S2E4: Can Having a Tiny Fridge Improve Your Health?

Tiny Fridge Nation!

Studies have shown that creating small, healthy habits can lead to lasting sustainable change. So how can having smaller fridges cause Americans to eat healthier? We will discuss important societal and cultural changes that need to happen on this episode of Free-From Podcast.

Guest:

Sonia Hunt, author of Nut Job: How I crushed my food allergies to thrive

Transcript:

Farm to table, organic, locally grown, sustainably sourced. These are all buzzwords regarding the environmental food movement. Today we'll explore what these things mean and what needs to happen in order to make these environmentally and healthily sound choices more available for everyone. 

GUEST: Sonia Hunt is a certified integrative Nutrition and Health Coach, TEDx Speaker, and a best selling author for her book, Nut Job: How I crushed my food allergies to thrive.

Sofia Gillespie: Hi, Sonia! I was wondering if you could give us a really brief introduction of yourself and kind of what got you to where you are today? 

Sonia Hunt: Yeah, I actually have a very personal story around chronic health conditions. I’ve been a child and adult with severe food allergies since I was three, and I always say I was just barely surviving during that time. I've had multiple anaphylaxis incidents in my life, the fourth one being in 2008, which I would say was truly my rock bottom because of how toxic and how bad that situation was. It served as this critical point in my life where I just decided that I needed to be on a journey to do everything differently, to get to the root cause and transform my health. There's such a detriment, not just to physical health, but to mental, spiritual, and emotional health. I worked on that for a long time, and did many things, all of which I wrote about in my book, and I've decided to dedicate my life to helping people out there who suffer from chronic conditions like food allergies. And so that's why I got certified as an integrative nutrition and health coach. Now I have a practice where I work with people to heal across body, mind, spirit, and emotion. 

SG: So it sounds like food allergies were your gateway drug into the health world. 

SH: Yeah, absolutely. 

SG: Nutrition is so important, it's so vital to not just people who have food allergies, but for everyone. Food can really be medicine in the sense that it can prevent diseases, treat other diseases, and just improve overall health.

SH: Absolutely, and I think one of the biggest things that I started to do was to think that way. Changing mindset is the number one step. There's so many different ways in the world which I can heal holistically, right? Body, mind, spirit. For my entire life, my parents and I really focused on only physical health, because, you know, when you're dealing with food allergies you want to make sure you're not eating stuff you're allergic to. You're taking medication to suppress symptoms. You might be doing different kinds of therapies, but those other areas of health we just hadn't had any support for with my doctors. We never talked about it. We didn't really even know what kind of detriment I had to my mental health. So part of that journey was really starting to change my mindset around food being medicine rather than me hating food. I come from a ‘foodie’ family, so to say that I had such a negative relationship with food was so sad. But I really had to look at that relationship with food again after 2008 and come to this beautiful place where I am now.

SG: Our previous season was all about food allergies, and how it impacts travel, it impacts schooling, it impacts mental health like you were just saying. But this season we're talking about food and the planet: what you're putting in your body, where it comes from, who grew it, how it was grown, what kind of pesticides or chemicals were used on it... I know you are very interested in the farm table movement. Can you tell us a little bit about what exactly it is and how we see it play out in our lives around us?

SH: In simple, simple terms, farm to table means buying local and seasonal ingredients. So we're harnessing that produce and the livestock of locally grown farmers and all of those ingredients are natural and they're organic. Farm to table is so important because it actually promotes healthier eating. You know, one of the interesting things is that the produce that we eat, most of it loses its nutrients within twenty-four hours after harvesting. I'm not sure how many people know that. So by sourcing locally, chefs and restaurants, and anyone who is cooking at home can get these ingredients more quickly while they're at their peak freshness and full of nutrients. And so, therefore, the food tastes so much better, and it's packed full of all the natural vitamins that we need for our health. And there's planetary benefits as well, because any restaurants that are operating farms table in that mode, they're reducing pollution and emissions, right? We don't need all those planes and trucks and boats in that model. 

SG: And is this something that you see as attainable? I'm thinking more of, say, you live in Minnesota where it gets cold in the winter and nothing's really growing. How does farm to table work through different times of the year? 

SH: So the whole idea is that you're buying seasonal. It doesn't necessarily have to be organic, but it's just these local seasonal foods. So whatever's in season in the fall, spring, winter, summer. When tomatoes are in season, we might be making more sauces at home, which is really nice, because it gives it variety as well. A lot of farm to table is also a cultural shift - we're so used to eating pre-packaged canned goods because they have shelf life and it will be there all year round. The stuff you get in a can was preserved and also has a lot of stuff in it that you probably don't want to eat. If American culture started shifting to look at what’s in-season, there's a lot of things that we can create. We can cook with this food over the next six weeks, three months, and then, you know, this won't be in-season and boom! there's another bountiful supply. That's a big cultural shift for all of us to go through, and it is something that I started to do as I was looking to transform my own health. I would go to the local farmers market and buy something that day and cook it that night. The price is actually much more inexpensive than if you bought, even say organic items, or these items in a supermarket

SG: That's wonderful. I remember when I was living in Latvia, the in-season thing is huge. They only have clementines during Christmas time, like during the winter months. I was always so excited because I'm used to, you know, shopping in the American supermarket when you can get whatever you want whenever you want. But in Latvia, and I'm sure in other countries around the world, you can't. They're just out of season. You can't get them. They're not being transported right now, or whatever. So yeah, it definitely is a bigger cultural shift than I think us little Americans here realize. 

SH: Yeah and that's the great thing I think about the mindset shift as well, when you're dealing with chronic conditions, at the root of most of them is nutrition and lifestyle. So whether you're dealing with allergies like myself or you're dealing with stress, depression, obesity, cancers… medical professionals are telling you to make changes around diet and lifestyle. So the great news is that we actually can start to shift our mindset. And if we think in terms of seasonality, in terms of what's new and what's available, it becomes kind of exciting. I know, like in certain seasons, I'm really excited for cherries, or peach season, or when tomatoes are at their best. So think around this as an experience right rather than you simply eating food. 

SG: You also mentioned the financial aspect which I know is really interesting. I read an article recently that was talking about how, especially during our time of inflation and rising gas prices, the local food is actually cheaper, or around the same price as the food that's been heavily processed and shipped in. For example, you have eggs just from down the street versus eggs from the supermarket, and they're surprisingly the same price, but one is a ton fresher. That's something that's really encouraging and hopefully it will stay after inflation goes down. But, like you said, buying from local farmers markets isn't as expensive as you might expect. Also for people who are on government assistance for food, with the SNAP or WIC Program, the EBT benefits at some local farmers markets get doubled, and so you can buy double the amount of groceries at the farmer's market than you could at the supermarket. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that fresh organic food isn't necessarily harder to find financially, but it might be harder to find geographically like what neighborhoods you're living in, and if there are farmers markets and things like that. 

SH: There's two things we can do that really transform health, and they're super simple. It's drinking more water and eating more fruits and vegetables - literally that's it. But again, as a culture, we really really struggle with that. I always say, don't put a lot of stress on yourself that everything I eat has to be organic because there is a cost associated with that. Eating only organic produce is not scalable because of the cost, and so, as food prices increase, communities throughout the world become unable to afford that basic building block of a healthy diet. So people end up buying food that provides enough calories to survive, but not enough nutrients. So what I always say to people is, don't worry about the organic, just worry about buying the fresh vegetables and fruits. There is the dirty dozen and the clean fifteen. There are twelve dirty crops that farmers use the most pesticides on, and the clean fifteen are crops that use the least amount of pesticides. So if you are gonna buy anything organic, there's literally like twelve ingredients that include strawberries, tomatoes, cherries, apples, things like that… So perhaps make that choice consciously to buy organic there, but everything else is fair game that will still provide you really nutrient-dense ingredients for your health. So I think, because of the cost in the US, we really need to focus on sustainable solutions that are gonna decrease the price of food for everybody and increase the accessibility of healthy produce for all. This is called the mantra of scalable sustainability, which is this idea that we can make nutrition more inclusive by demanding the right products - low input, high output crops, ones that require little water, little fertilizer, and little space to grow in high yield. It's not necessarily all about organic, it's about starting to think this way so that we can feed the over three hundred million people that are here in the United States. And again, I come back to the fact that this is a real cultural shift which includes farming better and really revolutionizing the way we're growing food and the way we're eating. 

SG: That's so important to remember. And of course, in terms of the health of the planet, using fewer resources and space, time, water, like you mentioned, are beneficial for everyone. That gives our planet a little bit of a break because we've been asking so much of it, since forever. Where have you seen an example of a well-functioning food system? I know you have spent time in multiple countries, and you've eaten lots of places, and I would assume, have done some grocery shopping in various countries. So where have you seen a place that's been particularly well managed and made that nutrition more accessible for its customers?

SH: There's a couple of things. My parents are from India, and they truly grew up farm to table. Like even refrigerators in India are really small. And so the culture is not that you go to a Costco and stock up all this stuff for like months and months. No, you are going to the market every day, or the market is coming to you and you're picking what's in season - all fresh ingredients, vegetables or spices, plus proteins if you have the money for it. Lean proteins, otherwise a lot of people are vegetarian. As a child growing up, we saw this first hand, but my siblings and I were all born in the US as first-generation Americans. We would come home to twinkies and ding dongs and pre-packaged snacks. This is a huge cultural shift. So, my mom would cook every single day, all of the meals. She always had to fight against three demanding children that wanted to eat sugary cereals, so she had to balance American food versus eating Indian food. And then for me it was also much more difficult, because I wanted to eat all that, but I couldn't because of my allergies. So when we would go to India, I would really see this difference. It's very exciting for a young child to see somebody butcher an animal, or have fresh prawns coming right out of the water, and you put it in your bag, and walk home to cook it right away. That was really exciting for me. The other place I recently visited was France. France is a country where, just like India, food is an experience. One of the things I love to do when I travel is put on my sneakers and go on a run through neighborhoods praying that I'm going to run into a local market. People from all over town are there, buying everything from cheeses to bread to vegetables to fresh olives and rotisserie chicken fresh from a farm. The other thing that was interesting to me was, in the supermarkets, they have something called a nutriscore, and that nutriscore is this label right? 

SG: I’ve seen that! 

SH: Right? So A, B, C. D. E. And they rank food from, I believe it's a negative fifteen, which is the healthiest to plus forty, which means very unhealthy. It's clearly marked on those items. So, the idea is that you make that conscious decision when you pick an item up by informing you that according to these ingredients on our rating scale, this is something that's healthy, or it's not so healthy. You make that decision to eat it or not.

SG: My friend just got back from Germany and brought me some little chocolate crackers and of course the nutriscore was an E, the scale was A to E - E being the worst. I'm surprised they didn't just go to F and say the item fails at nutrition. But it's fascinating to me, packages have the name of the food, and shows you a little picture of what it is, but the only other thing on the front of the product was the nutriscore. There’s no other marketing material. I don't know if that was just that one item, I need to look into that a bit more, but it was fascinating to me that it doesn't make these fake promises on the front - like this will be good for calcium, but really it's a minuscule amount.

SH: I think, in a country like France, it's about the experience - it's about getting people together cooking fresh stuff and really enjoying the conversation, the wine, the food. They also walk around so much, they're not relying on their cars all the time. There’s also a lot of amazing public transportation throughout France - people are walking everywhere. You are literally walking everything off right after you're eating. My other observation was, their portions are smaller than what we have in the US, but it’s not necessarily like everything on their plate was so healthy. What I mean by that is, there are carbs, there is bread and fries, but there is complete transparency about how healthy or not these items are. And again, this is all cultural. They are demanding transparency in their food, which I believe is a human right. They're demanding that they don't have to go for seconds and thirds - it's just the culture that they've built, which I think is amazing. And there are other countries, Canada, Switzerland, and Brazil that include sustainability within their national dietary guidelines. They promote plant-based food in their dietary guidelines, and that's something I think we struggle in this country to get to. But I would love to see that change happen.

SG: I think there's also perhaps a disconnect in the food system. The people may be wanting these things, but our system, the infrastructure we have isn't built to sustain that. How our cities are built, we're dependent on the car - we would have to completely re-plan our cities. And so there needs to be some sort of great American compromise, where we figure out what would work for modern America. We have all these these food deserts, food apartheid happening because communities have been segregated and the food companies haven't followed; or they put polluting factories right in people's, neighborhoods. So these are all things that we should take into consideration when we're re-planning and rebuilding our food system. But it is helpful to see models, not just in Europe, because Europe has its own issues as well, but from India and Brazil. There's all these different places all over the world that have something that we can learn from. I want to ask you one more quick question, or it may not be that quick, it might be a can of worms. What are some things that we, as individuals, can do to start speaking up for having these things that you were mentioning before, like having that transparency in our food - what can we do? 

SH: First and foremost, I think it has to start with each person in their own home. And the way that we do that is to forget what society is doing. Forget what everybody else is doing, the change can start with you. You can start to make conscious decisions for your own health and for preventative healthcare. Think of it this way: you have limited moments throughout your lifetime, you want to be able to experience everything that you want to do in the world and that starts with being healthy. So, starting to make conscious decisions around what you put into your body, and even on your body, is number one. It's everything from reading labels to asking questions to really advocating for yourself and your health and any health issue that you're dealing with. It is your human right to have that information, and if you're not getting it, I would say skip that food. In the food allergy world, if somebody doesn't know what’s in a food when I ask, I'm like, ‘no, no, no, you lost me, like I'm out.’ And again, it sounds funny, but drinking more water and eating more fruits and vegetables is key. So I challenge everybody to take one day and just go plant-based. All your meals being plant-based is so much better for the body, so much better for the planet. There's a ton of alternatives to protein that are plant-based, see how you like it. Then slowly start to build up. You do not have to go one hundred percent vegetarian or anything, but every little thing that you do really will help. And the final thing I'll say is we have one hundred and thirty-three million people with chronic conditions, with so much food insecurity in the United States, and the affordability of fast food and really unhealthy food is making us have these chronic conditions. It's really time to start reimagining those value systems around our food and health. Again, it starts with you, your home, your family, and once you start humanizing your health, it is time to start spreading that message out there of how you're doing it, the things you've learned, educating restaurants, shops, friends... This is how we start to change behavior, change those beliefs and those habits and those patterns. 

SG: The power of TikTok, right?

SH: Yes, do a TikTok dance and educate people on what our value systems could be around food

SG: Well, Sonia, it's been a huge pleasure talking with you about farm to table and vegetables and small fridges and nutrition. It's been wonderful. And before you go, can you just tell us real quick the name of your book, and where people might be able to find it?

SH: You can connect with me on social media. You can read all about the book, and there's links to Amazon and everything there. If you're ever interested, I do free health coaching sessions for people in need all the time. So please please reach out. I'd love to spend some time with you, and just get to know you. 

SG: Excellent! And you can also check Sonia out in our Free-From Magazine.