Bodyholic Rants: Hilarious Weight Loss & Self Care Myths Women Should Avoid
The podcast that helps women weed through the social media noise and myths to lose weight and keep it off, without all the bullshit.
Bodyholic Rants: Hilarious Weight Loss & Self Care Myths Women Should Avoid
Are Your Favorite Snacks Slowly Harming You?
Ever wondered why your diet soda isn't helping you lose weight? It's not just about calories! Discover why artificial sweeteners may actually lead to higher blood glucose levels and chronic inflammation. Ayelet and I discuss the importance of reading ingredient lists and opting for more natural, minimally processed foods. We also share personal strategies for avoiding harmful substances, including why I now use glass or stainless steel coffee cups to keep microplastics at bay. This episode is packed with actionable tips to help you make healthier food choices and support your overall well-being.
Think your whole wheat bread is safe? Think again. We also explore the alarming reality of artificial food colorings, which are hiding in places you’d least expect. With a history steeped in oil-based origins and safety lawsuits, these colorings pose significant risks, especially for children. Ayelet and I shed light on consumer education, the need for transparency in food labeling, and the benefits of choosing natural colorings like beetroot and blueberries. This episode is essential listening for anyone looking to safeguard their health and make informed food choices.
You can find the workouts and online community here: https://www.bodyholic.fit
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Music by AVANT-BEATS
Photo by Boris Kuznetz
Hello you, wonderful health-conscious rock star. Today, on Bodyholic with Di, I'm joined by the brilliant and passionate nutrition and microbiome expert, Ayelet Gur Arie. We dive into a critical topic that affects all of us the food additives and their impact on our gut health and overall well-being. Impact on our gut health and overall well-being. So we really get into concerning realities around emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners and food colorings. Ayelet shares eye-opening insights backed by extensive research. We explore how these hidden ingredients can wreak havoc on our microbiome, leading to a cascade of health issues. And personally, since talking to Ayelet, I can no longer drink from a takeaway coffee cup, I will bring a glass cup or a stainless steel cup wherever I go. I honestly, I can't even taste it anymore. It tastes different to me. So you're going to want to listen all the way through, because Ayelet discusses practical tips for navigating the grocery aisles and making informed choices to really nourish our bodies.
Di:This is a conversation that is a must listen for anyone who cares about optimizing their health and their wellness. Let's get started. Bodyholic with D, your one-stop shop for science-backed well-being breakthroughs. Forget the fads, ditch the myths. We are here to get you on the fast track to feeling and looking fantastic. So get ready to dive deep into the real deal on your health, happiness and everything in between. Let's go Once again. One of my favorite people to interview and to just talk with is joining us today Bodyholic with Di. Thank you so much.
Ayelet:Thank you for having me, for inviting me. I'm happy to be here.
Di:I'm super excited and we're actually going to be diving into a topic that's super hot, but also I'm super concerned about it, and I think everybody else should be as well. So let's get everybody concerned about it. We're going to be discussing food additives and we're going to be kind of diving into different aspects of it. So tell me in general, what is a food additive? What are we even talking about?
Ayelet:Well, actually food additives. We kind of maybe think it's only in the ultra processed foods or maybe, but it's not. It's actually tiny ingredients that the food industry puts in our food, even in healthy foods. We're going to talk in a minute about where it is and what it does and everything, but it's literally everywhere and it's the reason the food industry put it there is for their own good, for taste, for texture, for lower calories, for looking good, so we would buy more. So the bottom line is the food industry wants us to buy more.
Ayelet:So it doesn't have anything to do with our health. And my field of research, which is the microbiome and the gut health microbiome and the gut health is really affected by those ingredients and I think it's more and more getting more and more common knowledge that our gut health is our overall health and our microbiome things that hurt the microbiome. This is the end for me. If I know something hurts the microbiome, I don't want it, and the reason is because it starts this chain of events, this chain of bad microbiology, this thing of things, that in the end we have gut issues, we have inflammation that goes through all our body and it really is very problematic.
Ayelet:Um sorry I even take it really. I I always when I do lectures and I teach clients and groups about it, and I say that the food additives to me, to my opinion, it is like cigarettes. It's going to have the same process as cigarettes that bad, or it's just a little, and no one says it's so, so harmful. But afterward there would came, would come um research data and more and more information about it and then someone said, well, maybe it's not that good, maybe just a little, maybe just a few, and then it will take time. I don't know.
Ayelet:For cigarettes it was like 20, 30 years to the fda and all the health um organization to say this is bad for you, and then it was. It started collapsing. So I believe this is what we're going to see in the next years with food additives that the, the information and start of how bad it is for us is starting to add up. Some organizations and some companies start to take part of that. So I think we're in the beginning of that revolution of recognizing this is not just oh, you know, 10 cigarettes may give you cancer, but two cigarettes are fine, you know. We now know it's of course that even two cigarettes are not good for you, and that's how I explain what I feel the food additive for us for us.
Di:Okay, I'm going to ask you, as someone I really respect on the subject, something that I'm very concerned about on a completely personal level Do I have to worry about my coffee drinking?
Ayelet:drinking. Nope, nope, nothing but coffee. Coffee is actually in research, is quite okay, it's really okay. It doesn't harm your microbiome or the gut health.
Di:It's a two-part question, but yeah, keep saying about coffee.
Ayelet:Yeah, yeah. The only thing that can really really harm your gut and your health is the microplastic. If you're using, uh, plastic or paper cups. If you're using glass or like other cups that are reusable, you're, you're fine, coffee is great no, I'm not.
Di:You just changed my life once again. I always take those. I'm now going to take my body holic mug to the coffee shop and that's what I'm going to do. Amazing, again, you changed my. Okay, wait, now it's a two-part question. Yeah, because I'm thinking about emulsifiers and we're going to get to that really soon. But do I need to worry about a cappuccino because it has milk in it?
Ayelet:Well, dairy, dairy milk, it's fine. Okay, dairy milk is really really only about the milk. But we have so many other people who are drinking not dairy milk but soy milk and almond milk and all those others, but soy milk and almond milk and all those others, and these have emulsifiers and a lot of E numbers that we don't want to consume. So you know, I wanted to say it in the end, but I'll say it now we don't aim for 100 percent. Ok, even in research on humans that, seen that the microbiome can be improved significantly, they didn't like went and live in the forest and only ate, you know, what they picked in the forest Like. We also have to be aware that we live in in those days and we are going to even if we want or not, we were going to bump in those food additives. But if it's in a small amount and this is backed by research even if it's small amounts, it's okay.
Ayelet:The microbiome I always love to say that in the microbiome area in the gut, the good is stronger than the bad. So, even if we're having a little emulsifiers in our coffees for once in a while or you know, we eat out out and the salad dressing has emulsifiers or sweeteners or whatever, if it's in the right proportion about 80% clean and 20% that were exposed. It's really really fun. It's okay.
Di:So this is. That was like I was literally just waiting for this conversation because I wanted and I could have texted you about it, but I wanted to like make sure that everybody hears.
Di:So, uh, first of all, I'm just surprised with a lot of people, but I stopped drinking oat milk when I was pregnant the second time. Um, I drank soy milk when I was pregnant the first time and my killed me, like I by the time I realized that it was that I was causing me dream pain. By the time I realized that it was that that was causing me extreme pain, I just cut it out and I went back to milk and then I gave birth and I went to oat milk and again I didn't put my finger on it and then it was making me kind of sick when I was pregnant the second time and then I switched back to regular milk and I was perfectly fine, and since then I haven't been able to switch back because of the aftertaste. So on that level you're making me feel great, yeah and yeah and the other thing is like now.
Di:Now I'm just going to really, really make sure that I go get my coffee in this.
Ayelet:Yeah, you know I posted just like a couple of days ago that I always have like a cup with thick glass like the BataHolic. You have Not this one. This one's really thin so it can break, but I just kind of throw it in my bag like thick glass. Nothing happens and whenever I go, if I'm in a meeting, if I'm at work, I don't need to worry because I can't. You know, after you read about microplastic, you can't go back and you can't just eat hot. You can't drink hot beverage from plastic, you can't. So this is what we're doing?
Di:And what about cold?
Ayelet:Cold is less, it's less. The plastic is more okay. When it's cold, it's really like melting. When it's a hot beverage or a hot food, when it's cold it's okay. Yeah, yeah, it's a warm.
Di:And yet if I like want, I'll say for myself okay, but if I want to really make that switch in my brain, I need to go all out. I'm like I just need to stop drinking out of plastic. That's for me personally.
Ayelet:Yeah, I do that. It's a process, but it's really not that hard. I mean, we take our bag to work to everywhere anyway. You also have those mugs that were from um. How do you say, like metal ones that you can say, yeah, and you can throw them anyway, they're not even gonna break. I just like glass more. Um, just throw it in your bag and you can throw them anyway, they're not even going to break. I just like glass more. Just throw it in your bag and you don't have to worry about it anymore. So it's really a process, but a really really short one and an easy one.
Di:So we're okay with stainless steel.
Ayelet:Of course, yeah definitely Awesome, amazing.
Di:I know what I'm going to buy today. I'm going to buy some Because I had. You know, they kind of get gross after a while. You've got to really get in there and clean. So I have to get rid of my recent one and I'm going to go buy some more. So we we started with emulsifiers. What did you just say? We started talking about emulsifiers, right. What did you just say? We started talking about emulsifiers. We threw the word emulsifiers out there, and so let's get into that, yeah.
Ayelet:Okay, let's get into emulsifiers Now. Emulsifiers I think it's kind of a cute name or it looks like really cute, like something small. It's really not in a big amount in our food, but emulsifiers is something that food industry puts in our food because we wanted, we want everything to be the same, uh, everywhere. So we don't want, like our yogurt, to have water up level and, like the thick dryer form down. We don't want our uh salad dressing to be two phases. We want everything to be mixed, to have a nice color, to have a nice look. Um, it also and and just the two examples, but it's also in breads and it's also in healthy foods. It's in so many foods that is really healthy, as if we think of a good whole wheat bread. So it really is whole wheat, it's not a lie. But when you put emulsifiers in there, it's really a problem because what it does emulsifiers is like a strong molecule that has a little chemistry for a bear with me a head of um hydrophobic a head and a hydrophilic tail. So it combined the strong molecules, combines water and oil together, so you won't have those two phases in you and no one else has a hydrophobic head and a hydrophilic tail soap.
Ayelet:And what does soap do to bacteria? It kills it, it takes it away. So we are actually taking. It's not soap okay, it's not just, but this is the same action as soap. So we are taking something. It's for our eyes to see.
Ayelet:It is not something that adds to our nutrition value, it's just something that food industry puts that you would buy it more, you would look more attractive and more pretty for us. You know, when you make salad dressing at home, you put like the oil or the lemon and the whatever and it's two phases, right, it's always you mix it and second later it's it's, it's not together. So most players makes it keep together. It's very strong and when you consume it, when you put in your body, it doesn't absorb in your in your intestine and goes down better, more and more to your gut to meet your microbiome and this ruins them. And the thing that it shows when it ruins the microbiome the microbiome that gets ruined, the good bacteria that is ruined by that is a bacteria that makes a mucous level that keeps your gut healthy and safe. So it keeps the bad from the from what outside to your intestine separating lining exactly.
Ayelet:Then you get what you call weak guts, because we don't have the lining that protects our gut cells and the things that sticks them together is loosen up, so things from inside our intestine that shouldn't come in can get in our body. It should stay outside and go out with the feces. It goes inside. What happens when it goes inside? Our amazing immune system comes and fights it. Our amazing immune system sees okay, this shouldn't be here, this shouldn't be here. We're fighting, fighting, we're fighting and we consume more muscle fibers and they're still fighting and we have leaky gut. So we have more fighting and more fighting. And they're still fighting and we have leaky gut. So we have more fighting and more fighting and eventually something is going to crash If it's going to be an allergy, when our immune system attacks something that it shouldn't.
Ayelet:If it's the autoimmune disease, when our immune system attacks something from our body that it shouldn't attack, something from our body that it shouldn't. If it's cancer, that cancer can slick and and go and grow without the immune system noticing because it's so busy fighting in the gut and more and more and more so those little things. You know, this is not like my opinion, or there are dozens of research showing that emulsifiers makes the leaky gut, makes inflammation in our body and we consume it all the time, so it's chronical. And when we have chronic inflammation, sometimes you add stress, you add less of sleep, you add bad nutrition. Something's going to crash, something is going to fall and have a disease that is permanent. So these are emulsifiers.
Di:This is this is um, this is really interesting. This is like, actually so every time I see the letter E on the back of a package, Well, actually a few labels will write emulsifiers, or they would say emulsifier type type.
Ayelet:They wouldn't regularly put an e, because you know the public can't know e 101, e 1000, it's too, it's too much. So usually um, it's not by law, but usually they would say emulsifiers.
Di:They would have to mention emulsifiers but if there is an e because there are a few few, is that what they mean? Is that the E? Yeah?
Ayelet:and E is everywhere. E can be food coloring, e can be emulsifiers, so E is everywhere. So we're going to do a little organic like understand it. So we have the emulsifiers, all kinds of types, which are bad. We have C80, we have carrageenan that you would see sometimes we have. Everything is really really bad for you. I just want to mention one that is not so bad for us. So there's a little light in the end of the tunnel. There's a little something good which is lecithin. We would and you know the food industry knows that this is not the harmful one the mucifera you can find it in egg, for example.
Di:Right, I was going to say isn't that a protein?
Ayelet:Yeah, it's in egg, for example, so it's not harmful for the microbiome, so it's not harmful for the gut, as you can see by research. But there's also a but we don't have ADI for lecithin. Adi is the adequate daily intake. We don't have the number. So if I'm going to have lecithin in my yogurt, in my bread, in my egg, in my chocolate, I don't know if that's okay. But the research who checked, okay, lecithin and gut and microbiome, they said okay, it's not harmful. That's great, that's amazing actually.
Ayelet:And I do consume lecithin, stoilicetin or other forms of it, but I don't know if I'm consuming too much because there is no information. So again, we're ending up in that point of thinking all those food additives, they're not really clear to me, they're not really. I'm not really quiet and says that's for sure. Okay, that is not okay. Probably for for us, the amounts, and if you think of children, you know that have smaller bodies and for them to eat emulsifiers or even lecithin in all those products, I'm sure it's not okay. I don't know. I don't know if, if we're passing, maybe we're three times, maybe we're consuming three times the amount we should. I don't know.
Di:When I Google less than I get products like pills, less than pills.
Ayelet:You can have it as pills. You can have it as pills, you can add it. It's really not, has no health value.
Di:What I'm saying is that's amazing that so there are people who are consuming who knows how much and taking pills.
Ayelet:I guess. So, yeah, okay, and we don't know. We don't know the amount. This is a big problem. You know most. You know vitamins and minerals. We do have the lower limit. We do have the upper limit. It's organized so you, when, when someone gives you a diet, you can put it like in a program that tells you how much vitamin, how much minerals, how much calories. So you would know this is too much, this is too little. But with all this food additive it's like in a mystery, it's like a secret, like no one talks about it and no one really open is not no one's open a book saying here's how much. You know. The food industry by law doesn't have to tell us how much they put in. I don don't know, even if it's less than I don't know how much there is in my food. They just write it there. It's a problem. It's a problem and it's a big problem. That goes way, way, you know up.
Di:So I just want to make sure that, um, we get back to the, the dangerous ones, even though that was a very big. But so we have the CMC.
Ayelet:Right.
Di:The PS80.
Ayelet:Right, the 81,. Yeah, carrageenan.
Di:Right, and maltodextrin is also a emulsifier.
Ayelet:Yeah, but it's mostly used as a stabilizer. How do you say that? Like stabilizers? Yeah, okay, so it's also not good it's also, but when you read labels they would tell you emulsifiers. They wouldn't write cmc 80 because it sounds bad. It does sound interesting, it sounds bad.
Di:Okay, now I see what you meant when you were like the multipliers sound cute. I'm like I don't know if it sounds cute to me, but when you think about it as opposed to all these orbit 80, then it sounds cuter.
Ayelet:It sounds cuter.
Di:Exactly and one 80, then it sounds cuter it sounds cuter, exactly, yeah, and one more thing. So when I think about leaky gut, you're teaching me something really important here, because I think of someone really obese um that that's like the first thing I'm thinking of, so it doesn't even matter like what?
Di:what is going on? That's the thing I'm I'm considering and basically, what you just taught me was that it's not not part of the metabolic diseases. It actually, um, we're just drawing the microbiome and the mucus, that the lining that is the barrier between the microbiome and the rest of the body. Am I correct? Yeah, that is the issue, and so it doesn't matter what your weight is, and so, okay, wow, that is actually really good.
Ayelet:And so, okay, wow, that is actually really good. I want to address what you said because, listen, obese people like you said, what do they usually eat? They eat junk and ultra-processed foods. And junk and ultra-processed foods has a lot, a lot, a lot of emulsifiers, not the worst kinds.
Ayelet:So obese people I don't know like the numbers, numbers, but I would guess nine percent of them have leaky gut, like 100, yes, but the leaky gut comes from our nutrition and from our habits, so it's not always depends on our weight. So you can be really skinny, you know. And also, you know, brings us to our next topic of artificial sweeteners we can have. You can be thin, you can be on a diet and you can have a leaky gut, and you can see that. You know, allergies and autoimmune diseases are not always comes from people who are overweight. You can be totally skinny or so. So it's really uh, it's it's what you said is right that most people who are obese are consuming this a lot. So that's why they have leaky gut, which is 100% true, but it doesn't mean that everyone who has leaky gut is a beast, because it depends on what you have right, right, right, and that's that's what kind of changed in my mind.
Di:And then, um, also understanding that the mechanics of leaking leaky gut it has nothing to do with calories in, calories out and that it has nothing to do with calories.
Ayelet:And you know, there was a research that I was now remembering with people the cron disease, which is, of course, the, the disease in the gut, and the gut is very inflamed, inflamed, um, they told him just don't touch emulsifiers. They said, keep eating whatever you want, like, just don't touch emuls. This and it really helped them. So whenever people you know want my advice or want to be my client and I said listen, no matter what happens, like if we're going to continue or not, stay, if they have bloated or you know everything in the gut, feel very tired and you know the brain fog, all those symptoms of a body who is tired.
Ayelet:And people say that among themselves. They say I'm too tired for what I should be and something is wrong, something is happening. People say that about themselves and I said let's stop those food additives and let's start with emulsifiers. And people come back to me and say it really helped. Well, it didn't. You know it's not a healing that healed everything 100%, but you feel the change, you feel the shift, you feel better, you feel better when you get rid of those.
Di:Amazing the I keep. We want to move on to sweeteners, but I also I'm a little freaked out because if it's in everything, basically I should just be eating vegetables, lentils, nothing processed, which can suck for some people.
Ayelet:Well, this is the thing I just wanted to put it in the end, like, what do we do? But I can tell right now we have amazing products that the industry, who makes them, is more aware, and all we have to do is look at the list of ingredients. I don't want you to look at the box. Don't judge a book by its cover. I don't want you to look at the box. Don't judge a book by its cover. I don't want you to look at the advertisement. I don't want you to look at the calories, protein, fat. I don't mind about that. I want you to look at the list of ingredients and you should only have there things that you recognize.
Ayelet:If we're talking about just cheese just like cream cheese, like 5% cheese, just like the nice ones you should have milk, maybe water, salt. That's about it. You're not supposed to have emulsifiers or food white coloring or preservatives. And it's so funny In Israel, when you go to the refrigerator, you can go just for a check. They're right next to each other. So all you have to do is just once invest the time of looking at those products and choosing the ones without them, without the numbers, and you have everything.
Ayelet:This is what I really want to have. You have cheese, you have bread, you have processed food, which is fine. You can even find children's snacks, right, that is okay. You have the worst ones. And you have some who said, oh, there's no eat, there's no muscle fibers, there's no sweeteners, there's no food coloring. Okay, it's going to have, it's a snack, it's going to have a little fat, it's going to have calories, but I don't care, it's a snack, I'm fine with this, right, so you can really really find everything. I even have amazing mustard that I found without anything, just like the little taste, not even the seeds, the cream. But uh, how do you say that?
Di:I forgot the word uh um the spices spices.
Ayelet:So I found an amazing mustard. That only it's. It's in a paste, not in the, in the little round things. Um, only have amazing, amazing flowers. It has nothing. It doesn't have, you know, preservatives, e-numbers, nothing. It's amazing. It really tastes good, all right.
Di:You'll send that to me soon, you can really find everything.
Ayelet:I promise you. If you're going to find something, just let me know. I have pictures in my phone when I send everybody. This is the most sure.
Di:Yes, we already have that over kombucha. When I was pregnant right exactly um, so okay, this this emulsifier thing was just like so interesting that I couldn't move forward. But now I think I'm ready and let's get into artificial sweeteners, which is a huge, huge, huge problem. Mostly like, I have family members that don't take a single sip without putting sweet and low in first, and I'm like but it's 2024 and we know a little bit more, and yet, so I guess it's still an issue it's.
Ayelet:It's such a huge issue. You're so right and let me say, like my thing, my, my, my opinion with I want my clients and for everyone to respect your body and don't lie to him. If you have a sweet taste in your tongue, your whole body is getting ready to absorb sugar, glucose or fructose or whatever. Don't to it, don't lie to him, don't make all those detours to to to nothing. Because, um, if you're eating, if you want sugar all the time, everything you need you drink has to be sweet. Everything you want is sweet, sweet, sweet. That is the problem. Making everything a like low calorie but still sweet, sweet, sweet. It's not going to. It doesn't never help anyone, not with losing weight, not with feeling better. It's emotionally, it's mostly an emotional problem. You need to take care of that. If you want to have a dessert, enjoy it. Have a piece of cake, have a line of chocolate. It's not that much of calories, it's not that much of fat. Enjoy it and have fun. It is so important for our body and soul to be happy together. So when I hear you know there's always new. You know the new artificial sweetener. This is not artificial, it's from the plant and this is from that and I say listen, if it's sweet on your tongue and it's lower in calories, it's bad for you. This is what I know, because, the same thing as emulsifier it doesn't absorb. It's not like glucose, so it doesn't absorb. It's not like glucose, so it doesn't absorb in your intestine. It continues and continues because it doesn't absorb, because it's not really sugar and it goes to your gut and in your gut it meets the microbiome and it's not fiber, it's not really something that the microbiome understands. So it ruins something that the microbiome understands. So it ruins something Sometimes, you know, kill the bacteria or make it lose, like, the connection between them and make it looser. It doesn't matter. Research shows that artificial sweeteners all the types there is, all the types there is, are bad for the microbiome. And again, this is the end for me If I there is are bad for the microbiome. And again, this is the end for me. If I know something's bad for the microbiome, it's out, but if we continue to understand it. So if we ruin their microbiome, we're ruining the gut lining and if we're ruining the gut lining and make it thinner than viruses and bad things that we eat, sometimes we eat a salad that has bad bacteria in it. If you have strong microbiome we have strong gut lining nothing will happen. But if we don't, it can touch our own gut cells and ruin them, or it can go inside and then the immune system has to attack it and then we have it all over again the immune system, leaky gut, immune system that are working all the time fighting those things that come from the leaky gut, and you have the immune system, you have chronic inflammation and we know chronic inflammation is level one to all newest diseases that we know today. Right? So artificial sweeteners is a big no for me. I don't think I have anything in my house that has artificial sweeteners.
Ayelet:For years I do heard, heard of and checked for a talk about a coconut sweetener. Okay, it's really new. I always get sent, oh, but this is okay, you know, everyone knows that I really not repugnant, so they send me the new stuff to check. I really didn't see that the coconut sugar hurts the microbiome or the gut, but it's really, really new, I don't really know. Or the gut, but it's really really new, I don't really know. I recommend honey, maple, even sugar, you know, bake a cake, you know, and have a piece of cake, and if you want to eat the whole cake, sugar is not your problem. You need to check your emotional state or your mindset. So again, sugar is being blamed. I feel too much for other problems. It's not the sugar, you know, because if you eat a piece of cake that's made at home, it's not even that much calories.
Di:It's actually like you're saying that the emotional state, actually it could be so many things like you have to really map it out. Um, yeah, sure it's. It's uh simplifying when you say it's sure, like really utterly simplifying something that is so complex and a human being. I also. The artificial sweeteners, if I'm not mistaken, are extremely sweet, right, way more than sugar. So does it make you like? Probably because we become regulated to sweetness and to whatever taste it is. So if you tend to have aspartame, which I think um, is a hundred few hundred times more sweeter than sugar, then you will, sugar won't be sweet enough for you sugar, I'll tell you that Sugar will be under-tasted but it could be tasty enough.
Ayelet:But the ironic and you know this is so ironic thing is when you take artificial sweeteners for the long run not just once in a month, okay, but most people are addicted to artificial sweeteners. They take it all day every day, artificial sweetener, and they take it all day every day. So when you do it chronically like this, um, you actually ruin the bacteria that is in charge of lowering your glucose in your blood and your insulin and your insulin from your pancreas. So actually, in the long run, you are avoiding sugar, but actually research show that people who consume artificial sweeteners have a higher blood glucose level in their blood, which is so ironic. You're not consuming the sugar, but still your body won't be able to absorb it normally. Oh, my God, yes, and it's back in our research. Many research has shown that and we're going to link this research.
Di:Uh, this is, this is research that we absolutely have to link. Um. Underneath the episode, uh, that that's so disturbing because I, now that I'm thinking about it, I've heard people how is it possible that I have high sugar?
Ayelet:Um, well, the eating artificial sweeteners? I'm not even. I've even a tiny drop of sugar and I have high sugar because for chronically, you know, I assumed you don't consume artificial sweeteners. So I mean, if you're trying to take a uh, I don't know diet Coke right now, this is not going to happen for you, right? But when? If someone consumed, chronically, right, um, it ruins the bacteria that are in charge of lowering your blood glucose. So you're, you're actually doing the opposite of what you want to do.
Di:I'm so passionate about what you're, what you're talking about, I I'm just feeling like enraged, that Diet Coke exists. And it's amazing to me also because you probably feel the same way where you live in this world, in this world of you know awareness, heightened awareness, and so when you see someone drinking a Coke or a Diet Coke or whatever it kind of like doesn't make sense for you, does it?
Di:I don't understand it, I don't get it. I don't get it and hopefully, like when we spread the word and get the research out there, I hope like that our listeners also like just won't get it, don't understand.
Ayelet:I really hope I've had so many people come up to me and say but I can't give up the die card, I'm addicted. They always say I'm addicted to it. I said, well, do you think it's funny or a good thing that you're addicted to something?
Di:yeah, right, exactly, it's not funny, it's like you just said. The problem that is yeah exactly, exactly so.
Ayelet:And, and you know, when I see some colleagues of me or dietitians um, not not microbiome dietitians I must say that the dietitians who work with microbiome or the research of microbiome really know what's going on and they, they don't eat nothing of those. But when I see other, like colleague, it's really difficult to me not to say anything. I don't hold it myself 100.
Di:oh, my god. Being a reminder, I don't know if we talked about this, but I was working for this sports nutritionist we're not going to mention his name and basically I was one of his trainers I don't know 8 years ago, I can't remember and then I started, uh, attending his classes, which I then, like could not stand it because all he cared about was calories. And it was that was it he. He was like I don't care what you eat, it's all about calories. You should be eating any one of those like low calorie snacks, that like yeah, and so that was the end of our relationship. But I just stopped working for him because I professionally couldn't be associated. And yeah, he's going strong, though.
Ayelet:he's going strong and he's spreading his work you know, because you know people want to lose weight. They don't want to be healthy. Um, and I see in my clinic, when people do the shift from losing weight to really being healthy and feeling good, it's not working. The calories counting is not okay and if you don't feel good with all those processed foods, even if it has 99 calories and it has so much protein, it's not, it it's not working. So when people want to be healthy, this is the answer.
Di:Amazing, thank you. Amazing like I'm. I'm just noting everything for myself now and okay, so we've got. We talked about emulsifiers. We've talked about um the fake sugar, the artificial sweeteners artificial sweeteners and do you want to say something about food coloring?
Ayelet:I do. I just reminded of something that I really wanted to say. I point my finger I blame us consumers. I don't blame the industry. It makes what we buy.
Ayelet:If people wouldn't buy things, it wouldn't be there. Okay, there is a great example that, like a couple, like maybe five or ten years ago, there was the uh, uh, sodium and salt and everyone didn't want to have salt and so the industry, um, made uh cheese with no salt, with zero sodium which is what an amazing product, because everything has sodium in it, basically. And you would say, wow, amazing, but no one bought it. No one bought it. It was disgusting, it was gross, it didn't taste good, but they made it for us, for the consumer, but no one bought it, so it's out of the shelves. So if we would shift our money, our buying, into products and say, listen, we want to have those, a little processed food, because we can't be at our kitchen for three hours a day and make everything from scratch, we do want to use your products, but we want them without the E-numbers and without the artificial sweeteners and without the emulsifiers, if we would pick those, products.
Di:These would have more from the industry. The industry will make more because this is what we want. So I love that you said this because I don't blame the consumer and I love what's happening right now because I completely and entirely blame the consumer. And I love what's happening right now because I completely and entirely blame the industry, and I love that you're giving the other outlook on it because I think that we are so gullible as just people. I think packaging is so important and I think these giants these are beyond giants these companies that create. They're enormous and what they can pour into packaging, research and packaging itself.
Di:And it's just like you said said people don't want to see the yogurt separate, um, and the commercials. And then there's the play on the taste. But I think, um, where people kind of want more, like the pringles, I feel like everybody can't. I feel like if someone buys a sleeve of Pringles, they're not going to have one. It's designed so that you will not have one, just like the people who came up to you and said I can't stop this, I'm addicted. So it's like do we blame the drug dealer or the person shooting it into his veins? I don't know.
Ayelet:I'll tell you what I think. You're 100% right. You know the advertising and the world that we live in. It is very, very. It makes us, you know, buy and consume and buy more and things. But if we educate I really see it in my clinic almost every day when you educate the people, it breaks the pattern. Because they say I'm not going to judge the book by its cover, I'm going to look at the list of ingredients. I don't want to look about the calories, I don't care about the fat anymore, I just want to see the E numbers and the things that cause.
Ayelet:When you have, when you have a clean 80% of your diet, clean of those things, you would be less in the need of something sweet, something snacky, of something. It's a, it's a circle that you can easily break. And another thing that I just want to point out is that you have to remember that we do have those products. Like if all the products in our supermarkets would be worse, would be bad. You were right. It's. It's like give us something interesting would be to blame. But they do give us options and some companies are better than others and we just shift our, our bind to those companies. They would be there and make more of that. You know, it's like when you point out the good stuff, it's gets bigger, you know, and all, all sorts of things in life. So on this also, when you put your money in something valuable and something better, it will, it will show. So every trick to your super can make a little change.
Di:So, okay, this is fantastic. I, as a public health professional, this is my education, this is why I do what I do. This is why I do what I do. The education system right Because it's not specifically the school system, it's way beyond, it's everybody's education, definitely Also is biased towards where the money is, because it's the government, and the other thing is when there's something called food deserts, and so food desert that's a big thing in the States and we also have it here.
Di:um, in the middle East, certain places there's, there's uh, um, not a lot of choice. In very, very, very, extremely religious areas there's not a lot of choice and, um, very low socioeconomic areas but actually the religious areas are more uh, in in a food desert. So what happens in the state and this is something that's really everywhere is that you can live in a place where an apple okay is so far away from you.
Di:There is no way you're going to go buy an apple and all you have is the 7-Eleven, where I don't know what you can get. Maybe they have an Apple, but it's going to be a pretty expensive Apple and you're going to end up going for something that is cheaper because it's also a lower socioeconomic area. So, yes, education is huge. Not everybody has access to it. What if someone was so brilliant in like one of these massive companies, even like a Walmart store? What if they, the actual companies who are creating all these foods, the what if they started educating?
Ayelet:That would be amazing. But that would be amazing, that will be a hundred percent amazing. But it's also complicated. Because it can, it should always be together. Because if ours, we as a, as a, as people think that snacks and pizza is cool and salad is disgusting, or oh my God, it doesn't taste good, then even with all the education that everyone can put in our faces but we think that only chocolate is cool and crackers and all that, it wouldn't help. So it's always have to be together. The education from health professionals and the industry. And most of the time we're never on the same page.
Di:Most of the time Again, we are out of time Again this is how we roll. This is why I love when we talk we are out of time, because for me, I couldn't put a clock on anything, because it is so fascinating. It is so fascinating. So here's what I'm thinking. Again, this has happened to us before. So here's what I'm thinking. Again, this has happened to us before. I'm thinking that I would love it if you said something about food coloring.
Ayelet:Okay, and then we would have to immediately schedule an continuation of this conversation. Okay, sure, of course. Um, okay, so, uh, food coloring. I know we think food coloring and we instantly think of like children's food and candy and and stuff like that. But actually food coloring is in a lot of places, even in bread. You know I've seen really healthy breads that has a whole wheat, bread which is really whole wheat, like it's not a lie, but they put food coloring in it. You have in in in greens, you have it in really, really a lot of things.
Ayelet:And there's a lot, a lot of bad history with food coloring. You know it comes from oil. It comes from that. There's lawsuits all the time. There is now a new huge, huge lawsuit from a lawyer that blames the Sue's Skittles for all the food coloring. That says that those food colors are not fit for human consume, to consume. There is a lot of research with uh children hyperactivity with with food coloring. And it's on our labels. You know, in israel it even comes to our packaging. I can show you pictures that in the back in the list of ingredients I'm not talking about the calories or the protein, I'm talking about list of ingredients you would see food coloring and you would see a warning. I can show you the picture and so the warning this food coloring may cause your children to be hyperactivity. This is on your bag of things and people still continue to buy it. This makes me I mean this is maybe I've seen-.
Di:Let me put the kids on medication.
Ayelet:Yeah, and it's in front of you. If you just look you would see you're giving your child something that has the warning that this thing infects his brain and his ability to concentrate and to study and be with ADHD. It's on your package. So it's so extremely important to just look on the ingredients and a lot of allergies and food coloring. There's a little story with cancer. It's really really sad. I always say it's a little funny, but actually it's really sad.
Ayelet:There was a research with rats that gave I think it was red coloring, that gave red coloring to rats and it showed that they had cancer. So the FDA made this food coloring illegal. But then people said wait, they gave those rats two times the amount. It's too high. It's not really the amount that people consume. So you can't say that this food coloring makes cancer because it's too much of the amount. So the FDA made it legal again.
Ayelet:And again we're back to the cigarettes. Like, okay, 20 cigarettes makes you cancer, but two I can't say that about two. So I guess two cigarettes a day is fine. I don't want it. Even if 20 makes you cancer. I don't want even two, I don't want even a little. And it's the same thing with cigarettes. You know, if they would give the rats two times or three times tomatoes, they gave it two times or three times almonds, or even bread, they would gain weight, I would guess, but they wouldn't have cancer. So to me I'm done.
Ayelet:You know, when my children go to the pool or to yeah, let's have, let me tell them listen, take the most expensive chocolatey, creamy ice cream. Just don't take the one with food coloring. This is how I want them to, to avoid that. I don't think I have any food coloring in my house. I do have snacks, I do have chocolate, but seriously, food coloring just shows me, the research shows, backs up that it goes to the child's brain and messes it up in any way. And if we were in a situation today that we have a warning in our package of the snack, of the candy, I don't want it, even in smaller amounts, I don't want it at all.
Ayelet:Um, this is. And so food coloring also shows, ruins your gut, microbiome ruins the gut, the gut lining makes your leaky gut and again all those um, storms of inflammation. Is right there is right there happening again with the food coloring. Because you know when you eat, let's say, blue food color. You don't test your blood and the blood is blue, right. It doesn't go in your body. It goes down and down to your gut, to your microbiome. It's a chemical, it's not something you eat, it's not from nature. So it ruins the microbiome in a really big way.
Di:I'm looking at some. We're going to link the research as well on this. This is so disturbing, so upsetting, um, and the fact that the FDA came around and you know they just kind of go with whatever. What, what if the food coloring is beetroot?
Ayelet:amazing if, if you know, if I see something is you know, initially you have like cheese, like yellow cheese, like cheese that melts yeah, not cream cheese, but for it, yeah shelves. One had preservatives and emulsifiers and and yellow food coloring and the other one have a natural food coloring, like the beats you said from carrots. It's called betta carotene. Oh, it's next to each other. If we wanna not consume emulsifiers or food coloring, it's right there in front of us. We just need to see and look and choose it just once and then we know this is the label we want, this is the one without full of coloring and this is what I'm getting yeah, and if you and like, yellow can be too rare, and I mean there's there's so many, that's.
Di:I mean there's so many cool options for food coloring, yeah.
Ayelet:Like beets, like you said, like strawberries, like blueberries. They're really amazing, amazing thing. But you know it's more expensive. It's much easier to make tons of it in a lab and put it in your food because the FDA says well, I can tell you, it makes you cancer. I can't, I don't know, Not proven.
Di:Okay, so we have a startup. The startup is that these food um giants start doing, start getting in on the education um and uh yeah that that would actually be amazing. And then, um yeah, like on the packages, everything should be super, uh, super clear. You know how we have the the red and green um post-its on everything. Those are also. That can also be misleading, but that's a good place to start, like the rest of the world needs to do that too this is we.
Ayelet:we can. We can expand on this on our next conversation, but this is a really, really good start because it said it's right in the front, it's red. When you can see it, you can't. You can't put a green. This is like health industry said this is bad for you, this is good for you. This is amazing and actually I have a problem. Maybe we're going to cut this out and we're going to do more about it next for a decision. But the thing that the industry does it doesn't want the red label of sugar. So what does it put instead? What do they put instead of sugar? So they won't have the red sticker on it? Fruit they put artificial sweeteners.
Di:Oh, no See, I didn't even go there in my brain. I went to a much better place.
Ayelet:In crazy, crazy amounts. And I've actually written to the health ministry here a really big letter Tell them all the problems with the microbiome and all the artificial sweeteners. And they actually replied and we had a Zoom meeting. It was very, very exciting and I told them you're trying to do something really, really good. I think it's amazing. No one looks at the back of the screen. You see the red dots. This is amazing. But, uh, they're making, they're finding their detour to another cheap uh thing that hurts our people even more. So they asked me what I thought I should, we should, they should do. I thought we should have another red sticker that says high artificial ingredients yeah, or chemicals. I would even say chemicals because they're chemicals yeah. And then, yeah, I thought I think it's a great uh answer that nothing is is coming off it right now, but I wish, I wish we would have so people will see. Okay, it has no sugar, but it has a lot of fake chemical ingredients in there. I don't want to give my children that cookie. I don't want that.
Di:When is your next meeting with them?
Ayelet:I don't. There's only once. And this is what my idea, my idea, and I wish we would be the first ones to show the red, the red neck sticker.
Di:It should even be a different color to make it even more pronounced.
Ayelet:Sure, I told them. If you're only concerning the sugar, you're missing out the artificial sweeteners, who are worse, you're missing out Amazing.
Di:Amazingly horrible. I mean Thank you so much. So basically, this was part one of food additives and the microbiome, with a Yed Goyle who is brilliant and caring. It's really, I think, your passion that gets me every time, because you really really care and therefore you are so knowledgeable.
Ayelet:Thank you, I do. I want my kids to grow up in a better and healthier place.
Di:I'm going to have a whole conversation with my five girls today about Skittles, because she loves them and like we keep having conversations about it and I say the same thing. I'm like here's an amazing piece of chocolate, exactly that's what I say. You're doing great alright, alright, thank you. So, so much, and I'm really excited for our next discussion sure me too talk to you soon.