And seeing which of these key things is missing from the body and working to restore and replenish that. This needs to happen on a physical level. This needs to happen on an emotional level. And sometimes this also needs to happen on a spiritual level. All of these things make up who we are and our health. Now, when I look at nutrient density with my client. And we focus on supplying their body with the nutrients they need. There are all sorts of unintended side effects that crop up. One of the most surprising to witness, even though it's validated by research. Is the improvement in mental health and resiliency. Vegetables, especially green leafy ones do tend to make people happier, less stressed and more content. It's the most amazing thing. I still can't get over it. And there's a part of me that's like, is this really true? Is this actually like, is this real. And I'd see it. I'd see it in my group. Challenges on eating leafy greens. I'd see it, you know, with my clients and well, they would be coming to me right. And saying, well, I just feel happier. I feel so much better. I just feel like I can handle stress more. And. It was really highlighted for me during my greens challenges, which I used to host once a year and we'll be resuming again in 2025. the focus of the challenge was like, just eat something green, just eat something green and a couple of weeks in people would be remarking. About how much better they felt mentally. And I saw this year over a year. And I've also observed it with my private clients. And then found, research, observational research supporting that particularly green vegetables do have a correlation with. Reduce depression and anxiety. It's just fantastic. Now I also see focusing on key nutrients is sometimes all that is needed to reduce or eliminate the need for blood pressure or cholesterol medication. Particularly if someone has a fresh diagnosis and they're coming in wanting to either not stay on that prescription or prevent. Having that prescription we can make a lot of headway really quickly to eliminate the need for the body to utilize that medication, to stabilize metabolic health. People also find that their joint pain resolves their energy improves and stabilizes. And they begin to have the wherewithal to do things that they've been wanting to do in their life. And this is where that mind, body spirit connection. Really shows up. Many times as people begin to feel better because they are being nourished because their body has what they need. The body has what it needs to put all the pieces together to function more optimally. And when you are living in a body that has more energy, that feels more rested, that thinks more clearly. You start. To expect more of that. And you start to take a look. At what you want to change, that doesn't support your health and vitality. And many times this involves reassessing personal relationships. Taking a hard look at their work environment. Or other areas of life that are negatively impacting their quality of life. Nutrition can be so potent in this way. And I've seen it too many times in my career to just chalk it up to coincidence. So imagine. If we collectively as a population. In the Western world, right? Whether you're in Britain, whether you're in Australia, whether in the you're in the United States, wherever you are. If we collectively had the energy and the vitality that we wanted. Would we, in the Western world, be putting up with all the bullshit we are putting up with in the political spheres and the medical systems. Right. Be it, the revolving door of prime ministers in Britain or the unfucking believable narrative that we are being forced to swallow that is election year 20, 24. Like really, is this really happening? And we're really gonna put up with that Would we be able to take a moment and hear out somebody's differing viewpoint. If we had the bandwidth to actually do so. I mean. It is not just nutrition that has us exhausted, worn out and at our wits end. But certainly if we were better nourished, we could have the bandwidth to reconsider their trajectory of our nations. In a more actionable way. Rather than as a client, put it be dragged, kicking and screaming behind the carriage as it careens off a cliff. That seems to kind of be the general sentiment. That we're all living through at this moment in time when things are. So chaotic and unstable and scary. Coming back to the topic at hand. I recently went to a personalized medicine conference in London. And I was really quite pleased to see that they had a full day dedicated to nutrition. While there were some speakers who stayed in this paradigm of restriction. I did see several speak to increasing diversity of foods consumed and talking about the importance of satiety and consuming more of certain things rather than less. Additionally, my colleagues who went to the Institute for functional medicine's conference a week earlier. Told me that Stacy Sims. Who is a researcher focused on women's health and sports and a strong protein advocate. Was the speaker there. Stacy Sims was one of the first. Researchers who became an influencer. Talking about protein and the importance of protein for women. So to see her step into the functional medicine world as an outsider, because her career is not in functional medicine. She is a researcher in labs. She's got research labs, conducts clinical research in female sports nutrition, In hydration and the female body on menstrual cycle fluctuations and what that means for sports performance, right? Like she's, she's a clinical researcher. So seeing her brought into the functional medicine world as this outsider is absolutely wonderful. This is a welcome collaboration in my eyes. And I'm so grateful she got the stage to share such important information about the value of protein to our health providers. Additionally, it seems like the IFM conference moving forward is, will do so in collaboration with the American nutrition association. So this gives our nurses and our doctors and our functional medicine practitioners, additional opportunities to learn about nutrition. And it also gives skilled nutritionists access and collaboration, possibilities with doctors and nurses and my God, this is a win win. As someone who has been in the field for two decades and has studied nutrition since the early nineties. I am absolutely thrilled to see this shift in thinking and the integration of nutrition alongside overall health. In medicine. And it is an inclusion of nutrition with the conversation leaning more and more towards what will make us healthy and vital rather than just what to fear and avoid. And this is important. We are learning to say yes to health. We are learning to open up and lean into vitality rather than push away fear and contract against disease. What we focus on grows and what we resist persists. It's a saying for a reason, and for nearly the whole history of nutrition and medicine, we have been focused on disease and restriction. While, it has served us in some ways. Remaining limited to this mindset alone has also cost us a great deal of progress. In the area of human vitality. The field of nutrition began as an exploration of what foods, not nutrients, because these were largely unknown, but what foods would keep a soldier strong and healthy on the battlefield? And in the process of finding these foods, we began to also discover nutrients, nutrients that eliminated diseases like scurvy and palegra. And we turned our attention there. And as palega and beri-beri and other nutritional diseases of the pre-industrial ages were largely eradicated. We kind of put ourselves into this position of thinking what nutrient takes care of this problem. Right. And within that 50 year timeframe that all of this was happening, there was the discovery of antibiotics. So this idea take this to eradicate that became even more entrenched. Now. Certainly medicine was reactive and symptom-based long before this, but the need to be so proactive as to protect lifespan was not as urgent, a need after antibiotics and sanitation eliminated many early deaths due to acute infection. So we turned our attention to eliminating the chronic diseases that begin to crop up. When more of us started to live past 50. And these were predominantly diseases of the heart as well as cancer. And when viewed through this lens, Of what do we need to eradicate this disease? It became about cutting out or killing the cancer and cutting out repairing or eliminating the plaque that clogged the arteries. This plaque has a great deal of cholesterol in it. And that was the observation that brought us to the belief that dietary cholesterol would kill us and needed to be severely restricted. It was a 70 year long mistake that we have only recently been able to move past. On that theme of plaque. There is plaque buildup in the brain of those with Alzheimer's. We have invested nearly all of our research dollars into eliminating this plaque in the brain and have come up with multitudes of different medications, aiming at doing this. We have nothing to show for it. Because that is the wrong question to be asking. The writing is on the wall with the current. Research tract of Alzheimer's drugs. And I think people are starting to move in a different direction. But I don't think it's going to be the right direction because it's still really pharmaceutical based. And not root caused based what is causing our brains to atrophy and that plaque to be laid down. That is the direction that we need to go into. We didn't stop. Like with heart disease, we didn't stop to ask why does the heart clog. Why do cells become cancerous? Now in all fairness, we probably didn't have the technology to answer that question back in the forties and fifties. But I can't help, but wonder with heart disease with cancer and with Alzheimer's. had we started there? Had we started with the question? Why is this happening? What would we have uncovered? About human health and vitality these past 70 years. If we held that question in our hand alongside of how do we get rid of this? What would we have discovered along the way? I feel deep in my bones. We're on the precipice of a whole new paradigm. On what health means? The systems that have been in place since, before we were born. Are crumbling before our eyes. Nobody is pretending anymore that the old way of doing things is viable and effective. Voices are emerging with answers. And when you're out there listening, listen with your heart, as well as your mind. Who is out there speaking to a future that makes you say yes. Who is shifting away from what you know is not working for you and is sharing information from a vantage point of depth and consideration. Not just. To what you wish to stay away from. But to what you wish to grow into. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. These voices, these voices are the future of health. You now always want to put on your critical thinking cap and use your brain to vet them. Because there are a lot of skilled. Marketers out there who know how to tug at our heartstrings powerfully. And you always want to use your brain to vet your heart and your heart to that your brain, right. Both are. Equal players at the table. So keep what your heart is drawn to into consideration as you use your mind to suss out whether this bullshit or legit. But focus your attention on the voices that feel expansive and supportive and go there. Like this is what is needed. This is what is needed from our healthcare providers and our whole fricking healthcare system. This is what is needed in our political sphere. This is what is needed in our personal relationships. And if you head in that direction, I think we're all going to find ourselves in a much brighter future that we will feel content to pass along to our children. Folks. Thank you so much for this exceptionally esoteric. And I'm optimistic episode of Blasphemous nutrition. I'm not all doom and gloom and I'm all not. Rants about the bullshit that I see everywhere. So. I've just feel really positive coming out of this conference and seeing the conversations that are happening. In the real world, as well as on the internet, we really are moving in a positive direction. And I do feel hopeful that it's a trajectory that is not a fad, but is really a door opening into a new way of looking at health. Thanks again for listening. Again, if you've not yet left a review, please do so. You can also rate our show by clicking on those stars in your podcast app. And if you've done all of that share an episode that has meant something to you with someone you care about. Until next week. MyBlaphemous.Friends. Keep that critical thinking cap on and open your heart to what's possible.

28:25

If you have found some Nuggets of Wisdom, make sure to subscribe, rate, and share Blasphemous Nutrition with those you care about. As you navigate the labyrinth of health advice out there, remember, health is a journey, not a dietary dictatorship. Stay skeptical, stay daring, and challenge the norms that no longer serve you. If you've got burning questions or want to share your own flavor of rebellion, slide into my DMs. Your stories fuel me, and I love hearing them. Thanks again for tuning in to Blasphemous Nutrition. Until next time, this is Aimee signing off, reminding you that truth is nuanced, and any dish can be made better with a little bit of sass. Any and all information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not to be misconstrued as offering medical advice. Listening to this podcast does not constitute a provider client relationship. Note, I'm not a doctor nor a nurse, and it is imperative that you utilize your brain and your medical team to make the best decisions for your own health. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked to this podcast are at the user's own risk. No information nor resources provided are intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Be a smart human and do not disregard or postpone obtaining medical advice for any medical condition you may have. Seek the assistance of your health care team for any such conditions and always do so before making any changes to your medical, nutrition, or health plan.