63: Your Kitchen Could Be Making You Sick – The Shocking Truth About Food, Hormones & Healing with Shelly Rose

If you give someone a protein goal like 120 grams, they will say, my God, that is so much protein. So for women, it's more important to distribute that throughout the day than it is to divide that by three and try to do that in every meal. And so especially after workouts for women, they are already again catabolic and they're already losing muscle so quickly compared to men. And so having protein immediately after workouts is more important for women than it is for men, for example. So I just have them really distribute it throughout the day. I give them a protein cheat sheet that says, hey, 4 ounces or however many ounces of chicken is this and fish is this. So they have a general idea. I don't want them to be calculating all day long. That's not the goal. It's just to be aware of what it means to get this protein in and to practice it until they know how to accomplish that.

Welcome everybody once again and I am excited to be here with friend and colleague Shelly Rose. We're gonna do dive into all things cooking kitchen. She is a, you know, we'll talk in a little bit. We were kind of discussing it before, but she's basically has a several degrees that focus around using food as medicine and I'll kind of go into those in her introduction. So without ado, we'll give you the introduction and we'll dive into today's conversation. So Shelly Rose is a functional nutritionist and a natural foods culinary instructor with a passion for helping people cultivate a joy filled, vibrant life. She accomplishes this through real food movement, anxiety and stress relief, meaningful connection, purpose, time in nature and restorative sleep, which you kind of hit all the foundations of functional medicine right there in one sentence. So you do that, you're gonna, you'll be great. You'll, you'll take care of 80% of all the issues of right. She's a founder of Pure Roots Nutrition where she has empowered clients to take food and lifestyle first approach in Health since 2011. She earned her master's in human nutrition and functional medicine from the University of Western States in partnership with Institute for Functional Medicine. She began her career with a bachelor's degree in nutrition and culinary arts from Bastyr where she also trained in botanical medicine and farming table culinary arts. Rooted in the philosophy that true healing begins with Finn, Shelly takes an evidence based, intuitive and highly personalized approach to wellness. She believes everything is connected and thus it's important to see the whole person, mind, body, spirit. That sounds very familiar to My people out there. While she's not teaching, you'll likely find her traveling with her family, recipe testing, practicing yoga, breath based meditation, lifting heavy things, which is great for muscle mass, particularly in females, adventuring outdoors, hiking, camping, and a lot of amazing stuff. So Shelly, welcome. It's great to have you today and I'm excited. Looking forward to our conversation.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited too.

Now, I don't know if you remember the first time we actually met. I believe it was 2001 or two. So yes, that's a long time. We got reintroduced actually when my life and I moved back to, to Virginia from the military. So just give us a brief like how do you get down culinary arts? I mean, you know, I think you know people with MasterChef and TV shows, but culinary arts is a little different because you're not just looking for flavor, you're looking actually for using food like a drug. So can you walk us? Like how you got to where you're at right now?

Yeah. So food is medicine and therapeutic cooking is different than your classical trained culinary arts type of program. And so when in 2007 I, you know, had experienced like a life event with a loved one and it made me realize, wow, like food really matters and I need to learn more. Like I don't know enough. And so I looked for some of the best schools in the country that taught nutrition, like whole food space nutrition as well as culinary arts. In Bastyr University is a naturopathic medical college. And this was the first year they were offering this sort of double major in culinary arts and nutrition. It was perfect. And so I moved across the country for it and left my corporate job because it just seemed I could not go. It was exactly what I wanted. And so yeah, this part of before I got there though, I started to change the way I was eating. I grew up eating a lot of processed foods. I grew up eating not clean. My parents, you know, didn't have as much, so we didn't eat very well. More canned and processed foods and things. And I felt really terrible most of my youth. Digestion issues, skin migraines and things like that. And it wasn't until my early twenties I started to eat cleaner and I realized, oh my God, there's connection between what you eat and how you feel. And no one ever said that to me or mentioned that to me. And I didn't know that either until I started to change, you know, what I was eating and I started to see my skin clear, my digestion got Better. When I figured out my food intolerances, my migraines went away. I had surgery to correct migraines that didn't work. And then food was the fix. It was not surgery. So things like that made me realize what we're eating really impacts how we feel. And so that connection was huge that I Learned in my mid-20s and then. And again when I found this program, it was just perfect. It taught us how to cook for disease prevention, for care and for recovery. It taught us to focus on food as medicine, like the polyphenols and nutrient properties in foods and what their actions are and their mechanisms. The same way we look at drugs or botanical medicine, we can look at food that way. And I really got to learn how to make balanced meals, vegetarian meals and omnivore, like meat based meals. So trained in both. So I've definitely helped people depending on what works best for them. And yeah, I think that's really where. That's how I got there at least and got all the way across the country.

That's a really cool story and it's really interesting. Migraines. When I moved back to Virginia from Florida, when I got out of the military, I started using elimination diets with migraine headache patients. And with over the period of a year, I picked up a reputation in Richmond for being the migraine guy. And he was everybody starting elimination diet. Amazing how many, like, I literally picked up a reputation in our city for being a migraine expert guy. And all I was doing, I mean, I was doing all the medications of course as well, because I'm a medical doctor. But the foundation was elimination diet on top of the medications. And it's like, that's not that much to like, to massively change people's headaches but also pick up that kind of reputation. So I want to take that and dive off to that. Just talk about, you know, using your kitchen as a place of healing. We talked about before we started recording, you know, food planning. I feel like a lot of my. The people I work with have a hard time, like, let's eat real food. We give them a food plan, whether it's, you know, cleanse or whatever. And they're like, just stuck. Like, how do I actually implement this? So when you work with people, like, can you tell us, like, what are the three top sticking places when people are trying to plan, like, plan and how do you walk people through, you know, conquering those roadblocks?

Yeah, that's such a great question because it all starts there. It starts with your systems Right. Having something you can sort of plug and play. So you're not every week at 6pm standing in front of the refrigerator going, what's for dinner? Again. And so we're all guilty of that and that's normal. But yeah, I think the biggest piece is having a plan. And so when I sit down with people, I do roll up my sleeves and I get in the weeds with them. I. I do not hand them a meal plan to follow. I mean, for many reasons. One is because people don't typically want to eat the foods on their cooking skills or lifestyle might not match it. So I spend time teaching people how to meal plan. I meal plan with them. So that philosophy, teach a man to fish kind of thing. And so when we do that, we literally look at. I teach them to sit down like on a Sunday and look at their calendar for the week and say, what's going on in my schedule? Because sometimes we just try to do the same thing over and over, but we don't factor in. Kids have sporting events, somebody's traveling, we're getting home late. So I have them sit down on a Sunday and just with their spouse or partner or anyone they share a home with and say, what's my week look like? So I can plan based on that week. And so that's one. And then I have people sit down a meal plan and I literally have them scheduled in their calendars. Many of us are very calendar driven. Like we are ruled by our, by that. And that's great. So just like anything else important to have them plug it in. And that means 30 minutes to an hour for most people. They do better doing it twice a week. Say like a Sunday and a Thursday, take it into a couple bites, you know. And so I have people schedule time in to sit down and to meal plan. But even before you do that, you sort of have to gather places where you get recipes. And so I have people, whenever they save a recipe on Pinterest or Instagram or they have their favorite cookbook, I have them sort of collect those resources in one place. Because some people I find just search online for a recipe into the world wide web and they get really overwhelmed really fast. And 20 minutes have passed and they don't, they don't have time to plan. So I think the thing is, is having this sort of cookbook or this sort of repository recipes or places to go. And when you find recipes you like, you have a system in place to put the recipe there. So two ways people like to do that. Like, I have clients who are more digitally savvy and they have folders or Google Drive and they save them, you know, under spring and summer, fall and winter soups and whatever. And then I have people who are a little more old school and they print them and they put them in a binder and they want to hold it in their hands, they want to see it, they put sheet protectors on it. And recently I've had a couple people do the recipe box. They bought little recipe cards and went really old school, which is awesome. And so whatever system works for collecting recipes that you like, your go tos, you know, put them there. And that way when you sit down to meal plan, you have a place to go. And so this doesn't happen overnight. You kind of build this over time. So I teach people how to get the system in place and then you add to it as you go. And so that's where I'll start, you know, just to get those basics down.

And I think one thing to add on to that is I had this realization. I was. My second daughter, Abigail decided this, you know, week past week, she wants to take ownership of making sourdough bread in our house because we have the little filter and so awesome. Yes. I started because it's like I'm doing it all the time, right. So she started doing it and just like I showed her on mix, it did it myself. And it was like just really quick. And just watching her, I just realized, wow. Like, it was almost like I was looking back when my wife started teaching me how to do it and how clumsy I was and how it makes it the right way and how it was gooey and sticky and like watching my daughter, I'm like. And now it's just like she sees me and I'm become the master. And it's like awesome. Something as basic as just mixing, you know, brining flour, mixing it and making bread has some nuances to it that you only perfect by just doing it over and over and over again. So I guess my question to you is how much of that do you think plays into? Because you know, you see, you see people do stuff on TV and you're like, that looks easy. And then you try to do it yourself and you're like, things aren't mixing right. Don't look right. How much of this is just. You got to do it a lot to perfect it.

Yeah, that's such a great point. I think people see social media and they see people batch prepping these beautiful glass dishes stacked in their fridge all nice and neat. And I think. And some people do that, and it really works for them. Most people do not do that. And yes, they do batch prep some things, but it's important to realize that it doesn't look as perfect as other people might make it appear. So get rid of that idea of what batch prepping is, for example. So to your point, like, you're. You're gonna fumble a little bit and you're just gonna. To me, it's. It's more important to be consistent than to be perfect at it. And so I would rather somebody plan for the week. And even if I only follow through on 60% of that plan, that's awesome. In my book, that's better than zero. It's better than winging it and having no plan and being stressed out about it. So I always tell people that perfection's not the goal. It's not what really what we're after. And if you have an amazing week where you planned five meals and it worked out on all those days, that feels really good. But it's not. It's not always how it goes all. So I try to be realistic with expectations, and I try to tell people, you know, there's. Even when I have teenagers at my house and we're cutting vegetables and stuff, how do I do it? And I'll say there's, like, so many ways you can do it like this or that. Like, you can't go wrong. So I give them a freedom to not mess up and just to know it's very forgiving and just to do it, just to get started.

You mentioned before, like, what you trained in doing, like the. The. Not the word you didn't use wasn't medicinal, but the. The healing therapeutic. Yeah, therapeutic. Therapeutic. Like, how does that play in. Because I don't think people really kind of grasp, like, the choices, like the kinds of oil you cook with.

Yes.

Do you cook, you know, Brussels sprouts versus potatoes. Don't really figure that that small tweak actually changes the therapeutic value of food. Can you talk a little bit like that when you talk with your clients about using food like a drug as a medicine, like the therapeutic aspect of it?

Well, I take into account the individual and what they have going on, and I take into account their food preferences. Right. So I'll start with that. The oils, as you mentioned, is a huge piece. A lot of people don't know. They just use vegan vegetable oil or canola oil. And the first thing I say to that is, if you have it in your house, throw it in the trash. That's the best place for it, like put it in the bin. And so I tell people about my top oils and fats to choose from and then their smoke points. Like if you ever are cooking, for example, olive oil in the pan and the pan's too hot, that starts to smoke, you need to toss that out and start over. It's no good, it's oxidized, it's no good for you. So I teach about that. And olive oil is a great example. You know, I have some clients who, who just take shots of it. You can certainly make salad dressing with it. But a good quality olive oil is high in polyphenols, is so good for heart health. It's so good for, gosh, a million things I think of brain, you know, neuro health. And so I think of them as their properties. So olive oil is one other polyphenols like berries. Right. Or anything colorful that's, that's kind of the way I simplify it for people and for their kids is eat colorfully. I'll have them ask themselves that question when they're making a, making a plate. And if it's very beige and yellow and white, I'll have them say what kind of color can I add to this? And ask that question to practice, as you said, the habit of making more colorful dishes. You know, it's just even asking that question is a great place to start.

Where have you found are the major sticking points? Because this is all great. I love it. It's something I do personally if we do in our family. But so many patients I work with are, they get stuck. Like what are the, what would you say the two or three sticking points where people like start out but they kind of fall off the, the beat, the beaten path. They get stuck where the things, like the major things you see people having issues with that you give them some little tweaks that actually help them get past the barriers to actually implementing, implementing their kitchen as a therapeutic space in their house.

Yeah, well, the first one we sort of already mentioned, which is getting over the idea that you have to be perfect at it, just get started. And so that's one. The other is I think sometimes people just don't have the time or don't know how to prioritize it. Sometimes they legit, don't have time. And then I, I will teach them ways to do. Maybe you buy pre cut foods, maybe you do buy a rotisserie chicken and you make something on the side. Maybe you piece together things like that. I Teach them about some healthier eating out options if you need to go to kava or mezza and, and how to like supplement with those things. I need them to be realistic because what happens is that people have this high bar and they bite off more than they can chew and take on too much and then they're, they get frustrated when they're not good at it and they give up. And so I think people just need to start small. And that for an example would be making a batch of brown rice ahead of the week, roasting some vegetables, pre chopping some veggies. Just make your week a little easier. You don't have to prep all your food unless you, you want to. You can make a soup and things like that, but just doing little things like that, like chopping vegetables ahead of the week and washing your produce is a huge lift later in the week, that lightens your load. So I would say just starting small don't have a lofty goal. And if once you crush that and you're doing awesome at that and you've got all the reward centers in your brain, like, I'm good at this. I think I got this thing down, then you can add to it. And for some people that's one month, for some people that's six months. And that's okay. I just think it's better to start small and do crush that and then before you add to it. So don't look at what other people are doing and think you should be doing that. Do what you need to do for you.

That's good. You know, it's one of the interesting things with vegetables. Like I grew up, I think my mom boiled most vegetables I ate. I grew up not really liking them. And then, you know, realizing spices can, you can make almost anything. Take amazing with spices. And so you mentioned polyphenols before. Like, I want you to talk a little about spices because they're not only, you know, they were used in antiquity as food preservatives, you know, but they are flavor enhancers. But they also take, you can take something super basic and make it ridiculously nutritious. So how do you like get people who aren't used to using spices? Cause I didn't grow up using meals. Like was it like to start using these? You can literally make anything taste good almost with spices. And they, and they are amazing for your health.

Yeah, absolutely. You're totally right about that. The first thing you said I want to touch on is important though, excuse me, is not overcooking your vegetables. I Think people have had vegetables that are canned or cooked to mush, and they don't like vegetables. And it's not because they don't like the vegetable. It's because the cooking method could be better. They maybe need it roasted or sauteed, cooked to a little al dente so it's still bright and crisp. And so, excuse me, those are. That's number one. And then spices. I always tell people, start with. Start with a fat. So something like olive oil or a good grass, pastured butter. If you do dairy and things like that, give it grounding and pull flavors together. And so if I taste a dish and it feels kind of separate, it's something just really rounds it out and grounds it is usually fat. And that helps us with satiety, too, so we. We can feel full and satisfied and we don't go looking in the fridge an hour later. So fat in the meal is really important. Salt is really important too. And it's. It's not. Not to where it tastes salty, right? Salt so that it brings flavors together and marries the flavors. And so I do salt during cooking. I do not salt after. Like, so you won't see a salt shaker typically on the dinner table. I know that's very common in restaurants and things like that. But it's. Salt should be done during cooking, and you should be tasting your food while you're cooking. So those are the two basics for people who just need to get the right. Make things taste good. And then I add on with things like pepper, red pepper flakes. Fresh herbs are my favorite. You know, because if you have. You have fresh produce and you want to cook it, broccoli, olive oil, salt and pepper, and fresh lemon, like maybe a little parsley. My God, that's so good. And it's so simple. If you cook it al dente, not mushy, right? You can make something so simple, like, you know, and then you add garlic and then start to play with the different herbs and fresh lemon to give it some pop. So that's. The other piece is some acidity, something that brightens it, right? So I use lemon for that. I use balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar. I use. My favorite. It's kind of a secret weapon is ume plum vinegar. Do you have that one? Not in your house.

Here we have it. Never used it personally.

Yeah, it's a little salty and a little acidic. So it does both. The salty, acidic piece. So it brightens and it brings the flavors together. It's one of my last. If I'M making something and I'm trying to figure out that last bit of flavor. I put a few splashes of that in there and it's, it just, it makes it perfect.

I think it's a great point because it's, you're, you're talking food chemistry right now.

Yeah.

Like you take a vegetable and using fat to pull out fats out of the nutrients, but also sets the basis. And if you use olive oil because of the polyphenols, you have that, like, that bitterness to it versus like ghee or butter versus coconut oil. You're, you're pulling out different flavor profiles, but you're also different foods. You know, I personally think like a white fish is cooked great in coconut oil. Salmon is great to like cover with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic. Just super basic, like using fat as a vehicle, but also in a flavor enhancer, but also nutrient, particularly with olive oil nutrient booster. And then using your spices and the acid based stuff is really key because that's, that's how like sommeliers, wine experts will actually use the different flavor profiles to determine what, what wines will actually make the food pop. And I think this is key because it makes food like amazing when you get these, these things just, just right with acid, your base salt, your type of fat. And all of a sudden you can make something like any vegetable, any meat tastes like really, really amazing. Like, I love that. So one thing I want to talk about briefly from that is you had mentioned, I was looking at some of your stuff. You're, you have an expertise or passionate interest in women's health, hormone health, with dietary stuff. So I want you to talk a little about that because I have a lot of, I feel like this is a big place, particularly with women in their mid to early 40s, early 50s, or having hormone issues or going through changes of life, having sugar regulation problems. You know, I'm sure you built that. Like how do you, what's some you have in the last six months, I've been collecting a lot of those, those kind of individuals in my practice. And it's like they don't realize how important their diet and food, how you cook things can be for getting women through that stage. Could you kind of talk to that briefly?

Yeah, absolutely. And I see a lot of these folks too and have for a long time. So I, I definitely feel and see the pain. I think the biggest thing. And I'll, I'll pick on perimenopause, I'll pick on this, this specific time period because women in their upper 30s and to throughout their 40s, often are starting to. Their bodies change. They've done the same thing they've always done. And all of a sudden their composition's changing and something's different and very frustrating. And so I think for a lot of women, they have, they start to get that belly fat in the midsection. And one of their instincts is to restrict and is to say, I just have to stop eating. I'm going to start fasting. And you can call it fasting, but it's not really, not really fasting if you're not getting the nutrients and you need. That's really not the goal. So I think first of all is explaining that restriction is not often the answer. It's nourishment. That's the answer. And the. In the way I focus more on protein, for example, and a lot more nutrients. So consistency is huge. I want to regulate blood sugar, as you mentioned, and that means eating at consistent times during the day and eating balanced meals. So I, for example, one thing I work on a lot with people, this demographic, and everybody is getting a good, savory breakfast in and whatever time that is for you, whether you eat at 7am or 10am, I don't really care. But I want your first meal to be higher in protein. That could be depending on the person's weight, right? 30 grams or more. And I want you to, I don't want you eating muffins and like cappuccinos for breakfast. I don't want you stopping by Starbucks. That's not serving you. And you can, and I have people do a test and this, this speaks for itself. I don't even have to, I don't even have to tell them this. I can tell them to do what they're doing and then try it my way for a week. And they will come back to me 100% of the time and say, I feel so much better. My energy is steadier throughout the day. I'm not hungry in an hour. I make it through lunch, I just feel better. And so for many people, one of the most important places to start is a good, savory breakfast. And if you need just one place, just start there, right? And get that right. And that sets the tone for the whole day. It sets the tone for your blood sugar, your hormones. You know, we wake up in a catabolic state. So we need protein. We need that out of the gate. And I know that's pretty challenging. So we can talk about that too, if you want. Because getting an adequate amount of protein is definitely harder People.

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Well, I mean I think the two things you said that are key are nourishment and savory and it's. This is a unique demographic who are largely have all these micronutrient deficiencies. They're malnourished because of bad diets for decades and they have not eaten nourishing foods. And then you go through a state where you're by switching your type of metabolism and women crash.

Yeah.

And so, and then they're struggling and so they, they go out there and the new spad is let's, let's fast longer which is huge. Which is an amazing tool in the right place, the right time, but not for every single solitary person. So I actually want you to talk more about that. Cause you mentioned, you know, how do you that that protein deficit, whether it's a deficit, whether it's increased need. I see a lot of people with hypermobility who have a higher protein need just because like talk to that because you know, if you don't get the right kind of protein, your body won't detoxify, you won't actually make your hormones. It just is so critical, particularly in this stage of one's life.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think about how a woman in her who's 25 and a woman who's 40 can eat the same amount of protein, but the woman in her 40s is not going to build muscle and synthesize muscle at the same rate, which means we have to eat higher amounts of protein. So when I calculate protein for people to give them Some targets I tell them to, I tell them why and I say if you're, if your hormones are slowly declining, right, and your estrogen goes down, you're, you're going to hold more fat. You're going to need to compensate by eating more protein and by lifting some heavy weights, right? And there's some things you can do. It's not restriction. Restriction sends the body to more survival and it makes it just hold on. It's like, I'm not sure what's going to happen. So it tends to hold weight and that's not what you're trying to do. So when people. I'm going back to the restriction piece for a second because I think that's important. When people think that just cutting calories is going to be the answer, it's often not. It just means they're eating less, they're more miserable and they're not, and they're still holding their weight. And so having enough good food seems weird for people to increase the volume when they have been restricted. But I'm like, just trust me, your body needs to feel, it needs that safety signal. It needs to know it's going to get food and nourishment. And when you skip meals or skimp on meals, you're not getting that. So healthy fats, protein, as I said, and I have this is key for women too, because if you give someone a protein goal like 120 grams, they will say, my God, that is so much protein. So for women, it's more important to distribute that throughout the day than it is to divide that by three and try to do that in every meal. And so especially after workouts for women, they are already, again, catabolic and they're already losing muscle so quickly compared to men. And so having protein immediately after workouts is more important for women than it is for men, for example. So I just have them really distribute it throughout the day. I give them a protein cheat sheet that says, hey, 4 ounces or however many ounces of chicken is this and fish is this. So they have a general idea, but I want them to be, I don't want them to be calculating all day long. That's not the goal. It's just to be aware of what it means to get this protein in and to practice it until they know how to accomplish that.

And how do you see protein and fat playing together? Because just when you start talking about protein, all of a sudden if you're getting from natural source, it's coming with this amount of fat and all of A sick people, like, oh my gosh, you know, I'm getting too much fat in my diet, you know, so I need to, you know, just do protein powders. Right. Talking about. So I don't think people realize that there's a reason why protein naturally comes with a lot of fat. If you're eating it like in salmon for example, or just even. Yeah, even like low fat, quote unquote. Chicken still has a fair amount of protein per program. Has a fair amount of fat per gram of protein.

Yeah. So when you're talking about salmon, we're talking about omega 3s and those good and those healthy fats which we need for hormone health, brain health, everything. And then your. The other side of that are fats, like saturated fats and things like bacon. Like bacon and salmon are not equal. Like I'm not anti bacon. Like have some bacon. Right. Have a good nitrate free quality here. Just a little bit. Don't overdo it. But I think the quality of that matters. And so if someone is eating chicken and chicken thighs which have a little more fat on them, or having lamb that has this higher fat content, I just want them to balance that a little bit. And I'll, you know, it depends on the individual. Some people don't even want to eat that kind of eat that kind of meat. But I give them an, I give them this list of different types of proteins and ones that are higher and lower fat and just help them sort of balance that out. And you can do, obviously fish is a lean source. So are, you know, nuts and seeds and things like that are good options. So I just, I have them strive for variety more than anything versus the one perfect thing.

Yeah, I think the key there is not, is, is nourishment and not being restrictive because I feel like the typical, the standard diet for the last 30 years has been the exact opposite. It's been malnourishing and really restrictive. And that just creates bad food behaviors. Could you talk about that? That's an interesting topic. Like a really food. Because we have all these really dysfunctional relationships with food. It's a restriction. And because of, you know, oh, I'm gonna do this crazy diet and that crazy diet. Could you talk to a little bit about that? Because when you make your kitchen like a healing place, all these crazy fads and stuff, they kind of just disappear. And a lot of these bad habits people learn kind of sort of go away. Won't get created in kids, for example.

Right? No, you may, you, you bring a good point. I think that depends on the individual. Because some people have had these food habits for a very long time woven into their psyche, especially women. And men too, but especially women are. Feel the need to be skinny. And that sometimes trumps logic. And so it's a lot of reeducation. I find. I find people have had habits for a long time, and especially when they get in their 40s and their body is changing, even though they know something is good for them, it's still really hard when their body is changing. And so I think that hopefully that answers your question mostly. But I think having the education piece there is really important. And then. And then listening to how they feel. Like, I let people tell me they have to experience it for themselves. They have to see that they feel better. And then most people don't want to be restricted. They know that restriction is not sustainable, and it's pretty miserable. I've had people who are super strict and they have this super thin, ripped kind of body, but they're so unhappy because they are following so many strict rules, and it's just not sustainable. So I think when people find something not sustainable, I think that's why they. A lot of people gravitate to my approach, which is, let's focus on whole foods. Let's eat consistent meals. Let's try to eat in balance. I too, send a little bit about portions. We don't spend time counting calories. I want them to listen to their bodies and I want them to get just real whole food in keeping it that simple. I think people find that refreshing because they're just tired of all the rules and all of the noise out there.

And to one point, you said with a lot. There's. There's people who look super fit and they're cut when I, when I see them and test them, they have all kinds of nutrient deficiencies.

Yeah, it's amazing.

We actually do. You do blood on them and check them. You're like, you know, I could look at your skin and tell you're actually aging quicker. You know, I can tell. Look at your skin and tell your estrogen's low. Cause you got that like, wrinkly kind of dry appearance to it. And the low estrogen wrinkles. And so then you're like, okay, let's do some blood work. And look, you've got all these deficiencies that you know aren't. Aren't the best for you. Um, let's talk about sourcing briefly. Um, how do you encourage people to source their foods? Like, where do you. Where do you buy the stuff from? And how do you figure out how to source the stuff?

Yeah, that's a great question. Because quality really matters. Whenever I do even my food journals and I'm looking at where their food, I'm looking at where their food comes from. I'm looking at is it grass, grass fed beef, is it factory farmed, all those things matter. I do consider the person's budget as well. So I'll, I'll talk a little with them about that to see where they are and where they're located. The. I look at it on a spectrum. There's an ideal world where I can grow some of my own food. I would go to local farmers markets, join csas and get what's in season and what's local and that I love. Of course, because it's fresh. Usually those things have been, you know, harvested within a couple days of you getting them. So it's most vital and nutrient dense. So that is ideal, right? To do local, to grow your own if you have ability or even just grow a few things. I would love a big garden, but I know that I'm not going to be able to take care of that. So I grow tomatoes and herbs. You know, I just do a couple things. And so I think that's the first piece is just connecting to your local farmer's markets and getting food that way. And not everything is equal though, like there are. If you go to a farmer's market, not everybody will say organic, for example, but they still have those practices. They just don't have the ability to pay for all of the, the processes and the, the approvals that are required to call yourself efficiently organic. So you gotta know to ask questions. Do they use pesticides? You know, are they, what are their practices? Are they taking care of the soil, doing, using regenerative practices? That's, that's ideal too because that means we have food for the future, not just for today. So those are some key words I look for like grass fed, pasture raised as best you can. And I will say this back to the budget piece. I will tell people if you have to prioritize your budget, I will tell them focus more if you eat animal protein on animal, the quality of animal products and oils and fats, spend more money there. And then if you can't do as much in the, you know, vegetables, I use like the Dirty Dozen list from the environmental working group, you probably use that too. And so, yeah, so I give them these guides and then try to see what's reasonable for them. For some people this is not a Problem for some people, it feels a little stressful because it might feel like it's too hard to achieve. So we just focus on the areas of biggest impact for that individual.

And I tell people it took me about a year and a half to two years to figure out how to source my food. And so it's huge the first, like, month or two, because everything's a struggle, but after you get good at it, you know, okay, I gotta go this. And now with Instacart. I mean, literally, it's like 15 minutes of pushing the button on my. My phone and stuff shows up, you know, six hours later. So it's. It's got a lot. It's way easier now than it was when we started this back in 2000. I think my journey with my wife was by 2009ish, 10ish, when we actually really got serious about figuring out where our food was coming from. It's. It's way easier now than it was.

How was your journey on that, too? Because you grow your own and do a lot of your own stuff too. So how do you balance that with, like, sourcing?

Well, that's. Well, that, that was part of our strangeness because we started finding where you can get, like, where do you get. Where can you get really good organic, you know, European cheeses? Where can you get good beef and stuff like that? And then we just wanted to make it part of our family life. And that's when we decided to move out on a little farm and homestead. And so then it was like, okay, where do we get. What kind of cows do we use? And so we kind of researched that and found out that Red Devon are a great heritage breed. And we have two cows in our pasture right now. Most people aren't going to do that. We did the chickens thing. We're actually. We're down to three chickens now. They're about. I'm just waiting for some foxes to give them. To be honest with you guys, natural, they're five years old and they're not laying any eggs anymore. And I don't have the time to process them. So they haven't laid an egg for six months. So. But, you know, it's a. For us, it was more like. I think your point. It's for us was the academic. I'm a physician. I want to learn how to do this and learn how to take care of patients. But the reality is an herb garden, and I tell people tomatoes are easy. Like, pick one or two veggies you like and have your own little Thing is helpful, particularly for kids because they see where stuff comes from. But I think we have a unique situation here in Richmond because we both live in central Virginia, Richmond area that we have so many resources here. As far as, you know, natural you can get from farms and even like, you know, between Wegmans, Whole Foods, Costco, we have all places that have their specialty. You know, if you want to get organic salmon, wild called salmon, the best price point I found is Costco. Yeah, so it's like having your favorite place you kind of get from and then you kind of have like the five or six places. Do you go to one place for everything? You're not gonna get the best quality of everything.

Yeah, I'll tell people, you know, maybe you do your Whole Foods run once a month and I find good prices on those quality meats and things that I like like to call Force of nature is a really nice one that has liver, it has organ meats mixed in and you would never know kind of thing. So that's a really nice brand. So if I see things like that on sale, you know, stock up and if you have the ability to have a deep freezer and have a little more space, then that's ideal too. But to your point, maybe you go to Kroger or some of these other Costco places and then you go to Whole Foods or natural foods market for the more specialized items or a farmer's market now that they're opening back up in Richmond we have the several of them like the big market. And maybe you go once a month and you just stock up on a few things and do your regular grocery shopping. So there's a way to do it without going to like five stores a week.

I think health wise it's probably more important to make your meats organic because those animals concentrate what they're consuming.

Yeah.

And so you can get an apple and you can wash off like 90, not 100%, but like 90% of the pesticides. You know, with blueberries, which don't aren't really spread a lot, you can wash them off. You can get a lot of the stuff off. Avocados, they don't spray at all. You know, broccoli actually as well. So you can do those, but it's really the meat or the things, you know, eggs, people don't realize how like what they feed chickens is horrible. And so getting, you know, not just organic eggs, but you know, chickens that are free ranging, like that's where I think people should spend their money is on the, the Protein source, making sure that's clean. Because if it's not, those animals will concentrate all this stuff they eat. You actually get a bigger pesticide chemical hit than if you have like an apple that's not done the right way and you just wash it off.

Exactly. Yeah. It concentrates in the fat, and fat holds flavor, but it also holds toxins as well. So that's a good point. I mean, you'll definitely see in my house when we get a good, beautiful golden yolk versus a kind of a dull yellow one in the pan, it's like, oh, my God, look at this. It's so beautiful. Like, we all come and donut. It's kind of silly, but we appreciate that that golden yolk means that it's. This chicken has been out to pasture eating grass and in sunlight and doing its natural diet, and that's a healthier chicken. So we, you know, correlating that. That education is really important so people know why and that it's more higher in vitamin E and high in vitamin D. And it's. Their vitamin profiles are better too. So I think that's important to know.

So when you work with clients and someone's starting this journey, they want to use their kitchen as a healing place. They want to. They realize the gut know one of the three major place, you know, the leverage triangle, health, I call it gut, stress, and sleep. Your gut is a big, big deal. What are your. The first things you recommend to people they're starting this journey? Hey, I've seen a holistic practitioner or a functional practitioner. I'm just doing this on my own because there's no one close by. Where do you recommend people start their journey, like step one, two, and three in a reasonable fashion so they can one, hold those gains and then go on from there?

Yeah, step one is absolutely processed foods just. You've got to eliminate or minimize. I know elimination is not possible for everyone, but you've got to minimize this ultra processed food. So going through your pantry and all of the things that you have packaged and processed, like, really take a real look at what you're using and how much you're consuming. I don't think people often realize how much they're doing that because they often compare it to the lowest common denominator. Someone who eats pizza all day, they're like, I'm better than that. I'm like, that's not a good baseline of comparison. So processed food is the biggest piece first. Before I ever do anything like elimination diets or any of that, it's like, let's just make sure you're getting whole foods in real foods. I mean, that's where my business name even came from, is Pure Roots. It's getting back to the basics of real food, and so it's doing that. So doing an assessment of your kitchen, cleaning up your oils, like I said, if you've got any canola oil, trash it, replace it with other things so that you're not just staring at empty cupboards going, now what? So I do often do pantry makeovers for people and help them do that. Or I take them on grocery store tours so they can teach them how to read labels. That's a big piece, is knowing what's in there. We often look at the front of the label and depending on how good someone's branding and marketing is, you know, could be very misleading. But I don't focus on the nutrition facts panel as much. I look at the ingredient label and I think that's a big difference for people because they've often been trained to look at the facts panel, and I want them to actually know what's in their food and do they recognize it. So I think doing a good review of what's in there and then replacing it and restocking with things that are good for you so you have those things on hand and in reach. And so having a good spice cabinet, as we talked about, you know, good quality salt, pepper, garlic and ginger and lemon. These are a lot of your therapeutic spices. Fresh herbs are highly therapeutic. So having those things on hand, but also knowing how to store them properly because you can buy this, this beautiful bundle of parsley and then it just wilts into a brown mess and it's just so sad. So knowing how to store that as well and keep these foods fresh is important too, because people can buy them. Maybe that's step two, right. Is even proper storage and handling of these foods is people can buy them and then not know what to do with them. And then. And then they just sit there. And now they've spent their hard earned money on all this really nice food. So I think it's step one is, you know, clearing out processed foods. I think step two is starting to, like, replace with good things. And then I think it's, you know, having some food ideas and having recipe ideas and things you can actually make so that you know how to utilize it too. And go slow, like, you know, you don't have to do this overnight.

Yeah, I really like what you said. Not eliminate stuff, just replace. I think we're our Mindset is so elimination. Like what are you taking away from me? It's like, let's just take things away from, just replace like get out fake food. You know, how long should someone expect? Like what's the time frame? Like is this going to be like a 1 month, 2 month, 3 month process to kind of. I know it depends on how big the kitchen is in the idea, but what typically what you see with that.

You know, it depends on where people's starting points are. If there's someone who's been eating McDonald's and Starbucks every day and bowls of cereal, it's going to be a longer, it's maybe a bigger change or their willingness to change. What, what's motivating them to change. If somebody has like a food allergy, obviously or a celiac, you cannot have gluten strictly and you want to get rid of certain things. Some people, it depends on their readiness. I would give people three to six months just to be, just to not be hard on themselves and put some false deadline of, or expectation that they need to rush. But I would go with the pace the person wants and, but I like putting like specific actions in place for people that are like, hey, clear out your pantry or clear out this drawer in your kitchen. Right. And just give them step by step. Maybe you do, maybe you create a plan that's like a 10 week plan. If somebody, if somebody likes that level of detail, I will do that. If not, I'll just, we'll check in and say, how's this going? Have you made swaps for this? Here are some ideas and I help them make some slow, steady change. So yeah, it depends on several things. But I think the biggest thing is giving yourself some grace and time to make a shift. Because if you've been eating this way your whole life, changing those habits overnight is just, that's expecting a lot. It's too much.

Yeah, I, I really liked your point, but I guess we were a little slow. Cause it took us about a year and a half, three years to figure out, so. But still the point is three to six, a bit of time. It's not going to be, it's not going to be four to six weeks. It's not going to be two weeks. It's not. You know, I remember my mother in law was diagnosed with breast cancer and her oncologist said, hey, you need to remove all the soy from your pantry. So she went home and was like, okay, I'm going to do amazing job of this. Open the pantry up and started crying because, like, everything had soy, soy, soy, soy and soy. And it's like people just don't realize, like I used to tell people. And this could be wrong. Right. But just, you know, don't just work through. Give it a bit small money. But the goal is not to be in your house.

That's right.

Like, that's the last time it's there. Because a lot, you know, it was like thousands of dollars of stuff, like, in our pantry. It's not.

Yeah. I mean, if someone. Yeah. If someone has a chronic condition, they're far more motivated. But just to be fair, your timeline of a year and a half is much more reasonable. I think that I would just. I wouldn't want people expecting something in weeks. I think it does take time. And if you want that change to last and be sustainable, you're going to have to do it in slow increments and give yourself time to do it, so.

Agreed. Shelley. I really enjoy our conversations. A lot of great information. I feel like we keep on talking. I really like the way you think about and how you just make things super, like, actionable and pretty easy to do. So if people want to know more about you, hear about you. Interested? Where can people learn more about you and what you're doing?

Yeah, thanks. Well, my website is purerootsnutrition.com so you can go there. I'm on social media, Instagram and Facebook. Not as often, but I do have a community called Pure Roots Kitchen. And that's just a community gathering space, a virtual hub where people can come. And I share culinary tips, therapeutic cooking tips, and it's really a resource place for just people to gather when they want nutrition and culinary guidance. And so it's a free space just for people to come. There are some classes I teach that do cost, but a lot of things on there are free resources. So that's a great place to land. And you can go there from my website and you can see join the Pure Roots Kitchen there.

Cool. Awesome. Well, thanks for that. Cool. Well, yeah, again, enjoyed talking with you. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us today and hope this was really helpful for everybody. And again, you want to learn more about Shelley. Pure Roots is a place to learn more about her. So take care.

Thank you.

Talk to you soon.