Episode Summary
Episode Notes
Nutritional Biochemist, Dr Libby Weaver, joins Michael and Dino to discuss her approach to health, food and wellbeing.
Libby discusses her three pillared approach exploring the interplay between nutrition, emotions and biochemistry. Libby also enlightens us on her family history and how she got into nutrition, her research on the gut and children with ASD, the role language can have on food choices, what are ‘healthiest’ fast food options and how hot chips are the best guilty pleasure!
Dr Libby’s website
https://www.drlibby.com/about-dr-libby/
Bio Blends
Shake off Sugar
https://shop.drlibby.com/go/shake-off-sugar?v=13b249c5dfa9
Dr Weaver’s reference list (for interested readers)
Transcript
[00:00:00] Michael: Hello, and welcome to the integration station, your go to Pediatric Occupational Therapy podcast, brought to you by the O T F C Group. Today our special guest is Dr. Libby Weaver. Libby is a nutritional biochemist, author, speaker, and businesswoman, and is the founder of Bio Blends, which is a nutrient dense whole food supplement.
Libby studied at the University of Newcastle for 14 years, initially starting with a Bachelor of Health science prior to nutrition and dietetics. Libby then completed a PhD in biochemistry. Libby utilizes a three pillar approach to health, focusing on nutrition, emotions, and biochemistry. Libby helps set up G Guiana, which is a lifestyle retreat in the Gold Coast in 2005 six.
She has offices in New Zealand and the gold. And has been published in The Times, Huffington Post, Sydney Morning Herald, and Australian Women’s Weekly. Libby has written 13 books, including Women’s Wellness Wisdom, accidentally Overweight and The Invisible Load. She joins us today from Burley Heads in Queensland and talks to us about a range of topics related to nutrition, food, and how we present food not only to ourselves, but to children.
The role of the gut in how we. The impact of sugar on our health and also reflecting on her relationship with food and some of her favorite things when she was growing up. First of all, um, thank you very much. Our special guest today is, is Dr. Libby Weaver, as have you said off air Libby. She likes to be referred to as I’ve also got Dino here today.
So, um, we’d just like to welcome you Libby to um, to our podcast. Thanks for coming
[00:01:48] Libby: on. Oh, that’s a pleasure. Thank you so much for having.
[00:01:51] Dino: Tell us a bit about a background about, in an okay, in a nutshell or however long it might take about, you know, your work now, your career, why you got into, you know, what you’re doing, and give us, give our listeners a bit of a background about, um, who you are.
[00:02:07] Libby: Sure. Yeah. So I grew up in Tamworth in Country New South Wales, uh, with growing some vegetables in the backyard and we had chickens in the backyard as well. And then I went to university in Newcastle and I originally studied nutrition and dietetics and then did honors and then did a PhD in biochemistry, where I looked at biochemical and nutritional and microbiological factors in children with autism.
Uh, and after that I went and worked in some of the health retreats around a. And then moved to New Zealand and started writing books and doing speaking. So I went to uni for 14 years, which I know makes me sound really thick and like I probably failed everything, but I very much love learning and I still do.
Um, and so I’ve coupled my 14 years at uni with my 20 plus years of clinical experience, uh, into what I call my three pillar approach. And those three pillars are the biochemical, the nutritional, and the emotional. So I look at everything through those three.
[00:03:05] Dino: That’s quite remarkable. And I think, um, the, the one of the reasons why we’re really keen to have you on our podcast is cuz you had such a profound, um, impact on my wife who attended one of those health retreats.
And that’s where she met you and came back with all of this knowledge about what we could be doing and what we could also be doing for ourselves, but also be giving our families that access our service some information about. You know, the remarkable work that you do. My question is, why is this information from our perspective, um, not so readily available to everybody?
Like why is it not as popular as common as a the AFL football team?
[00:03:50] Libby: It’s, it’s really tricky, isn’t it? I think it’s more readily available now, but I do think partly, well, certainly from a food perspective, Not that long ago. Convenience became the main driving force behind people’s food choices. Uh, you know, all the processed and packaged foods used to just be featured at birthday parties, whereas now they’re part of every day for a lot of people.
And it is the everydayness of our choices that’s having a really big impact. Um, the World Health Organization tells us that six teaspoons have added sugar per day is okay. Wow. And yet, in Australia and New Zealand, we are having on average 37 teaspoons of sugar. Per day. And so a few times 37 teaspoons per day by 365 days in a year, we are eating 45 kilograms of sugar each in a year.
And that’s a big part of the problem. And when you map it out for someone like that, yeah, it’s a little confronting and I really can’t answer the question why it’s not more mainstream or why it’s not better understood or why it’s, I obviously one of the roles that I play in people’s lives. To help them change their choices when they want to do that, when they feel called to do that.
So, yeah. So
[00:05:03] Michael: is that, that’s not just straight out sugar that’s, you know, consumed, um, just raw as it is that’s, that’s added sugar that’s hidden away in other products. Is that, is that where you’re coming from and that’s why it’s obviously a bit of a silent killer.
[00:05:17] Libby: Exactly, Michael. Yes. So beautifully said.
It’s almost like a silent assassin. Mm-hmm. So it’s, you know, you think, oh, it’s just a muffin, or it’s just three biscuits. Well, in three biscuits depend, you know, even just ordinary ginger nut biscuits, not even chocolate biscuits. There’s about eight teaspoons of sugar just in three ginger up biscuits, three scoops of ice cream after dinner, you think, oh, it’s just a bit of ice cream.
There’s another eight teaspoons. So it adds. So quickly, even in savory food, you know, like a pasta sauce. There are some good quality ones out there that haven’t had sugar added to them, but there are so many that have, and they mask the sweetness with salt. So even savory foods can have a decent amount of sugar in them, unfortunately.
Well,
[00:05:56] Dino: we’re Italians and we make our own sauce, Libby, and I’m trying to, trying to see, ask Michael, does his family put sugar in the, in the. We do not. No, we don’t either. It’s all natural. No, it’s that
[00:06:05] Michael: time of the year as well to make our own Passata. We could do a Passata
[00:06:08] Libby: podcast. There we go. We could. And you get all the brownie points.
Not putting sugar in your pasta. Us. Well,
[00:06:14] Dino: that’s, I mean, that’s a, I often have conversations with my parents around food and, and my dad would often talk about how they would, cuz he lived on the farm, how they would just eat natural produce. And he said, you know, they weren’t big kids, they were never big kids possibly cuz they didn’t eat a lot of meat cuz of affordability.
But he said, we ate really healthy, lots of vegetables and, you know, no processed food. He said it wasn’t until he came to Australia that he, he had access to. You know, different types of food and more food that they started to put on weight, but he said they never had an unhealthy relationship with, um, with food.
And I guess the question is, in, in your opinion, do you, do you feel that parents also have, um, a very important role in terms of, you know, the diet of their children? And, and we often look at behaviors and say, well, children often model behaviors of their parents. Is that true in, in, I guess in nutrition as.
[00:07:12] Libby: It is Dino. Yeah. Unfortunately, and I, I don’t want my answer to lead people to feel overwhelmed or to feel pressure. It’s about just d taking small steps in the direction of taking better care of yourself and leading by example. And also teaching children a lot more about food and helping them to understand where it comes from and where, where it’s app.
Depending on age and what’s happening with their development, allowing them to get involved. When you pull the lid of the, when you pull the door of the dishwasher open, that’s a fantastic place for kids to prepare food because it’s easy. You can wipe it really easily. It’s all gonna kind of gonna get washed anyway.
Um, and so they can, you know, be involved in understanding that, you know, that carrot’s going into the spaghetti bologne tonight, uh, whate, whatever it is, but their involvement makes a difference and of. When we speak, they might hear us, but they’ll obviously observe so much more what we do. So yeah, leading by example is, is really important.
And can I just qualify that by suggesting, let’s say right now we eat 35 times in a week, so three main meals, two snacks, seven days a week. Now some people will eat more frequently than that, some will eat less frequently. But let’s say right now, You are having seven out of your 35 meals made from nutritious whole foods if you just include one more real food meal or snack or drink per week.
So just one one of those per week, which I don’t think is overwhelming for an individual or a family. Within two months, you’ll be at 14 or 15 of your meals made out of real food, and you’ll have doubled the amount of nutrients going in and really started to minimize some of the rubbish and some of the concerning substances that are in so many processed foods today.
[00:08:58] Michael: I was doing a bit of, uh, background into your approach and you, you mentioned it before your, your three pillars, but you also had, uh, can’t remember exactly where I read it, but it was four tips for, for children for eating to, uh, increase, um, you know, an awareness, and, and one was exactly as you mentioned, explaining that nu nutri uh, nutritional value, um, involving them in preparation and cooking.
And also, I like this one about changing language of. Um, and it, instead of something being yuck or, you know, whatever it is, it’s, it’s understanding how it’s beneficial for the body. Um, can you explain a bit about that and, and how that language can actually change the, the role
[00:09:33] Libby: of food? Yeah, thanks Michael.
Um, it’s really beautiful when you see this in action actually. So when children don’t under necessarily understand health and as. We want that for them. We want them to be healthy. And so we speak to them that way, but that’s, they’re, they might be our values and we therefore project them onto the child with the, with our, with the best of intentions.
So if we listen to what they value, and I, when I use the word values here, I don’t mean ethical preferences like kindness or generosity. I mean, what does their life demonstrate to you that they value? So they might love being able to throw and catch a ball. They might. Playing rugby, they might love jazz, ballet, whatever it is.
If you communicate to them the value of food inside their own value system, it helps them to connect to it more. Because if they know what they’re gonna get out of it, you get a lot better buy-in. I can remember this wasn’t a food example, but um, my friend’s little boy, he was really fantastic at art and would excel in his, all of his art classes, but in.
He had been expelled. He led him to be expelled from school. There were so many behavioral challenges in maths class, and what a very clever psychologist, the work that she did with him was to help him connect up the value of learning maths with his art. She’s just saying to him, are you ever gonna wanna have an exhibition?
Well, of course I am. Right. Well, where are you having your exhibition? Oh, well, it’s gonna be in this gallery. And so got him So involved in imagining that. Well, how are you gonna, you’re gonna sell your paintings yet? Well, you need to know maths. You’ve gotta be able to count your money. You’ve got, and so the buy-in was really solid.
And it’s, I remember another parent saying to me, uh, the little boys, two little, she had two sons. They were, they loved rugby, obsessed with rugby, uh, and. To get them to eat their broccoli. She said like, look at broccoli. It’s got a beautiful trunk, and then branches, and look how strong that broccoli is. And to be good rugby players, you need to be strong.
And broccoli looks like a tree. And even in windy weather, the tree still stays standing up. Imagine if you eat broccoli, you’ll be like a really solid tree. So she linked it up to their rugby. Mm-hmm. And they ate broccoli. That ki that kind of stuff can, can help them. Absolutely.
[00:11:48] Dino: All right. What are my, my two strategies that I use with my kids when they were.
Particularly my son who was getting a bit fussy at about two, and I had for both of them, we, I think it worked well and my saying was very deadpan and it was always the same. I would say, you don’t have to eat it, but I’d like you to try it. You don’t have to eat it, but I’d like you to try. And that was always a safe way of introducing new food or if we went out for dinner somewhere, they don’t have to eat it, but I’d like you to try it.
And invariably they’d try more things they like than they didn’t like. Um, the other one I remember was, I feel, I feel sorry for Noah, my son sometimes when I tell this story, but I tell it, um, I noticed he was getting a bit fussier and, um, I, I thought I’d try a bit of a reverse psychology. I called it my Jedi mind trick.
And I said, we, we did like the food plate in the middle of the, the dinner table so they could take from them. And we had, you know, carrots and veggies and things. And I said to no. I said, look, you can’t touch any of that. I said, that’s not food for you. I said, you haven’t been a very good boy today. And mum’s told me that you know, your behavior’s not good.
So you can’t have any of the carrots or the broccoli, the potatoes that that’s not for you. You can have the chip. Um, and that’s fine. And then me, I said, but none of that. I said, now, if you’re a good boy next week, maybe we can try and have some. And invariably he waited the next week and he was looking at me and I said, have you been good?
He said, And looked at his mum. Yep. Said, okay, you can try it. And, and it was interesting how, because I always thought that that philosophy behind you can’t have sweets, you can’t have chips. And we apparently, no, no, no. That, that then they want, want, want. And that’s that psychology of if I, they’re telling me I can’t have it, why I must have it then.
And that wor really worked for him. And I remember it at subsequent birthday parties, at places where they had the variety of foods. Everybody was rushing for the chips and the lollies and things, and he’d make. Dash for the, the, the platter that had carrots and sticks of, of Oh, the cheese and the, and I just remember looking at it going, oh my.
That’s not okay because he’s looking around everyone going, why isn’t anybody else scrapping this stuff? And I just thought, oh, free for all. It was just hilarious. But isn’t it interesting that, you know, mindset and, and that that dialogue around food and how we, you know, how you, you know, I guess even how you discuss the, the foods that we potentially wouldn’t want our children to eat also impacts on.
You know how they view that as well, but, oh, I’ll never, I’ll never forget that. He hates my tell that
[00:14:14] Libby: story. Very powerful Jedi mind trick. Mm-hmm. I think too, um, when I, I just have to chime in here because I’ve just, I have seen this from a nutritional perspective just so often in, in more and more children, zinc is responsible for the taste and the texture of food.
Mm-hmm. And so when, uh, Uh, their, when their window of food choices are becoming narrower and narrower, the first thing I want parents to think of is, could they be zinc deficient? Because zinc is really only, only in oysters, red meat. There’s a tiny bit in eggs and a tiny bit in seeds like sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds.
And so it’s incredibly easy for children to become zinc deficient. And then they just usually want white food. There’s many reasons why they might just want white food. Mm-hmm. But certainly texture issues. Um, and the, the color and appearance. And when you get their zinc levels up, it can make such a difference to that.
You don’t have to eat it, but I just want you to try it. Mm-hmm. Because some of them won’t even try it. Some kids won’t even try. So you wanna be thinking of a zinc deficiency and when it’s an appetite, when you think, oh, the appetite’s a bit low, you know, then they’ll only eat a finicky little amount. Or they, you wanna be thinking of iron deficiency.
So they’re two big things, I think to, to keep in mind. Mm-hmm. That’s
[00:15:33] Dino: important, that medical perspective as well. Making sure that they’re, they’re healthy in, in, you know, lots of different ways.
[00:15:49] Michael: You mentioned the restricted food, like white foods, those sort of things. We often, I mean we do, you have a lot of clients that come through our practice that. Are very restricted in their diet. And I guess, uh, you had in your PhD done some evidence and some research on, on children, um, with, with autism spectrum disorders.
Can you give us a bit of insight about what you found and, and was there anything to do with restricted diets or, or how nutrition or values impacted what they ate?
[00:16:18] Libby: Yeah, thanks Michael. It was back in the nineties, right? And um, I finished it in the early two thousands. But, and I, I only say that because to preface it, that it was very, very hard to get ethics approval Yeah.
In a university to do anything a bit out of the box with the kids. Yeah. And it was very much, it was very much focused on ohs and neurological condition. There’s the, the gut has nothing to do with it. And yet in my, so that, and I was convinced there was something to do with the gut. Mm. And even if there wasn’t, You could give the, the child could have an improved quality of life if you could sort out their diarrhea or their constipation.
So forget the, forget the as SD symptoms, let’s just sort out the health of their, their, you know, their, their pooing. That, that makes a world of difference to the parents and a world of difference to the child. Mm-hmm. So I was, in my clinical practice, I was coming at it from, let’s just work on the gut.
Let’s just heal the. And it was only through observation that I started to s not in all children, but in some children stemming would be less self-injurious behavior would be less. In some of them there were slight language improvements. In some children, there were dramatic language improvements with dietary change.
Now, I always qualify what I say because dietary change doesn’t make a difference to all children, but it does to some. Yep. And so, and I’m biased in this way, I always think it’s worth trying to see if it’s gonna be to see if it will make a difference. So my PhD, we, uh, I took, um, I received from the parents or from their, uh, GP rine and feces and blood samples, and then compared them to their siblings who didn’t have any kind of diagnosis.
And the reason I compared it to siblings, I can criticize myself for choosing that as the control group, but I didn’t want, I wanted, I wanted to look for, you know, the families often eat in really similar ways. Yeah. And so I didn’t wanna blame any changes in the gut microbiome on. The A S d I wanted to, I wanted the children ideally eating kind of like, for like yeah.
Which was why I used their sibling as the control. But anyway, so what we found, uh, and then I did some dietary changes with the children and retested their, their feces. So there was a very significant overgrowth of streptococcus species in their large intestine and at, at the expense of another bacteria called e coli.
In with gut bacteria, there are bacteria that love oxygen and bacteria that don’t. And of the ones that like oxygen, e coli is supposed to be the most predominant and streptococcus. They tell us that it’s okay if it’s less than 5%. Um, I, I, it’s my nemesis, so I don’t even accept that, but we’re told that less than five percent’s okay.
But for, uh, the majority of the children in my study, they had over, over 95% of the aerobic oxygen loving, uh, flora in their gut was strep and e coli was 5% or less. So that was, so we were looking then at what, okay, so what is then that driving? Because streptococcus is lactic acid producing bacteria, which means it change lactic acid.
You can hear it in the language, it makes acid, so it changes the pH. Of the environment in which it lives. So the problem with a change in the pH of the large inte at a, at particular points of the large intestine is it means that the beneficial bacteria can’t reside there because they like to live inside a pH range That is very different, where the pH might be higher and still in the acidic end of the spectrum, but higher than the streptococcus are making it.
We worked to decrease the strep species. We worked to increase the e coli species. That was part of it. And then when we did the uterine testing, we, uh, they, they had, the children had typically excessive amounts of amino acids that are involved in that make up our connected tissue. They were coming away in more significant amounts.
So with all the joint fletchers, all the floppy, all the floppys used to tease. All the f floppies that, um, really takes away from their ability to have good, fine motor skills. Um, we needed to change what was happening with their protein digestion and make sure that they were actually able to retain some of these connective tissue, uh, amino acids.
There were changes in fatty acids as well in their blood, but that’s a longer conversation. So it, it really opened my eyes to, um, the power of our biochemistry, the power of, uh, our gut bacteria. Yeah. Have an impact on our health, on our immune system in particular, uh, and how nourished we are, our ability to absorb things like iron and zinc.
Uh, and sometimes it would then translate to, um, improvement or changes in, in some of the kids’ challenges. Mm-hmm. It, it’s
[00:21:23] Dino: a, that’s, you know, quite amazing how you, how you break that down and, and describe it. And I think the two main, the most difficult areas for the families. We work with, with the majority being on the autism spectrum, uh, diet and sleep, um, diet.
I think food wise, because it’s so multi-sensory and we have young people that are very, very reactive, and so food becomes. A highly, um, I guess emotive. Yeah. And, and there’s this, and it’s particularly cuz it’s a length, you know, the mouth, you know, the, the amount of tactile receptors and how, um, you know, how invasive that can be mm-hmm.
For a young person as well. But, um, you know, we, it’s, it’s one of those constant discussions with families. You, you are a hundred percent right. I think the problem with gut related issues and looking at from that perspective is, Some people say that all children on the autism spectrum have gut related issues, um, and require intervention, and it’s not, it’s not the case.
And there’ve been approaches in the past that have been quite invasive, and that’s, it’s tainted that approach, I think, more than it e ever should be. But I mean, we, we talk about, you know, the, the concept of you are what you eat, but essentially what what you are is what you eat. How your brain function is very much determined.
Your nutrition as well, and, and we are working, we used to think that we were working at the, at the most, um, basic foundation level with, with young people, with what we do in, in our sensory world and, and how broken down that is. But realistically, if you are not addressing sleep and nutrition, To start with and basic health and the work that we do is, is, is much more difficult and the progress is much, much slower.
So, you know, try to access Libby that, that, this is my point. He’s trying to access somebody with the knowledge that you have and could explain it the way. It’s not easy, you know, I can’t, I can’t imagine it being, um, you know, the, there’s, there are, there are, I guess, People with the background and nutrition and dietetics and things around, but it’s not always e it’s hard work,
[00:23:37] Michael: you know?
Yeah. I think, and for a few of those functional areas, you know, you, you mentioned the sleep, I mean, uh, sorry, diet, but sleep. We had someone in, recently we talked about sleep, and sometimes it is easier to prescribe a medication to support someone to get to sleep than to go through an entire sleep routine in habits.
And that’s really time consuming, you know, and it’s, it’s hard, but sometimes some of these things, Ha have to be done. Like the, you know, you talk about how much they could impact on someone’s quality of life. Um, it can impact on therapy as well as you said, Dino. And I think, you know, it’s easy to say it sitting here in a chair and as a therapist, but, um, you know, I, I think of myself at home and like with my son when he doesn’t want to eat certain stuff.
I’m pulling my hair out. How do I get him to eat it and what do I do? And I’m modeling this and I’m showing. And it is, and it is hard work. And if I’ve got someone with additional needs, then that’s, that’s multiplied by millions. And it, it just gives you some perspective of how hard it is to change stuff.
But as you said, it doesn’t have to be that hard. You can find little changes and little things and one thing a week and, and it can build from there. That gives you the confidence to go, well, I saw that one change there, therefore that I can do that next week.
[00:24:45] Libby: Mm-hmm. Yep. And I, I’m sorry to hark on about it, it’s just I’ve seen it make such a difference, you know?
If, if you feel like, you know, if you think even hearing one change a week, there’ll be, I’m sure some listeners who think even that is just too much. Yeah, that’s too confronting. So it might be one a month. I f I I found in my work that it would be, it was easier when the children had better zinc and iron status.
They were a lot less resistant to the introduction of something. And, uh, or, um, even, you know, refusing, um, a lot of children, you know, from an ethical perspective. I’m not talking about it from that perspective. The children just unable. From a texture perspective to put meat in their mouth and then suddenly going, all I want is spaghetti bologne for dinner.
Once you improve those mineral statuses, it was really quite amazing to to see that. So if you feel, you know, as we’re talking, if you think, oh, it’s so overwhelming, the thought of trying one new thing a week, maybe focus initially on improving zinc and ion status, or at least having that tested. And then you might find three months down the track, you know, intro, introducing something new once a week or once a month is a lot easier.
[00:25:59] Dino: Libby, is there any, I, I guess, uh, you know, being realistic and thinking about, you know, families that do, you know, do tend to buy takeaway in foods like that. Are there any that are better than most? Or any, you know, like do you have an opinion about one that you’d say, you know what, there’s some variety there, there’s some, there’s some better options there.
That’s a place that if I. If I wanted to or I needed to, I would, I would eat there if I’m stuck in an airport somewhere and there’s, if you wanna pay
[00:26:32] Michael: that much,
[00:26:32] Dino: don’t. Yeah. Right. Is there, could, is there one place that you can think
[00:26:36] Libby: of? Well, oh, probably not a place, but I would say kind of types of food, Japanese food, um, because, uh, it’s rice based, um, would, yeah.
Is tend, tends to be a bit of a better choice with less potential for rubbish to go in there. Mm-hmm. Certainly. Fast, foody, mexicany kind of places. Um, you know, there’ll be plenty of, um, salad and things like that often, you know, a corn chip kind of base rather than, um, deep fried things. So that would also, there there two that are probably stepping in those directions are a bit better.
Okay.
[00:27:17] Michael: Are you, uh, doing a, um, am I correct? You’ve just released a new Sugar Well, no sugar program. Is that, is that right?
[00:27:24] Libby: I have Michael, yes. It’s called. Can you tell us a bit about, yeah. Tell us us a bit about that then. Uh, it’s called Shake. That’s why it’s top of mind right now. It’s all I think about right now.
Um, It’s, uh, yeah, it’s called Shake Off Sugar, and it’s a program over six weeks to help people, uh, get rid of the sweet stuff basically. And it, I come at it using the three pillars because Biochemically sugar leads us to produce dopamine. And uh, obviously that gives us a lift. Mm-hmm. Uh, and some pleasure.
And, um, There was actually, I saw used to see this in my patients very much, and there’s actually research now that supports it. The researchers gave mice, uh, access for 12 hours to a sugary water. And they let them choose as much of that water as they wanted. Uh, and in the beginning of the experiment, the mice were choosing 37 mils.
But at the end of the three week experiment period, the mice were freely choosing 120 mils of the sugary water, and they were looking at their dopamine responses, and in the beginning, 37 mils gave them that dopamine hit, but it, by the end of it, it took 120 mils to get the same. So just like other drugs.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it is. So, same pathway. Yeah, it is Michael. Yeah. And so if, so, as part of the program, I help people to understand that so that they understand there’s gonna be a lull. And knowing that that’s coming, let’s get in touch with what else you care about. So, What is, what spins your tires, bike riding, watching the sunset, uh, watching your children sleep and appreciating how precious they are.
Whatever it is that lights you up, you need to make sure you’re doing a lot more of that when you’re wanting to not have sugar. And then the other part of it is the emotional pillar that I explain as part of the program because people who love sugar are often, I call them love bugs. So we all like to be approved of.
But people who use excessive amounts of sugar are often even more sensitive to the, the approval of others. And I did a, I wrote a book in 2019 called The Invisible Load. And I ran focus groups with women and the younger group, they were aged 18 to 25. And when I asked them about their top, what, what are the things that stress you out the most?
By far and away, the two main stresses for that 18 to 35 year old group, uh, sorry, 18 to 25 year old group was body image and social media. Yeah. And when I share that with older audiences, they don’t understand how social media can be a stress because they use social media to catch up with their friend who lives in Perth or,
[00:29:57] Michael: um, share things that mom sends to me every second day to
[00:30:00] Libby: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Watch funny dog videos. So social media’s, you know, entertainment if you like, or, or connection. Um, but anyway, so for the 35 to 55 year old group of females, One, a common stress offer for them was running late. And if you think about running late, it’s not in and of itself stressful. You might be stressed about running late because you don’t wanna, you might be going to a conference and you don’t wanna miss the first speaker.
But so often what makes running late stressful is we are worried about what the person who’s gonna be on the receiving end of our running late, we’re worried what they’ll think of us. It’s the same concept that happens with younger people with social media. They, the reason social media is stressful for, for them is because it’s a mechanism through which they, they care about what others think.
And so in, as part of the, the Sugar program, I help people to get really clear about how they need other people to see them so that they can see that, that we often make up a story. You know, let’s say a colleague phones us and says, where’s that work? I needed it y. We don’t actually hear what someone says.
We hear what we think they meant and you know, they’ve asked for work, so therefore they must think I’m incompetent or inefficient or lazy. So we perceive that disapproval. So part of changing food behavior, um, certainly, uh, for adults doing shake off sugar is looking at that emotional component as well.
[00:31:26] Dino: Levi, do you think it’s also important to change the perspective or, or the narrative around. It’s you like nutrition is about like, feeling better as, as more so than potentially what do I look like? Like it’s, you know, we can’t ignore the fact that, particularly for younger people, and I’d say teenage girls and boys, cuz teenage boys also have, you know, body, um, body image issues as well.
But they, they equate health with looking good. Do you have, is that something that comes up as well for you? Oh,
[00:32:04] Libby: hugely, Dino, it’s, I’ve never weighed a patient. I never ever had a, when I still saw patients, I never had a set of scales in my office. Um, I feel that weight is so outdated as a marker of health.
I care very much. I think energy needs to be the true currency of health. And I’ll say to people, you know, what’s life like for you? When you wake up in the morning? Do you bounce out of bed full of vitality, excited to be part of a new day? Or do you press snooze 65 times thinking, how can it be morning Already there’s information in that.
What’s life like for you at three o’clock in the afternoon? Are you ravenous for lollies or another coffee? Because you’re so exhausted, or have you got lovely, consistent energy basically across the whole day. So that’s a, that’s a better marker. Um, and, and helping, helping younger people to grow up, valuing other traits, so other aspects of their natures and their personalities, their creativity, their cleverness, their quirkiness, whatever it is, but speaking to them in that way rather than, You’re gorgeous.
You’re pretty, it’s, I’m conscious of this and I find it really tricky when I’m, you know, when I see my friend’s children to not comment on, just cuz they’re just light. Their eyes are just so bright, they’re just light. And I go to say, oh my goodness, you’re so gorgeous. And I change it at the last minute and say, precious.
Yeah. To, to try to move it away from these. Comments about how gorgeous, because they are, they’re gorgeous, but you don’t want them to grow up think to thinking that’s where my value
[00:33:36] Dino: is. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It’s not, not always easy to be, it’s not easy. Yeah.
[00:33:44] Michael: I was just gonna ask a question about, um, obviously where we are, we.
See a lot of children with, with additional needs. But we have a lot of parents and mothers in particular who, um, and I know you’ve done a lot of work particularly with, with, with women, um, mothers who are often time poor, find it very hard to be consistent, managing effective diets, all those sort of things.
I know we’ve touched on, you know, if there’s a fast food place or something, what is, what is the place to go? But is there any, any advice, and I know you’ve written a lot of books, but is there any advice or quick tips or things that. That you might suggest to the, some of those parents, um, about what, what is a change that could be made or how could we, how could we make, um, some inroads into changing diet?
[00:34:27] Libby: Yeah, so firstly, there are times in our lives where we can make changes and there are times when changing what we do with food is not what we need to be focused on because there are sometimes we are so overwhelmed. The other, you know, de the other demands I sometimes describe it, it’s almost like we have to triage our life.
Mm-hmm. This chi, you know, the carpet’s ripped the car needs a surf service and you’ve got, and, and everything. And so it’s like all these plates spinning. Like it’s, it’s like you’re at Heathrow Airport and all the planes are circling, wanting to land, and then you get a phone call from school. Oh my goodness, my child just broke her arm.
Yeah. So, you know, you gotta triage that for, you gotta go there first. So it’s, I feel. There are times in life where focusing on food, we, we, we can be really mean to ourselves and judge ourselves really harshly. And sure it might be an area where some improvements can be made, but I just wanna acknowledge that there are times when there’s too much else going on.
Having said that, there are times when there’s a little opening, there’s a little space where we could do something differently. And also sometimes it re when we wanna change what we are doing with the food for ourselves or with, for our family, we have to actively change it. And we know in our own hearts when there’s a, a little bit of space to be able to do that.
So Sunday, sometimes on Sundays, I find people have a little bit more space they might be at home, uh, and pre-pro preparing something can make a difference, whether it’s soup, stew, casserole, you know those meals that if you have a slow cooker changes your life. If you’ve got a slow cooker, you don’t even have to chop in a tidy way.
You can chop in the messiest way you like and you just literally throw it all in the slow cooker, press play, and you come back seven or eight hours later and you have dinner. And that might, depending on obviously how many family members there are, but. Be the meal for the night. You might get a huge amount of leftovers out of that that you can have in the fridge or the freezer.
And so pre preparing that kind of stuff that you can just pull out of the fridge cuz it’s often at the end of the day when you think, I have nothing left in the tank and everyone’s hungry, what are we doing? And so you just relate resort to take away for that. When it comes to sweet foods, having um, little bliss balls in the freezer can be a great way to go.
Kids usually love the little, little balls, so you have them there in the freezer ready to go, you know, get the kids even to roll ’em up. They take five minutes to make. So sometimes we are real, we genuinely are time poor and it’s not possible. But other times, yeah, we can jump in and pre-prepare things. I will also say that w I do know that at times, and I know I do this myself, sometimes we build it up in our head to be bigger or harder than it is, and.
What do you mean? I’ve got a chopped vegetables that takes ages. It actually takes very little time, so we, we sometimes feel like it’s harder than it is, and just taking, just doing it once makes us realize it wasn’t actually that time consuming after all.
[00:37:40] Dino: All right, so tell us what’s your favorite
[00:37:42] Libby: meal? My favorite meal? Mm-hmm. Well, it’s kind of depends on the mood that I’m in. People often, I love hot chips and people never expect me to say that, but I, I love them, but it’s not always easy to get a good, fri good. Get a good hot chip to get good french fries.
Um, I, I love a good steak. I love just steak and vegetables. Um, a friend, uh, is from Sri Lanka and her curries are just off the charts, so Sri Lankan Curry is amazing. I, I love, I love everything. I don’t even know if I have a, have a favorite thing. Um, avocado on gluten-free toast is just delicious with heaps of salt and lemon juice.
So you’re
[00:38:28] Dino: a realist, aren’t you? You don’t deny yourself food that, you know, we, we’d say, oh, that nutritional value might not be as high as heating a piece of cardboard. Um, because I think that’s the perception. Cardboard isn’t
[00:38:43] Michael: what’s the, the, what’s the, the ratings of cardboard
[00:38:46] Dino: sometimes. My, my theory used to be if it tastes good, if it tastes good, it can’t be good for you.
That’s, but I think, yeah, that’s changed. I’m not gonna talk, I shouldn’t bag my mum’s cooking, but you know, I bet it’s scrunch. It’s excellent. It’s, but it’s brilliant. Her, her stock standard mules are the soul of the earth. They’re brilliant. But I guess that’s the perception is that there’s a bit of, there can be shame around that as well.
Like consulting, somebody who is an expert on nutrition doesn’t necessarily mean it’s like, Just because we are used to working with kids with behavioral issue doesn’t mean we’re the best parents in the world. In fact, my children often tell me that I shouldn’t be working with kids sometimes. Um, I’m, I, it’s, that’s good to know like that you’re, you know, you are, you are not somebody who’s standing there next to a tree saying, you know, just keep what falls from the tree.
Like, you, you have to be real as well, like having food, like pizza or sweets. It’s, you know, you shouldn’t be shamed by that. And. It’s, it’s about, it’s about the consistency, isn’t it? About spot on what you, what you have most, most of the time. And so then when you have that other staff pay, it’s a treat, feels good, tastes good.
[00:39:57] Libby: It’s, it’s, it’s okay. It’s the word consistency there is, um, I love that word. I feel that. We can, the pursuing the pursuit of perfection, I think is nearly always fear-based. So when people think they’ve gotta be perfect or eat perfectly, it’s coming. It’s not necessarily coming from a really caring, loving place.
It’s often from fear. Mm-hmm. And I’ll often describe a spectrum of, and I’m really talking about adults when, when I use this example, but there are people in the world that when it comes to what they put into their earth, I call the body an earth suit sometimes. There are people when it comes to what they put into their earth suit, they need to massively raise their standards.
They need to care so much more because the, your, your, the body is the most extraordinary thing. You just, the human eyeball, the human brain, it just, it blows your mind. What. What it’s all doing and we are not instructing it. It runs itself. Blows, blows your mind when you think about it. And what we eat literally becomes part of us.
When we eat protein, it’s broken down into amino acids. And those amino acids build our muscles and make the cells of our immune system and make our neurotransmitters. So what we eat literally becomes part of our structure. So there’s people who need to raise their standards and care way more about what they eat.
And then there are people at the opposite end of that spectrum. Who they would benefit hugely from being less rigid. They would benefit massively from eating some hot chips and just relaxing a bit. Yeah, because that, and I feel like that’s really restrictive end of the spectrum, and I’m talking more now about eating disorders.
I, I feel it’s kind of come out of that the, when we talk about clean eating, I don’t use that, those words, because I find that particularly for some young women, They, if they think certain food is clean, then other food must be toxic. Yeah. And they’re frightened of it. And you can’t be healthy when you’re frightened of food.
So it’s that word, I love that word consistently. Consistency. It’s about what we consistently do that creates our health. It’s what we do every day. It’s not what we do. Occasionally, if we could kind of get back to the birthday party model with all the junky, rubbish food, it would be way. Yes. Does
[00:42:08] Michael: that mean Hungry Jack’s birthday parties with the t-shirt and the ice cream cake?
Oh yeah.
[00:42:12] Libby: Michael, if that’s what you need, then that’s what I need. Sure. More of
[00:42:15] Michael: that.
[00:42:16] Dino: What about exercise? We, we talk about, you know, we’re, we are big on, we’re advocates for kids being active, and I know we spoke a little bit off air about this and I always harp on with every, somehow always segueways to this about my, my gripe.
The world that kids used to get out and do more and, and climb trees and ride bikes. And don’t get me wrong, it’s been wonderful for our business because so many kids don’t do it that developmentally they have these delays and we have to work with them. But I prefer it not to be that way and that naturally that they were, but the, you know, the, we talk about the screens.
I always think nutrition, for me, balance wise, and I, I’m, I’m gonna be way off the mark here, but in my personal. 90% diet, 10% exercise. I’ve, I’ve believed that you can still have a healthier, um, existence by diet alone rather than exercise, although I’m very big on the exercise component as well. Yeah, it’s com that’s a lot
[00:43:17] Michael: coming from you.
Um,
[00:43:18] Libby: I agree. I agree with you, Dino. Totally. You can’t, no amount of exercise can deal with a lousy diet. Absolut.
[00:43:25] Dino: Yeah, it’s not, you can’t counter no eating poorly every day for three meals by exercising four hours a day. It still won’t, it still won’t add up. You know, I have a teenage son who can probably consume anything he likes and is still a stick, but he burns off.
But eventually your body changes, your metabolism changes, and those habits are gonna creep in. And then you say, well, why did my body change at, you know, 30 years of age when it didn’t change up until that point? And that’s the reason why. But you know, that’s, Exercise and balance between food and diet. I think it’s, it’s not 50 50 by any
[00:43:58] Libby: stretch.
No, but I agree with you. Movement is so important and there is, I feel like we’ve forgotten those conversations need to be, had a lot more. So what are the other benefits of movement and just getting outside and getting busy and getting your hands dirty and coming home? We, we were, I know we were talking about it off air coming home when the streetlights came on and it, you know, there are so many other benefits other than, you know, All the ones that are talked about and from a often from a weight management perspective, what the more muscle mass we have, the stronger our immune system is, the, the better our, um, the stronger our bones become, the bigger our muscle mass there are just so, not to mention the angles that you boys come from, coordination brain function.
It’s just there are endless benefits from.
[00:44:49] Michael: Can we, uh, change tune a little bit? Could I just, um, take a trip down memory lane, if you will. Um, can we talk a little bit about maybe your relationship with food growing up and, um, if you remember ma, remember much about your relationship with food and how it was presented to you and, and I guess from there, did that, anything to do with that get you.
What the field you’re in now?
[00:45:12] Libby: Yes. My grandmother, she lived in a country town about an hour south of where I grew up, and so if she, she would sometimes come to Tamworth and I thought this was normal for a really long time. She used to bring me a bottle of yogurt and the, she used to say to me, now the treat is the big, exciting thing is you can put a teaspoon of honey.
And then it took me a while to realize that other grandparents were giving their grandchildren chocolates or Ah, yeah, I didn’t know. So she used to bring me yogurt and she, this was in the seventies and she used to turn up with this little suitcase, a port, and she had wheat germ in it. That would’ve been probably cuz she had a tendency to constipation, I don’t know.
But she obviously knew that fiber was important, so she brought her wheat germ with her. And again, in the seventies, she was ahead of a time. She had a little bottle of vitamin C and a little bottle of vitamin E and she’d turn up with her port. So I can’t, I’m sure that must have had an impact on me.
Mm-hmm. We grew, we had oranges, mandarins, and peaches, trees in the backyard. And I do remember very clearly my mother saying to me, you know, an oranges a good, it wasn’t like a lecture, it was just a chat, you know, in conversation. Or here’s an orange, did you know they’ve got vitamin C in them and they’re really good for helping you to not get a cold?
And my dad was really, I think we lived in town, um, just with an ordinary backyard, but he was a real farmer at heart and every year he used to plant wheat seeds in a tray of soil and grow it. And, and I asked him one year, why do you do that, dad? He said, oh, cause I wanna see what the wheat crops are at what, what they look like out west.
And so he would then explain to me that these stalks of wheat, they get ground up to make bread. And so I had an understanding from a young age, I guess about, and we had chickens for eggs in the backyard. So yeah, I did that understanding. So that’ll have influenced me for sure. Absolutely.
[00:47:09] Dino: Tamworth Festival.
[00:47:10] Michael: Did you ever go
to
[00:47:11] Libby: that country music. Country music? I used to go back home when I was at uni and get a job and a bar. The Country Music festival paid well.
[00:47:22] Michael: Did did Johnny O’Keefe come to that one time? Was that the Tamworth music? No. Maybe I’ve got that completely wrong. We
[00:47:28] Dino: just, we have a few staff who are very heavy into the country Music.
I think one,
[00:47:32] Michael: a couple. There’s a couple. Maybe a couple G. All right. Stacy will shout out to Stacy. Stacy, yep. It’s the anyone I. Yeah. All right. Well we also have a few, um, conscious of time, but I also wanna throw in a few less clinical questions, if that’s okay. Of course. We sort of touched on it a little bit.
Um, but do you wanna ask some of these Dino? I used to. Okay. Um, do you have a food? Guilty pleasure.
[00:47:56] Libby: Oh, I’ve probably already told you hot chips. Really? Yeah, but I don’t, I don’t see it like that. If I feel like them, I eat them. Yeah. But that’s probably 10 times. Yeah.
[00:48:04] Michael: Max. What? What about like a no-go food?
Well, you, you just released a, your, your sugar kick program. But what’s, what’s your No-Go Food. Food. You just can’t, can’t stand.
[00:48:15] Libby: Oh, I don’t even know if there is one.
[00:48:18] Michael: Mine’s figs. Can’t stand them. Really? Yep. Hate ’em. Mines had ’em, grandparents had ’em growing up. All those things. Can’t, can’t stand figs.
Ones veggie.
[00:48:26] Dino: Oh, there you go. Can’t go near this
[00:48:28] Michael: stuff.
[00:48:28] Libby: No. So even like brussel sprouts? No, it’s, I don’t, I don’t, I can’t think of one off the top of my head. I’m sorry. That’s,
[00:48:34] Michael: no, you’re, you’re living by your word.
[00:48:36] Dino: All right. What about favorite TV show as a child?
[00:48:39] Libby: Be witched. Oh, love a nose wiggle still. I wish that I could, if there was a superpower, we could get my, I would pick teleporting, but I wanted to pick the one wiggle on my nose and go somewhere.
I’ve always
[00:48:52] Michael: wondered, wondered that whether cuz for a period there, mine was like invisibility cause I’m like, couldn’t be anywhere. And then there’s another period where I was like, I wanna fly. I never teleporting time traveling.
[00:49:03] Dino: All that. Yeah, that’s a good one. Oh, I, I’d take the, I’d take Superman cuz he had.
A range of skills. Well, super strength and everything. Yeah. There’s a range there. Not limited to one. True. Yeah. Okay.
[00:49:16] Michael: Um, did you have a favorite toy figurine game? Something, something as a child that you, that you remember?
[00:49:21] Libby: Uh, my dad has a very, very old set and he taught me to play as a Really? Oh wow. Yeah.
That’s really hard to play. I’ve heard Majong. No. Oh, I loved it. Oh yeah. Yeah. F about five years old when he got me sitting around the table, um, taught me how to play that. And I have the happiest memories of doing that. I would’ve done it all the time if we, if I could’ve. Yeah, I loved it. All right, so
[00:49:46] Dino: you’re at a dinner party or you’re hosting a dinner party.
You can invite three guests. Who
[00:49:51] Libby: are they? My best friend from high school, she is so precious and delightful. Brad Pitt, because he’s aged, he’s aged very well and he doesn’t even, he doesn’t have to speak. He can just sit there. Mm-hmm. Get a cut
[00:50:06] Michael: out, get a cutout. Then it’d be cheaper, won’t it? I guess he’s coming.
Sorry. He’s coming via a free will.
[00:50:10] Libby: Sorry, continue. No, no. T can tell he pour in.
[00:50:13] Dino: Yeah. Are we talking Brad Pitt fight club or the.
[00:50:18] Michael: Anything. Anything. Doesn’t matter. Yeah. He’s, he’s doing, yeah, he’s doing pretty well. Good admit.
[00:50:23] Libby: Uh, and, uh, my, one of my professors from university who, um, was such a forward thinker, such a pioneering thinker, uh, I wouldn’t have, he didn’t teach me what to think, but he taught me how to think and he taught me to be curious.
He taught me to. Necessarily take things at face value. Just because something’s been understood for however long it has been, it doesn’t mean you can’t dig in further and learn more. So yeah, he has, he had a profound impact on my life and um, so getting him around that dinner table would be very educational and inspiring.
What are you cooking? Probably avocado on gluten-free toast. It’s a bit of a go-to
[00:51:07] Michael: because I, that’s. A par a um, you know, appetizer. Sorry.
[00:51:12] Dino: Yeah. I’m gonna ask you a question very quickly cuz it’s Avocado always triggers it for me cuz I don’t eat avocado. I’m allergic to bananas. Mm. Is it strange? No. Is it an odd thing to be?
No.
[00:51:23] Libby: No. And probably one of the reasons you don’t like avocados is they have, there’s a little structure in avocados, bananas, and also latex that they all have in common. A little profilin, uh, compound. And, uh, that I learned from the professor I just was mentioning. Mm-hmm. So I, I didn’t learn that in nutrition and dietetics.
I learned that from, Allergist who I was, I worked as a dietician for him. It was my first job out of uni and uh, yeah, so that’s bananas. Avocados and latex all have a thing in common, so yeah,
[00:51:54] Dino: not unusual. Unusual until you saw everybody had a scratchy throat when they ate banana. Like it got worse in my thirties.
Um, but to the point where I got really, really unwell. But um, yeah, it’s interesting cuz I like bananas, but not anymore. You can’t have them. No. Any allergi. Me? Yeah. Like any, you know, like to bananas or
[00:52:15] Michael: nuts. What’s your medical history? I think Dino’s
[00:52:17] Dino: asking, are you going? No, that’s, find that interesting because we, that’s one of the things we have to have, be very aware of in the workplace.
Um, particularly also for, for children that, that may be the reason I never knew growing up anyone that had an allergy to, or anaphylaxis to nuts or things. But then nowadays there’s, like in a classroom when my children were young, there was at least four kids who had EpiPens. You know, has, is, is it that we’re more aware?
Is it that we’re, you know, a lot more proactive or is there a reason why, you know, kids are becoming less tolerant or having, you know, greater, al greater or more allergies to, um, to foods and other things?
[00:52:57] Libby: Uh, I have no, it, it is definitely more common. It’s not greater awareness. It’s, um, it’s more common and I’m sure it’s multifactorial.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it’s, their little immune systems are skewed in the direction to set the allergy up. Yeah. At younger and younger ages, unfortunately. That’s
[00:53:14] Dino: way too much to go into for this podcast.
[00:53:16] Michael: No. Yeah. True. And I do have some really important questions. Yeah. I just did wanna ask at the end as well.
Um, two things. I’ve got a couple of quickfire food alternatives that I wanna throw out, and also a, a guest of food from the ingredients. Mm-hmm. Wow. All right, so we’re gonna go down this path, so, okay. Instead of chocolate carib,
[00:53:34] Libby: instead of spaghetti potatoe.
[00:53:38] Michael: Uh, instead of potato chips,
[00:53:42] Dino: I’ll answer that one.
Nothing.
[00:53:44] Michael: Dino’s favorite
[00:53:45] Libby: instead of potato chips. Yeah, I’d probably go with nothing as well.
[00:53:49] Michael: Done. How about this one? Is Dino’s gonna get triggered by this? Goodness, instead of coffee, death,
[00:53:56] Libby: uh, yeah. Water. Whatever. Water,
[00:53:59] Michael: whatever. There you go. I like, I like teas. I’m a big tea person. Oh no, it’s dirty. It’s not dirty water.
It’s flavored water. Okay. All right. Anyway, um, so can you see if you can guess, uh, this might not last for very long, but I’m gonna give it a go anyway. So see if you can guess the food. So these are pretty well known products from the ingredients. Okay. Here’s the first one. So just so you know, I’m gonna list the ingredients and at the end I want, and, and Eli’s also in the studio, he can jump in and, and Oh, Dino see answer.
Oh, that’s destroyed it. All right. I won’t guess. First one P, grain wheat, raw sugar. Salt barley malt extract, vitamins, nice and thymine, and rib flan, folate. And the
[00:54:41] Libby: mineral is iron,
[00:54:42] Michael: wheat fix. Oh. Oh wow. One from one. Well done. Okay. Okay. This is good. All right, next one. Okay. Cornflower Blend, which is whole grain yellow, cornflower de germinated, yellow cornflower, sugar, wheat flour, whole grain oat flour, modified food starch.
[00:55:04] Libby: Was sugar the second ingredient, did
[00:55:06] Michael: you say? Uh, yes. After cornflower, Sugar was number two.
[00:55:10] Libby: I wanna say Corn flakes.
[00:55:12] Michael: Fruit Loops. I’ll give it to you. Yeah, if I did corn flakes, it’s probably the same ingredients. Um, okay. I’m gonna, I’m gonna go with a re, sorry, this one’s pretty hefty, but, um, yeah, it, it’s a good one.
Okay. We might go with this one. This is a favorite milk chocolate. 38% sugar. Milk solids. Cocoa butter, cocoa mass, vegetable oil, ems. Soy lain. Have I said that correctly? Leshan Lessin, thank you. E 4 76. Flavor, whatever that is. Wheat flour. Sugar vegetable oil contains soy and brackets, golden syrup, food colors, caramel.
Three bee red, coile, anato. Cocoa powder salt baking powder, uls, foya, soy listen and flavor. Sorry. That’s, that’s,
[00:56:08] Libby: that’s a mouthful. Is it some kind of, um, chocolate bar
[00:56:11] Michael: Chocolate? Well, well, yeah. It’s, it’s a, it’s a chocolate flavored, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s more of a, more of a biscuit. Oh, it’s
[00:56:18] Libby: a
[00:56:19] Dino: biscuit. Mm-hmm.
Favorite Ozzie Tim. Tam’s. A
[00:56:23] Michael: Tim
[00:56:23] Dino: to, got it. You got it. There you go. That’s a heart attack. Waiting to happen there, Michael.
[00:56:27] Michael: That’s a lot. Well, that when we go back to stuff that’s in there, you talk about, you know, the silent killer or stuff that’s hidden in there. What the
[00:56:34] Libby: hell is all this stuff? Like what’s, what’s E 4
[00:56:36] Michael: 76?
What is caramel three? What was caramel one and two?
[00:56:41] Libby: There’s no such thing as junk food. There’s just junk and there’s food. And we really, as a species, we’re supposed to eat food, not junk.
[00:56:49] Michael: Unbelievable some of
[00:56:50] Dino: this stuff in there. But anyway. Do you do that, Libby? Do you look at, you know, foods and packages and look on the package?
Yes. Five star
[00:56:56] Michael: rating, right? What’s,
[00:56:57] Libby: you know, I don’t look at, I look at the back of a packet. Not the front, the front of its marketing, the nutrition, the ingredient list, the um, like what you just read out, Michael, the nutrition information panel. Mm-hmm. I’ll look at things like that. Yeah. Not the five star health rating.
No,
[00:57:14] Dino: it’s big business, isn’t it? Food, big business. Mm.
[00:57:20] Michael: All right. Well, I think on that note, um, you, I’m, I’m gonna give you 2, 3, 3 outta three. That was pretty, that was
[00:57:26] Dino: pretty good. That was good. That was good effort. Yeah, absolutely. You’ve got a PhD.
[00:57:33] Michael: Well, if you, uh, if you ever decide to have that dinner party, you want two extra guests or three as long as you got okay with Eli, come along too.
We are more than, more than happy to come along and we’ll, um, I’ll give you some more, uh, questions to ask about
[00:57:44] Libby: food. Terrible cook. It’d be so fun. Well, you might only get avocado. Oh no, I wouldn’t give you avocado, Dino. No. You could just have
[00:57:50] Michael: dry toast. Avocado. Just do banana. Split at love de avocado.
Yeah.
[00:57:54] Dino: There’s the death of me. Okay.
[00:57:56] Michael: Thank you so much for joining
[00:57:57] Dino: us today. Thank you for being very generous and also being very flexible with your, with the dates and everything else. We really
[00:58:03] Libby: appreciate your room. Thank you for the work that you do in the world. It’s so important, and thank you for how you care.
Thank you. Thanks, li.
[00:58:10] Michael: Thanks, Libby. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for listening and for your continued support. Please subscribe to the integration station on Spotify, apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And feel free to give us a short review if you have 30. If you have any questions you’d like discussed Dino, and I hope to have a q and a episode in the future.
So please send any questions to the integration station email podcast otc.com au or via the ot ffc website, ot cgroup.com.au/podcast. And. We’ll try and answer them on an episode, and as always, shout out to you fledge. Until next time, it’s goodbye from me.
