Health on the plate: From food abundance to nutritional intelligence

What we want to try and encourage people to do is to really try and eat the rainbow. It's not about doing targeted things, it's about what we're doing most of the time consistently. So Vanessa, very nice to talk to you, to have this opportunity to get some very professional knowledge on nutrition. Nutrition has always been a passion of mine because it actually was more born out of an interest in how do I manage my weight and what I want people to learn is that it's not about doing targeted things, it's about what we're doing most of the time consistently that makes the real difference to how our health and immunity is expressed. Everybody knows immune system but everybody does not know immune system exactly, so would you please put that in simpler We used to look at the immune system as being kind of border protection, like it was an infection protection function, but actually what we know now from decades of research that's coming out is that the immune system is more than just one thing. We know we have the innate immune system and that we have the adaptive immune system. Innate activation is when you're starting to get a virus or a cold or influenza, something like that that's going to be coming, that will create a less hospitable environment for the virus. It's not that it's going out and it's pounding the virus into eradication, it's actually just stopping the virus from spreading within your system. There's a whole process that's happening with oxidation, which is why we need those good antioxidants. It's not just a simple thing to screen the virus? No, it's basically I like to think of it, I used to work in property management, so I like to think of it as a property management system, that it's helping us to interface with what's coming in from outside and what's going on internally for us and what our body systems can cope with and handle. So any advices for everybody here who are also working in a very, very intense environment and work pace as well? I think taking time out to focus on who you are and what your goals are, whether you're trying to become more athletic or maybe you're trying to be more focused for a presentation, using nutrition to help you. So focusing on the things that are going to help your gut and your immune system to flourish. There's like five F's, so think about fat, where are you getting your fat from? Things like avocado, fat from fish, so then we have fats, we also have fibre. Fibre is really important for the gut bugs which in turn influences the health of your immune system. Then we have phytonutrients. Now I know phytonutrients is spelt with a PH but we say it with an F, right? So those are all the different compounds that come in the different coloured fruits and vegetables. Fish, getting enough oily fish. I know here we eat a lot of like white fish and that's very beneficial but eating those cold water fishes like the mackerel, herring, those little anchovies, those are really quite a powerful bang for your buck, the little anchovies. Getting more of those oily fish in is great for the skin but also really good for that anti-inflammatory omega-3 dampening of the inflammation in the system. And then the last one is kind of two together, it's like flavour and fun. I believe that food should be flavourful. The more you can make your own dishes at home, really zing, like just adding like some different herbs and spices you might get from different countries. Like I'm playing a lot with sumac which is kind of from the Barbary, Burberry from the Middle East. Let's talk in the real environment. Let's go to the supermarket to see what food to pick. So you see here we're in like fruit and vegetable section and this is a place where we need to draw a lot from. We have so many different coloured fruits, you've got the yellows and you've got the purple and the green. So you can really like ensure that you're getting like nice variety and like I mean for most people making sure that you're having 30 different types of plants and vegetables which includes fruits which is basically five a day. Meats contain all nine essential amino acids so they are the the best source of protein. Chicken, turkey, fish are kind of like a leaner protein and so if we're trying to maintain our health or maintain our weight it's much better for us to go to those So in order to get a balanced nutrition in our daily diet, how do you define the portion of food we should eat? You look at your plate and so like half of your plate should be plant, green leafy vegetables. Okay. And then a quarter would be a grain so some rice or starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes and then a quarter of it should be meat. So apply that to the Chinese situation where you're always having meals that are shared. It's very very rare that you will be served with a piece of meat as a fillet. A common rule of thumb is to use your hand because we're all metabolically different and we're all different sizes right so we look at our hand and it's probably like the size of a playing card like a deck of playing cards but that's kind of a portion of meat so that kind of thickness and then that sort of size. Okay. And then your vegetables should be like two hands and then for the fats it's kind of like your thumb so like a tablespoon or like the size of your thumb for fats. Some nutrition therapists in China say you can eat as much vegetables as you can, it doesn't matter, it doesn't really matter. They're not calorically dense but if you're on a weight loss plan then you still need to be mindful of your portion but in general what we want to try and encourage people to do is to really try and eat the rainbow. Draw from all the different colored sources. It doesn't have to be all in the one meal but over if you think about it week by week just choose like if I this week I'm having red peppers so then next week I'm going to choose to have this type of orange peppers just think about broadening the variety. The colors matter so much because of the polyphenols and the phytonutrients in the vegetable themselves so those are very specific compounds that give it that red color or this purple color and it's these compounds that are very immunoactive they react well with the immune system. And you have an interesting theory of you are what you absorb. Yes. Could you elaborate on that? Because our immunity really relies so much on that symbiotic relationship between our gut health and our immune health and our metabolism. The interface of our immune system with our external world and what we're bringing in, if there's something that's not working quite so well then we just don't absorb the nutrients from the food that we're eating. Whereas we really need to focus on doing what I'm saying in terms of like the variety. We get the fundamentals right but for most of the time it doesn't mean like all the time and you can never have like I don't know a big treat meal or you're not going to eat a mooncake or you're not. Of course have those things but think about what you're doing for most of the time. Make sure that what you're doing is consistent and it requires you to develop a bit of awareness around what you're doing, what food choices have you made in the last few days, 10 days, a week and then adjust accordingly. If you know that you've been on a big work trip and you've been drinking too much and not sleeping enough then make sure when you get back that you're having loads of nice nutritious soups, something that's really easy to digest so that your gut can kind of calm down and start to work better again. Yeah so I definitely work on the principle of you are what you absorb.