Food for Focus: What Leaders Get Wrong About Nutrition with James Collier, Co-Founder of Huel

Nutrition science is a rocket science. So while there's a whole book about complexity in the food system, and I'm showing how complex it is and how unfathomably hard it is to address on a food system level, address all the considerations simultaneously on an individual level, it's actually we all know really what good and bad foods are.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Leading the Scale Up. It's the podcast that explores what it really takes to lead and grow organizations during their most critical phase. I'm Ben Morton, a leadership trainer, executive coach and conference speaker, and someone who spent the last two decades helping leaders grow the businesses they believe in without burning out along the way. Today's guest is someone I've been excited to speak to for quite some time. James Collier is a registered nutritionist and the co founder of Huel, one of the UK's fastest growing health and nutrition brands. But more than that, James is on a mission to help people, especially leaders, understand what really fuels high performance. In this episode, we're diving into the critical but often ignored link between food and leadership performance. From blood sugar crashes to cognitive focus, energy and mental clarity, it all comes back to how we fuel ourselves. If you are scaling a business, driving hard at big goals, or just feeling stretched a little too thin, this conversation could give you more than a boost. It might just give you your edge back.

James, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Good to be here, Ben. I'm very well, thanks. Are you?

Yeah, I'm very good, thank you. Very good indeed. James, been enjoying reading, well fed, really, really enjoying it. So I want to talk about a few things that have stuck out for me within the book. The first thing I'd love to ask you about is really thinking about nutrition, how sort of senior leaders, MDs, CEOs fuel themselves. It very much sort of strikes me and I noticed that a lot of driven senior people are very focused on sort of lots of productivity hacks and inverted commas, things like sleep time blocking, all of those sorts of things. But still, nutrition seems to perhaps not get the attention it deserves. And the analogy that come to mind when I was thinking about this is like imagine if you've gone out and bought a brand new Ferrari or Lambo and you want to take it on a track day and get the best out of it. Probably going to stick something like Shell v Power in it, right? As opposed to your bog standard unleaded. So from your perspective, like what does the research say? What's your thoughts around how nutrition and what we fuel Ourselves with really impacts upon our performance at work, our cognitive brain function and ability to make sort of those high stakes important decisions when we're under the pump.

Okay, there's quite a bit there. I'm a nutritionist of more than 30 years and one thing I've come to realize is nutrition is really, really important, but it's actually less important than some of those other things you mentioned. Some of them. Okay, so the research is overwhelmingly demonstrates that the bigger predictors of living well and living well older now, what does living well mean? We can come back to that would be exercise, getting, getting adequate sleep, social bonds, social connections and socializing and not being isolated. They're well, more important than the nutrition. Now the biggest problem with nutrition and disease risk is we eat too much. So it's the over consumption, energy toxicity as we might call it. The other bits of nutrition are important, but more for how we feel during the day. And this is kind of a bit more relevant here. But there's a. However, however I do think some of these hacks that these biohackers, whatever that word means, are saying are focusing on the minute, not the more important. So there's, the wellness industry is expanding and a lot of people are looking for these quick fix hacks, things they can buy, spend their money on to try and fix. And while there could be evidence to back some of them up, and there indeed is evidence to back some of these things up, they're focusing on cumulatively the 1%. If you're not eating good foods, structured well, getting plenty of exercise, sleeping well, not being stressed, easier said than done, and all the other things then really like what's the point? And are they just going to get lost in the complexity? I don't know. Now there are a few things we can talk about that might be worth considering, but they're more, more from the point of picking up what your diet's not giving you. So the biggest thing I would say when it comes to nutrition is just making sure you're fueled regularly. Now I'm also going to slightly contradict myself and say fasting can in certain people be useful to look at. So there is subjectivity here. We all have different lives, we all have different stresses. Even a lot of business leaders might, other than going to the gym, lead a fairly sedentary working life. And so they might think, well, I just need to eat what someone has, a fairly dead end real life and then fuel myself for the gym. But it's individual. There is, there is no one rule.

Fits all as you said to me, there's so much there, my mind is firing off in, in lots of different directions. The bit you mentioned at the start there, just about some of the hacks and it can be minute in terms of the benefits it can, it can give us. You just took me back to being 16, playing, playing rugby and like me and the rest of my mates in the team would try and do like some fancy moves in the backs that we'd seen on the TV and our coach would always say in his really strong northern accent, when I'd say, I'll say we've been working on some moves, he'd be like, ben, we don't do moves. We pass it down the line, score in the corner. And it's a similar sort of thing. And it translates to so many areas of business. I think, right, we try and do all these marginal gains, 1% improvements, tiny biohacks, which are great, Right. I think this is your point. But if we're not doing some of the fundamental basics, it's going to have limited effort, right?

So where would be better to put.

Our, our focus if we want to, to your point, feel good and have sufficient energy through the day.

So let's focus on, on the fundamentals. So I think fiber is massively overlooked. Some people say, well, fiber's not essential. Depends on how you define the word essential. Can you exclude fiber from your diet and live okay for the period of weeks without dying? Absolutely. Will you be flourishing? Maybe, maybe not. Some people on the carnival diet with low fibers suggest they are flourishing. Who am I to argue with that? But the data on fiber shows that people who have a good fibre intake, over long term, it massively reduces risk of disease. But also, let's talk about why it works, how it works. Well, we know that it helps for a good digestive system. There's also been evidence for several decades showing that fiber intake, especially soluble fiber, can reduce risk of cardiovascular diseases and other non communicable diseases. But we know, you know, we've got the microbiome, all the bacteria, archaea, some viruses, other single celled organisms that live in our symbiotically, in our digestive systems that do a load of bunch of stuff, they help us digest food, they break down the soluble fibers into these things called short chain fatty acids that have been shown to help fuel our body. But what do they fuel? So if anybody's watching this on camera, they might see a chemical symbol behind one of my ears there. That is serotonin, the neurotransmitter hormone that's been associated with happiness. Now what people don't know is that yes, its main effects are on the brain, but actually 90% of serotonin is released in the entering nervous system, which is the nervous system of the digestive system. And we also know that. But that is the amount of serotonin is linked to a good healthy microbiome. So what I'm suggesting here is fueling a microbiome primarily with certain types of fiber will help help you feel more alert, more focused and just have better mental health. Maybe less anxiety, maybe less depression. I realize there's a bit of a stretch there and the evidence there is a bit woolly, but I'm only merely suggesting that. So what are these fibers? Well, a lot a plant rich diet. I'm not not Talking about being 100 plant based, I'm just talking about plant rich. I'm not a vegan, I probably never will be. But we can eat less animal derived products. The main, my main concern is with people that have a lot of animal derived products. It's not that there's any direct harm from that on their own. Their own bodies is what they're not having. So it's the cost. They're missing out on the fibers. So fiber is one important nutrient. Protein. Let's talk about that. Everyone talks about protein. It's a claim on a lot of foods and I question whether we need to have it as a claim. But there is some merit to it. Protein is useful. We, it's really, you don't really have to really have to go some in the west to be deficient in protein. We're all having, you know enough and even plant rich diets as long as you plan it properly and maybe combine different plant protein sources at a meal. Protein is important because it is more satiating than the other nutrients. And if we're, if it's more satiating, we're less likely to have cravings. Now we're talking about cognition of focus is one of the central themes of what we're going to be discussing today. Cravings are a distraction if you've got this food noise in your ear. And food noise is where people constantly think about food. Now it's complex as in it's what, what causes food noise is linked to the taste of food, past experiences, but it's also linked to what you've recently eaten and how full you feel. You're less likely to have cravings if you just had a meal and you feel satisfied after a meal. So high protein and high fiber are both very satiating. So that's useful to know.

That's fascinating. I've never really made that link myself between food cravings being noise and a distraction.

That's.

That's really interesting.

Yeah. And. But this is the point that when people talk about how food helps mental health, they miss the fundamental point. And this is fundamental. It's obvious when you're thinking about what can I are starving or what am I having later for dinner, you're not thinking about your work and you'll all have been there. I mean, I, you know, I do the fasting thing. I don't eat till lunchtime. I can tell you in about an hour's time I'll be thinking about what I'm gonna have for lunch. And maybe I won't be focusing on. On an essay I might be writing or something like that. Not. At least not as much. So we talk about, which I'm going to come to. A few of the things that could be beneficial for mental health. Direct nutrients. But sometimes it's more fundamental. Just make sure you, you're in the right state of mind. The other benefits of protein are that is more thermogenic than the other macronutrients. Meanings that. Meaning that you can have more protein for fewer calories to be absorbed. So the term is caloric availability. Let me give you an example of what that means. If you were to have, say 100 calories worth of sugar, maybe more than 99 of those calories will go on to be absorbed and utilized within the body. If you have 100 calories worth of protein, maybe only as few as 70 of those calories or will go on to be utilized in the body. That's a big difference. So when you look at calorie labels and, and food charts and food apps. Yes. That's the calories that you're putting into your body. And that's from the way they're. We measure calories. But how are they used? Wow, that's. That's very different. There's a big difference there, you know, and it depends on the protein food as to how low it will be and the amino acid profile, what else you've got going on. So there's a lot of variable factors there. So I am saying you can eat more food if it's protein rich, which helps you keep more full and maybe reduces those cravings and helps keep you focused. So protein is the other one. Next one, we should talk about the fats. And this is where I might go on to recommend a supplement to some people, Omega 3s. We've all heard the oily fish are good for us. We know that we get, you know, get them from those, some of the oily fish like salmon, mackerel, sardines, trout, et cetera. But where do the fish get them from? Well, they eat the algae, so we have a problem with overfishing. But we know we should be getting a better intake of omega 3s. You can get them from plants, but you can also get them from algae. And alky has other really cool attributes as well, is that it sequesters carbon. So if you grow algae is very good at pulling the carbon out the atmosphere. So it has a strong environmental benefit. And you can also use it as animal feed. So if you are a meat eater, you feed, feed it to, to certain, to some livestock. I know there are some cattle farming in some parts of the world that are fed algae and then maybe the, the omega 3 content of that meat is slightly higher. But people aren't interested today so much about the sustainable food system side of things. They're more interested about what they can eat for themselves. So plant sources are walnuts, some other types of nuts, hemp seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds. And then of course there's the LD supplements that you can get. So if you're not a fish lover, if you're not having many of the other plant sources, then maybe you, you could consider omega 3 supplementation. And that has multiple effects and there are links with omega 3s and cognition and focus directly as well.

Something like spirulina is it, is that algae?

Spirulinas, you'll call it blue green algae and technically it isn't. It's actually what's known as a cyobacter, which is basically a type of bacteria. So it's from a complete other domain of life than it's what's known as a prokaryote. Whereas algae and humans were all eukaryotes. So but because it is sort of grown like an algae and it does contain some omega 3s. But if you think of chlorella, people may have heard of chlorella. That is an algae. Okay. And it's also a protein rich food as well as a spirulina. So I was just, yeah, I was getting a bit technical there but you have to be right about these certain things. But yeah, but even just you can get some Omega 3 supplements you can buy as a supplement that have got the extracted omega 3s from the algae, which were too affordable and may be worth it. Then of Course, there are certain vitamins and minerals. Vitamin D is one that we're probably erring on, not having enough in the uk, especially at this time of year. Although the sun is shining today, people know they can get vitamin D3 from sunlight. So possibly supplementing with D3, if you live in a more temperate zone in the winter, could be worth considering. And if you're not getting enough sunshine because maybe you, you're concerned about the effects of too much sun on, on skin, then supplementation might be worth it. And they're quite cheap as well for D3 supplements. But the other thing is, is let's talk about carbohydrates. We know that sugars aren't great for a lot of reasons, mainly because it's very easy to eat too much of them and that's links to, you know, calorie overconsumption and disease risk. But there's also the, the case of the sugar slump. So we've all had this scenario. We've had a breakfast, small breakfast, we've had a couple of coffees, then we've had maybe a lunch, which has got some carbohydrates in it, and then an hour after lunch we start to feel a bit tired, maybe look around, see if anyone's looking and can we just get a couple of minutes till we're so tired and we can't concentrate? That's a massive distraction. Now that could be because the coffee you had at breakfast is wearing off, but it could be that you've had maybe the wrong food choices at lunch. And this is why I think it's also important not to eat too much at lunch because there's also an energy cost of digesting the food after eating and when you need to be focused all afternoon, then overeating lunch might not be the best thing, which is where a protein rich and a fiber rich meal might also come in because it helps you keep full up for longer. So there's a couple of things to consider there, of course, and having the right store of carbohydrates, the sort of low glycemic carbohydrates, things like oats or sweet potato or brown basmati rice, maybe even whole wheat pasta, they are all more likely to do more sustained energy, which, yeah, we all know that's good for the gym and things like that, but it's also good just for getting through a busy day.

James, if we go right back to something you said right at the very beginning of our conversation and I forget the exact words, but there's Lots of things that you said is like might be beneficial, might not fasting might work for some people, might not work for others. Like it strikes me that's very much like sort of my area of expertise and leadership in so much as a leadership style or approach that works with one individual, might not work with somebody else. So that being the case, and I think I probably know part of the answer to this, but how does an individual who cares about energy kind of health really sort of cut through all of the, the noise it can sometimes feel over overwhelming. Right. The amount of nutritional advice that's out there and it can be hard to work out what to do. And I think that's part of the reasons why you wrote the book well Fed. Right. But how does somebody work out what's right for them? Is it just trial and error and pay attention to, to the results on how, how you feel throughout the day or is there, is there some advice and guidance you can give people to work out what's going to be the best, the best approach for them?

Yeah, there's a lot of conflicting information and that's partly science, but it's also partly the misinformation and the noise that's coming from people with their own ideologies in industrial space, which is something maybe we can get to. To answer your question, and here's a phrase I use in the book is nutrition science is a rocket science. So while there's a whole book about complexity in the food system and I'm showing how complex it is and how unfathomably hard it it is to address on a food system level, address all the considerations simultaneously on an individual level. It's actually we all know really what good and bad foods are. Sure there's some, there's some nuances, some confusing, maybe mainly caused by the misinformation from the influencers. The science is overwhelming. A diet that's rich in whole grains is really good, plenty of fruit and veg is really good. Make sure you're getting adequate protein. Now that could be from some animal sources, but make sure you source them correctly and you know, high welfare, free range products and maybe cut down a bit on the animal derived calories and eat a very diet and sort of structure it properly. Now what do we mean by structure? That's where the subjective bit comes in and pay attention. The perspective I try and promote in well Fed is a concept called contemplative nutrition where we're considering multiple issues simultaneously. How what we eat affects our physical health, our mental health, sustainability, ethics, and also how we eat and who we eat with. But part of that is mindfulness eating. Now you may have heard the term mindful eating or intuitive eating. Whereas people pay attention to how they feel when they, in the short term, their cravings and stuff. That's part of it. But also realize our cravings can deceive. And people that have a problem with their weight are more likely to be deceived by their cravings. They have a lot of food noise, which is why these weight loss drugs, the GLP1 agonist drugs, seem to work so well because they turn right down that food noise so we can be tricked by our cravings. But what I mean is just pay attention to how you feel. More like what you said, Ben, really. You know, we've all got our food beliefs and they're partly, they partly come from what we ate when we, we grew up, how, how we felt. But it's also on, on our energy levels and we all do different things every day. Some days will be busy in others. So I think it is quite a good idea to eat a fairly regular time. I don't do that one myself. And if people want to try the fasting, give it a try. Give it at least two or three weeks to get used to it. They might find that useful, they might not, it might not work for them and then they should pay attention to that. If you're a builder or something or very active job, probably fasting isn't for you and you need a good old breakfast before you go out and do the work. So it is very much paying attention to how you feel and course correcting. And people that do live quite a structured and regimented life have probably got an advantage because they can, they do know how they feel. But I realize that it doesn't work for me and I'm sure it doesn't work for a lot of other people as well. So you know those few basic rules. Whole grains, fruit and veg, make sure your protein sources are adequate, structured and also well hydrated. I missed that one off the list. You know, drink plenty of fluid. Caffeine's an interesting one. Maybe I should just take a side step for a moment. Caffeine is a great nootropic and nootropic is a something a cognitive enhancer. It's been shown to aid concentration unless you have too much and then you can get those slight caffeine jitters. Now what's too much? Well, we know there's a lot of inter individual variation. Some people are highly sensitive to Caffeine, but also caffeine because of the way it works by affecting neurotransmitters that help you sleep. One called adenosine. It can promote wakefulness and affect sleep quality. And if you, if you've had too much caffeine and it's affecting your sleep later on, that's not good for your cognition, you're going to not be able to focus very well the next day. And there are people that claim they can have a caffeine, a coffee sort of fairly late at night and they're not affect their sleep. They know better than me. But I would challenge that. I would say, how do you know? You know, if you have maybe a whoop sleep band or something, what's the sleep quality like? Because are you waking a few times, you may think, you know, just for a few seconds, that's affecting the quality of your sleep, which could be affecting how you focus the next day. So, yeah, I would say don't have caffeine too late in the day. Don't have too much caffeine earlier in the day, because the half life of caffeine is five or six hours, which means the quarter life is 10 to 12 hours. So if you're having coffee at 12 o' clock and you've had three others before that, well, do the maths. You've probably got 80 to 100 milligrams of caffeine still in your blood at bedtime, which is similar to having a small cup of coffee just before bed.

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The link's in the show notes back to the episode. Like, the whole caffeine and sleep thing is fascinating for me. I'm a real sleep geek. Like, for a long time I struggled to sleep, so I've spent a lot of time studying it, working out what works for me. And to your caffeine point, it's about six years ago now, I went and had a lot of detailed blood work done privately. And from that I learned that I'm a slow metabolizer of caffeine.

Okay.

So I really pay attention to sort of when my last coffee is because I know it just takes a long time for my body to.

When is that?

So I won't have a coffee now after, after midday.

And how many would you have in the morning?

Maximum of two. I might have one from a coffee shop and then kind of a cafetiere kind of in the, in the office and the Cafe Tierra. Make sure it's not, not particularly particularly strong.

And what time's bed?

Probably if it gets past 10 o' clock I start getting a little bit twitchy so I like to be in bed just before 10. You're going to tell me that's still too, too late for the.

If you're, if you're metabolizing it in a different way. Maybe it is you know. And what's the caffeine content? If you go to one from the coffee shop your caffeine to. Yeah. Work out the caffeine content. We know that maybe five or six hours is the half life which we know approximately and it will vary between individuals quite significantly. It's 10 to 12 hours on the quarter life.

That's the bit I wasn't aware of actually the five to six hours is the half life. I'd never heard that bit before so.

And it does vary. That's, that's an average and if you know you've had this assessment you may. How are you? Are you on the note? Are you metabolizing it slower? Is it breaking down slower? Is it more in your. You could be worse off. Maybe you want to bring that earlier or have less. I don't know how not, not to suggest that.

That's a good, good experiment for me to try. That's really interesting.

Yeah. What about half calf? You know, could you have.

Yeah interesting. Changing tax slightly. You, you touched on this a few, few minutes ago. There's a term in well fed that really stood out for me. Dietology. What's. What's dietology James?

Well it's a. James made up word. It's a portmanteau of diet and ideology and we see a lot of this on social media. But what's been around for decades, maybe something I'm researching in more depth but maybe even hundreds of years. You know the definition that I've, I've given to it is a. Dietology is a dogmatic commitment to a nutrition related belief that's not based on a critical appraisal of the available evidence. And worse sometimes it goes further. Often when evidence is presented to the contrary people double down on that belief. So they start think, ignoring any evidence. I think it's getting worse at the moment, and I think it's a bigger problem than just diet. But here's a claim that I've made in previous podcasts and previous interviews. I can't back this one up. So maybe I'm being ideological here, but I'm saying that nutrition is more polarizing than politics. People have their beliefs when it comes to nutrition and they're going to stick to them. Now, there's good reason for this. Let me explain a couple of them. Let's say firstly, that someone wasn't very healthy, maybe a bit overweight, they weren't going to the gym very much. And then they, they see what some influencers in good, good shape and talking about the diet they've done. And so this individual follows that diet, maybe it's the carnivore diet, for instance, and they follow that and they start exercising and they feel great and they think, okay, this is really good. This diet has worked for me. Maybe they have indeed tried other diet strategies before and for whatever reason hasn't worked out. They want to tell everybody about this and they know the answer because they've got the answer. They're witnessing it. Now, there could be two things here. Maybe that diet strategy just simply suits them better, their lifestyle, maybe on a physiological basis, but doesn't mean it's going to benefit other people. And the other one is, I would question if they, you know, maybe they haven't properly tried other regimes and just the act of improving what they're eating, cutting out all the junk, doing more exercise, they're going to feel great anyway. So that's where it comes from. But I don't even think that answers on my own question well enough. I think there's something deeper here, and this is on a belief level. Now let me give you, let me illustrate this using etymology, the origin of words. There's one word that I think is really interesting, culture. We use it so much these days. We use the word culture when we're talking about how we behave, how we dress, how we dance, and just certain beliefs we have. We use it in the. More, more recently in sort of business culture, more other institutional cultures. We criticize other cultures. But let's look at where the word comes from. It actually comes from the tilling of the land for food, the act of acquiring food from the land. Look at the word agriculture. Agri comes from field. So acquiring food from a field, the word cultivate, which is, you know, to get food from the land. So is it no wonder if the word culture actually comes from food? It demonstrates us how we believe, you know, where our beliefs are linked to. So is it no wonder in some respect that people are ideologically committed to the their food and their diet? So the word dietology tries to explain that it's, you know, we're ideological about, about our diet. And you see this a lot with people, you see it with, with veganism for instance, that's been around for, you know, several decades. And there's that old joke how, how do you know if someone's a vegan? Because they'll tell you. And I think that's quite unfair because I see it on people with all types of diet. If someone's on the keto diet, they'll want to tell you. Someone's on the paleo diet, they'll tell you. Oh, on the carnivore people will definitely tell you. So it's not just vegans. And veganism is more than just the diet. It's more than a dietary choice. It's a, it's a lifestyle choice with excluding other animal derived products and clothes of instance. But, and, and you see the handles of people on social media. You might have Ben the carnivore or James the vegan. They're not real things by the way, if anybody's kidding that this how people actually make it part of their identity, the type of diet they have. But it's not just the diet. You know, the big, the seed oil thing at the moment that people are vehemently against Seedles. Well, the data doesn't, you know, doesn't agree with that. You know, and we can, we can, you know, it's too deep to go into that in any great detail. But of meta analysis after meta analysis, which is a very strong form of research shows that seed oils are either not harmful or might even have health benefits relative to other types of fats. That's an important caveat. There are issues with seed oils. The fact that they're easy to, to flavor and they're putting a lot of foods and so can eat a lot of calories that mean they are causing ill health. And I use that word loosely, causing. So it's not a black and white answer here, but there's people, they will not. You know, I've gone on podcasts before. I went on a quite a big name podcast a couple of months ago and the clip they put out there with me talking about the seed, I was taken out of the, the nuance of the world of conversation don't you do this, Ben is.

I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah, I got. And I wouldn't even say they misrepresented me. The podcast production team were great and. But people heard what they want to hear. They heard me defending seed oils and that's all they heard. They didn't want to listen to the whole podcast in context. They didn't even want to hear the longer part around the whole clip, the one minute clip. They just heard what they wanted to hear. That's what I mean by dietology. And so there will be difference of opinions. Academic research is full of nuance. There's a journalist and writer called Tim Irvine who's written an amazing book called what's Our Problem? And he talks about. It's more about politics, but his narrative translates perfectly onto nutrition and science, academia as a whole. We have high rung debates and he refers to this concept called the ladder. And we can disagree and have high rung disagreements, but they're based on evidence. And sometimes we'll, we'll convince someone otherwise, sometimes we won't. But as a social creatures, we know that these debates generally improve the way we think. Diatology is based on low rung thinking. It's. Whereas I'm not interested in, in what you're. You're saying. I might even give science show show you some scientific research that disagrees with what you're saying. And there is research. Take the seed oil analogy again. I can steel man the other side's argument on here and show that seed oils are bad for health. But I would be cherry picking. I would not be looking at the total amount of the evidence. I could pick some scientific mechanism that shows that seed oil causes inflammation. I can also find several studies. The seed oils are anti inflammatory, but they won't be showing them. Now there's a really important thing when we're looking at what we want, we're not interested in mechanisms. Well, we are, but fundamentally most people aren't because there are many mechanisms for one outcome, usually several, maybe even hundreds for one outcome. We want the totality so we can all cherry pick mechanisms to back up our perceptions. I can do it, but this is where you have to do a mix of randomized control trials, mechanistic data and epidemiology. And people, you know, the epidemiology is looking at patterns related to how people eat and say how people feel or, or disease outcome. But. And people criticize epidemiology doesn't, doesn't work. Well, you need to look at it together. On its own, yeah, maybe we shouldn't focus, but let's take toxicology for instance. If you're talking about pollutants, right. The whole policy about what, what should be the environment is actually based on epidemiology. You cannot do a randomized control trial by giving a load of people some something you know to be toxic and seeing what the outcome is. So you have to put policy, you're 100% depending on epidemiology in toxicology, yet people criticize nutrition science for having policies based on epidemiology. So whilst epidemiology isn't finite, it's all context specific. And this is what diatology is all about, is looking at the nuance, embracing every point of view and just trying to use maybe a Bayesian analysis using like correcting for when you've got more evidence to see what's likely to be correct. Now, most people aren't going to go to that level of detail. This is where it comes to looking at experts and there's this with the rise of populism at the moment, is an expert is someone who the individual deems to be an expert, which is just way off the mark. There are genuine experts. Will experts get things wrong? Absolutely, probably. A lot of the time that's science. So you should maybe listen to more than one expert. But genuine experts, not people that have got an axe to grind, you know about something and the misinformation at the moment in science is wild and people don't. I literally read a post that shouldn't have read it on Facebook this morning saying if someone's saying one thing, it's more likely to be the opposite. And I'm thinking, wow, is democracy dead? We have these institutions like academia, like policymaking, have all the checks and balances within them that mean that yes, things will be wrong, but broadly speaking, we should listen to them. So, you know, people aren't listening to experts here and everyone listening to this today will just want a few key points on how can they, they can improve their own health and maybe minimize any negative impacts on other people. And that's actually quite easy. But it does involve listening to genuine experts.

Yeah, and there's so much in that, James. And as I'm listening to you talking there, like to your point, people who want a few genuine tips they can take away and use like, that's great. And hopefully between you and I, we've, we've provided a little bit of that. But for me, the thing that's really starting to stand out from our conversation probably more valuable that I guess it comes back to your contemplative, kind of nutritional or eating right. Because I think what we're really talking about here is quite a lot of confirmation bias really. Like we, we've got our beliefs, we see the evidence that backs up our current belief and maybe that current belief might be largely driven by who we're following on social media or who we're seeing on the news and either means we find evidence to support our view or prove the other person's view wrong. Right. Similarly, like what I saw on yesterday was a post by a guy who's basically saying cigars are really good for you. It written this long post like saying cigars are really good for, you know, whether that was genuinely his view or if it's one of these deliberately controversial posts that is trying to use sort of a semi, semi clickbait. But like if you're somebody who is a fan of that guy, you might go, oh well, I'll start smoking cigars then. They're really good for me. Like I don't know if they are or not, but that's not the point. But to your, to your point around influencers and really trying to do our best to just assess the information we are being bombarded by, it just feels like it's more important than ever, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And you read a good point there with your cigar and post analogy. That happens in nutrition. I reckon some of these influencers are just putting things out there to be provoking. Do they believe it? Maybe on some level they probably do, otherwise they wouldn't put something that goes against their narrative even if it was going to be controversial. Some of the carnivore influences do that. But I also think they can produce evidence to back up their claims. But again, they're cherry picking and looking for confirmation bias and it happens on with veganism as well. It's complex here and people, we just need to be mindful and listen to hear a lot of points but listen to no one individually. Now if anybody, any of your listeners now listening to this and saying, well why should we listen to this guy? Well if they're asking that question, I say brilliant, because they should be challenging everything I say, but they should be doing it at a high level. And I came off a call early this morning, friend of mine who read my book criticized me on one area in particular. And you know what? She's probably right on a couple of, couple of challenges. There's a couple of challenges she's given me that I don't think she's correct on. But we, you know, she sent me the email a month ago. I've had a chance to go through and we had a call about it this morning. That's high rung debate, right? That's what, that's what. And I probably will write an article about what I think she's got a point and what I don't. But this is what we should be doing. And of course the public don't have time for that. They're not informed for that and why should they be? But when you've got social media that's putting science out in everybody's faces in bite sized chunks, at least under 90 seconds, maybe under 45 seconds, which is just not long enough. People are accepting that because you can't see the substance behind the argument. And even on a YouTube and YouTube's a bit better because you can get five, six, seven, eight minutes or maybe a 90 minute podcast with someone where they can back up what they're saying, but they still aren't doing the depth and substance because you need to put thought behind it. Which is why things like books, which is part of what made me write the book, I've got my ideas. Well, how did I get there, you know, and that you could do so much in an article. And I wrote, I write on substack, but you know, an article is what, 1500 words? Yeah. You could put a. You can only make one point in that. But there's a lot of points that are feeding into a perspective and you can only do that by book. And I realize that reading isn't for some people, but audiobooks are out there and they're great and that's why it's important. You know, it's a shame that books aren't read as much anymore. People, if people are going to argue with me and disagree with me, they have only heard part of my argument. And the complexity of the food system involves embracing it from all angles. And that's what I've tried to have done in my book.

Yeah, I think of reading a book as like having a conversation with the author. Like if I spend spend a week reading this, it's like me sitting down having a conversation with you, recording this podcast. I just think it's a real kind of gift to be able to pick up a book and read it.

Just I love reading and it sounds a good writer. It makes it a lot easier. I'm reading one at the moment and it's full of good facts. But the guy's just written so it's like an academic paper. It's hard work and I want to read it, but I'm hating every minute of it. Hopefully I've done a better job. There are some brilliant science writers out there and if I can be as close to them in any respect, then I think I've done an okay job.

I once tried to pick up and read a metahuman by Deepak Chopra. I put it down and thought like when I've got my PhD in like quantum physics, I'll come back to that because it just lost me really quickly.

I've not read any of his work, but I've heard him on a lot. But he's a bit bully, he's a bit out there and he is what I think he's a good faith guy and I've heard him on debate. I'm sure he's a nice guy and his perceptions on metaphysics and ontology are probably quite good. But I do think a lot of cherry picking and trying to spatula in science for his narrative there.

James, there's a couple of final questions I want to ask you quite heavily focused on on nutrition. And then. Okay, we'll, we'll take a short break and we'll, we'll come back or listeners can come back for the next episode where we're going to focus in a little bit more on. On leadership. There's two questions for you. One specifically around Huel, if I may. So while it can be really convenient for people on on the go, things like Huel ready to drink for for example, how do you sort of recommend balancing those sorts of products or similar products from other companies? How do you balance that with a broad and nutritional sort of strategy?

Huel is for people to have as much or as little as they like that suits them. If people are fortunate enough to be able to prepare for them all their meals using good quality sourced ingredients and to be able to enjoy them together with other people, then Huel's probably not for them. Now back in the modern real world, how many people are doing that with every meal? And I'm sure there's a couple of meals a week where people are doing that. And you know, if they've got a partner or a wife, say that stays at home and cooks for them, you know, 1950 wants their family values back, but it's, you know, it's you maybe you'll afford enough to do that, but we can't. We're in the modern world where other people are doing the food acquisition and food preparing for us and that's brilliant and we should embrace that. But what's happened is people are rushing around and they're making otherwise poor food choices. What we've got at Yule is convenient, affordable options for people to make better food choices. The products are high in fiber, they've got the omega 3s, the high in protein, they're satiating and all the vitamins and minerals and the right sort of carbohydrates. We've got a variety of different products in different formats. We've got the ready to drink bottles that most people are familiar with from the supermarkets. We've got the powders, different macro ratios, different carb levels and protein levels. And we've got the hot and savory range which are the grains, noodle or pasta based products that people mix with hot water, stir leaf for five minutes and then, and then enjoy. So it's for people to have what, what they want, how it suits them. I know people that will religiously have two meals a day that are based on Yule and maybe another meal that they've cooked and prepared at home with, with a family. Brilliant. I know other people, for instance, cover salespeople are out on the road a couple of days a week and they need Yule on those days but not the other days. Brilliant. There's other people that might just have the old busy day now and again. They're passing the store and they see one of our Rotary drinks there and that's for them. Brilliant. There's no right or wrong answer. There's no, you know, people. If people want structure, hu can absolutely be part of that structure. If people don't want structure, they just want the convenience. Ad hoc hill can be part of that as well.

Brilliant. James, final question for this, this part of our chat. Imagine the situation where someone is a senior leader, md, CEO in a senior position. They've got a really high stakes meeting coming up, sort of, let's say three o' clock when we often get that energy slump. Many people, yeah, high stakes meeting, big negotiation, big decision to be made. What would you recommend? I guess more in terms of principles to make sure they are fueling themselves so they can be at their best in, in that meeting. Is there. What should we be thinking about perhaps to your point earlier, to eat at lunch. So we're, we're ready for that meeting at 3:00'. Clock.

Well, the big thing is of course, you know, it's a longer term thing for a few days around that you need to be eating good food to be Focused to be slept. I've slept well. If there's any short term hacks they can do on that day. Yeah, it depends if they like fasting or not. Would they have had breakfast? That's subjective. I'm going to go with someone who maybe is a faster and has having their first meal at lunch. Maybe they'll add a coffee early on. Make sure you know, the caffeine hasn't worn off by that because that could be bad. But on the other hand, you know, don't depend, don't have too much. You don't have three coffees because you might get the jitters. I've got a confession to make, Ben. I had them about an hour ago because I've had too many coffees this morning.

Right.

This is my second interview.

You're hiding it well if that's the case.

Yes. You know that wouldn't be good. So the right level. But then the food. I probably wouldn't overeat at lunch if I was that individual. I would maybe picking things that are maybe slow digestion like nuts and seeds are great. Maybe a bit of dried fruit, maybe a bit of fresh fruit in there as well. Maybe snack on some vegetable sticks and hummus. I think that's a great choice as well. Would you get quite a bit of food in there? But if people want some. Some whole grains for. For energy because yeah, you've got a bit from the nuts and seeds but they're not high carb foods. So maybe a bit of wholemeal bread, granary bread would be great. Or maybe a small amount of rice or something like that. They want to have had a hot meal. Okay, enough a small sweet potato and then a protein source as well. Sure there's a bit in the nuts and seeds but a small amount of protein, you, you don't want to overdo it. There's going to be a lot of food there. So just base foods on good quality food. Really don't overdo it. And if you are feeling a bit nervous, don't have a drink to try and calm the nerves because that's really not going to be helpful.

I'm not sure kind of that still happens that much these days, does it? Or maybe it does in some circles, who knows?

Yeah, I think it's probably. I don't know what the stats are but drinking at lunchtime is probably not such a big a deal. I get that impression. Anyway, make sure you're drinking. They don't be drinking too much. You're having to go for a pee halfway through the meeting. That's not going to be great, but do be well hydrated with water.

Brilliant. James, thanks so much for your, for your time. Certainly on the nutrition piece. As I said, folks, we're going to take a really short break and then we'll come back in for part two and second episode for people listening where we're going to touch a little bit more on leadership specific stuff from from your journey. James, thank you very much.

That was part one of my conversation with James Collier and I really hope it got you thinking not just about what you eat, but about how you support your own performance as a leader. If you're serious about leading well under pressure, then make sure you're creating the conditions for success and that includes your own energy, focus and mental stamina. And remember, if you want to understand how your wider leadership team is performing and what might be holding them back, then don't forget to take my Leadership Capability Scorecard. It's a free tool that gives you a simple report on how your team performs across nine key areas of leadership that matter most in scale up businesses. You can complete the scorecard via the.

Link in the show notes.

And finally, if this episode made you think differently, then please share it with a colleague or a fellow leader. It really helps me grow the show and more importantly, helps more people scale without burning out. Until next time, take care.