The Healing Power of Colorful Plant Foods with Dr. Deanna Minich - Ep. 91

Today we're going to explore one of my favorite, most joyful approaches to eating well, Eat the Rainbow. And my guest is one of my absolute health heroes, Dr. Deanna Minick, a nutrition scientist, educator, artist, and author of the Eat the Rainbow diet, whose work blends rigorous science with creativity and meaning in a way that is not just beautiful, but as I've personally seen and experienced in my coaching practice, also highly effective. I was first introduced to Dr. Minick's work through my functional medicine health coach training, where Eat the Rainbow is a really key part of that functional framework for nourishment, energy, even creative expression. And I want to share a quick story before we get into today's episode. So I remember when I was doing my health coach training, I printed the Eat the Rainbow checklist and I just kind of low key left it on our dinner table. And my son James, who was 8 at the time, was just, you know, magnetically drawn to it, of course, all the colors, and he's like, what's this? So this conversation starts as a family, and next thing I know, James is asking for foods like purple kale and mangoes to be sure that we were getting all of our colors in. And for those of you with kids out there, you know, like, that is parenting gold, right? So it was a really big lightning bolt moment for me, not just as a parent, but in my own work, because not only was it working for my finicky 8 year old, but it was working for me. It was working for my family. We're suddenly having these fun conversations at the dinner table about how we could get more color on our plates. And it was the total opposite of restriction and rules. It was curiosity, it was color, it was connection. So fast forward a couple years and I bring Eat the Rainbow into my Thrivers Club community with the Eat the Rainbow worksh and wellness challenge. And I immediately got to see. Holy cow. This sparks that same childlike curiosity and creativity and joy around nutrition and the women in my community, many of whom are struggling with low energy, brain fog and all the other symptoms and challenges that hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's can bring. So I really consider Eat the Rainbow a cornerstone of my own food philosophy as hypothyroid chef. It's a huge. A huge part of my upcoming cookbook, as you'll see. And in the Thrivers club, when we do our annual summer Eat the Rainbow challenge, it's hands down one of the absolute member favorites. The energy is contagious. It's such a high Vibe. The results are for real, like very effective results for people. And what I see is people really feel the difference so quickly of getting more color, more plants, more, more phytonutrients, more micronutrients into their lives and that just, it equals more vitality. So if you're new to this, I want to assure you that Eat the Rainbow is about so much more than just a pretty plate. If you've ever felt boxed in or bummed out by food rules and restrictions, Today's conversation with Dr. Minik is going to give you a fresh lens and an expansive approach and a whole new way of eating well so you can thrive. Let's dive in. Hello thyroid thrivers and welcome back to another episode of the Thyroid Healthy Bites podcast with bi weekly episodes dedicated to helping you eat well, live well and feel well. I'm Ginny Mahar, a functional medicine health coach, Cordon Bleu chef, and your thyroid health and cooking coach. So if you're ready to get inspired, informed and empowered with thyroid friendly food and lifestyle topics, expert interviews and tales from the healing journey, you're in the right place, friends, let's dig in. All right, Dr. Mick, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.

Oh, thank you for having me. And what an inspirational backstory with James, your 8 year old son, and also your community. This is so inspiring and it's truly what I was hoping with the Rainbow Diet as it is, right, to kind of get out there, inspire people, gamify eating, make it full of art, soul and play and not something so heady and analytical because I think we get enough of that in our day to day. We do.

And yeah, it's so cool to see how you put this thing out into the world and then people like me as a health coach can take it, run with it, apply it and it really, it's incredibly powerful. My community has so latched on to this because they feel it, they feel it in their bodies. You know, that's there's no stronger, more driving force in like helping us make healthy choices than that, you know, getting those internal results. So I know I've been super excited to meet you and have this conversation. So I'm not, I'm going to try not to fangirl too much. But yeah, your work has been hugely influential. Not just on my work, but, you know, on my, it's expanded my own relationship with food and thinking about food. So it's very exciting for me too. And I'm just really excited to meet you, connect with you and introduce you to my audience.

Well, it's an honor and a pleasure to have the conversation. I'm excited for it. I feel like your experience with it informs you differently, and so I'm curious to see where you want to go with this.

Yeah.

So I'm open to just exploring whatever comes up as it relates to phytonutrients and how we can talk about thyroid health and functional medicine overall. So thanks again for having me.

Yeah. Nice. This will be a juicy and colorful conversation. Lots to talk about. Most of. As I mentioned, most of my Thrivers Club members are already familiar with your work and they're excited to meet you too, because I talk about you all the time in my community. But for those of you who are new maybe to the podcast or to Eat the Rainbow, I'd love to share a little bit more about you with the audience before we dig in. Dr. Deanna Minick, PhD, is a nutrition scientist, international lecturer, educator, and Author with over 20 years of experience in academia and the food and dietary supplement industries. She's currently the chief science officer at Symphony Natural Health. She's been active as a functional medicine clinician in clinical trials and in her own practice at Food and Spirit. She's the author of seven books on wellness topics, four book chapters, and over 50 scientific publications. That's amazing. Through her talks, workshops, groups, and in person retreats, she helps people transform their lives practically and artfully through nutrition and lifestyle. And you can find her online at www.deannaminich.com. and that's M I N I C H so we'll be sure and put, you know, all these links in the show notes. But yeah, let's, let's go ahead and, and get into it. You know, you're, you're, I'm really curious to hear about your background because it's unique in that you're not just a scientist, but also an artist. And I'd love to hear more about how those two threads kind of led you down this path and you know how those sort of weave into that rainbow model that you te day.

Yeah. You're tapping into something that really brings together, like parallel tracks of my life. Well, I think for many of us, the way that we get into health and healing is through personal experience. And that was surely the case for me. I had a number of reproductive, gastrointestinal issues and even dermatological, so like skin issues. But, you know, within functional medicine, we would see that all of these things are related. Hormones, skin, energy, gut. It's like one big Ball. And that just happened to be my particular aspect. So I. I had a number of health issues. I grew up with a pretty healthy mom in the 1970s, and so much like you and helping to form healthy habits with her children, she, you know, really instilled in us this strong sense of, read the food label and we are only eating these foods, and this is why. And so I had that from a very early age. But I must say, I was a little bit of a rebel. And I didn't like to listen per se. And, you know, that just wasn't how all the other kids were eating. So it made it really difficult to implement. So I would eat a lot of sugar. And as I got into college, I was still really into science. I was intrigued with the human body. And I went on to be pre med and had a biology focus, but I was also taking a lot of art history, English literature. You know, I would say, you know, I went to a liberal arts college. So even though my major was biology and science, my minor was English Lit. I was always drawn to not just the science, but also to the art of whether it was literature, poetry, art, art history, philosophy. I took a philosophy of language course that I really liked. But then I went into graduate school, I studied nutrition. And I would say it wasn't until I was doing my doctoral research in my late 20s when I got really stressed. And I, you know, it was one of those things where, like, you have to get out of your head because you're, you know, you can think things through. And I didn't know about functional medicine then. That was just like, I was so isolated in my little research box, just trying to finish my degree, but very, very stressed. And what I actually ended up doing was I went and bought this big roll of paper, just white paper, and I just started painting. I started painting large shapes, bright colors, and I started putting these large reams of paper with that had been painted by me all over the place so that I was constantly looking at these. So it was almost like I formed a coping mechanism. So lots of stress couldn't actually, you know, there's only so much I felt like I could do with exercise or talking it out. I really felt like art and being in this chaotic space of expressing through color was really pivotal for me. And I also want to backtrack just a little bit, because during my master's degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago, one of the things that I studied was colorful plan plant compounds. So that's kind of like the science piece of this and then color kind of came in as this, I would say, like, almost like a nutrient for me. Like there was something that was missing. And I would continue to paint the same colors over and over. So fast forward, you know, these two things, art, painting, creativity, started to merge into my scientific aspects of research. And it coincided with this whole area that we're going to talk about, which is phytochemicals. Phyto is plant chemicals, you know, just the different structures that are within plants. And that was already kind of formed as a foundation during my graduate school training because of the carotenoids that I studied. So carotenoids are these plant pigments. There are what. What you see, like during autumn, once the chlorophyll breaks down and you start to see the red leaves, the orange leaves, the yellow leaves. That's all because of the carotenoids that are underneath that chlorophyll. And that's what I studied. So when I met Dr. Jeffrey Bland, who is the father of functional medicine, that was back in 2003, I started working with him and his research group. And that group started to do research on phytochemicals in the way of looking at metabolic deto, looking at the role in cell signaling. So it just furthered my exploration and research in phytochemicals. So I would say, you know, in nutrition, it's kind of interesting because you kind of get like the. I call them the three musketeers. Protein, carbohydrate and fat. And most people are having conversations about those things endlessly. It's like, how much fat? How much carbs? No carbs, fat. What kind of fat is good or bad? You know that that's just like one layer. And then you have micronutrients, which are the vitamins and the minerals, which are also very important, but in smaller amounts. So what I ended up focusing much more on was the phytonutrients. These phytochemicals, which don't have calories, they are not treated as a vitamin or a mineral. And so they have like very. I would say they have many roles, they wear many hats. Whether they go into certain body tissues or they act to promote our antioxidant response, they help to promote healthy inflammatory response. Maybe they're. They are helping with the gut brain communication. I mean, clearly plant compounds are really smart. They're just doing a lot of things in our bodies. Sometimes people think about these things as adaptogens, but it's way beyond adaptogens. I mean, we see genetic effects Epigenetic effects, like I mentioned, the structural effects. So what we have learned is that these phytochemicals are more than antioxidants. You know, back in the 90s, we kind of thought, what are all these things in plants? You know, we don't really know because in classic nutrition, we don't see them on a nutrition facts label. But then in the 21st century, in this past 25 years or so, we have started to see genetic expression effects. We started to go down, I would say, the rabbit hole in studying them. In fact, there was just a paper, I think it was in the Landsat, or maybe it was New England Journal of Medicine, where it was talking about 136,000 molecules in food. I think that that's probably an underestimate, but maybe that's just where we're at in terms of, like, how many we've actually codified. But then when you think about it, when we eat, we're metabolizing those chemicals into other secondary metabolites that go on to have other effects. So that's a long answer to your first question, but essentially that's kind of how I started to braid together science and art. It was a personal journey as well as a professional one.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, that's so beautiful. I. What really stood out to me in your story is that idea of color as a nutrient, and not just through food, but through the actual colors themselves. Yeah. And so many good points about, you know, the phytonutrients as well. I. I feel like maybe last time I looked, it was around 50 some thousand phytonutrients. Is that still.

It's so hard to say. Right. You know, maybe something on the order of 50,000. There have been different estimates. And quite honestly, I would just say we don't know. It's a moving target because there can be so many factors that change phytonutrients. You know, you think about the environment, the amount of sun, the amount of rain. We might get different metabolites depending on if that plant has been exposed to pests or, you know, things like insects. So it's. It's just maybe 50,000. It's hard to say because I don't think that we have the technology or even the understanding to really bring in the breadth of plant science. But I think we will one day. I think things are ramping up because of technology, but let's just say there's a lot. So every food that we're eating, it's like you're not just Eating the, the macronutrients, you're not just having the micronutrients, you're also having these phytonutrients. And you have a lot of other things too. Like you have the plants, microorganisms. You know, we haven't even begun to really fully explore just even taking an apple and how an apple has different microorganisms on it. And that can vary seasonally and it can vary depending on the location on the apple itself, whether it's the stem, the calyx, the skin. You know, food is complex. Food is like us. It's, it's like a universe.

Yeah. Well, I love how eat the rainbow takes this thing that it's, it's almost too vast for human. You know, we can't really hold it all in our human brains. Like, oh, I have to make sure I'm getting all 50 some thousand phytonutrients. But it's like, but we can think about the colors of the spectrum. And one thing I thought I kind of want to just underscore for the audience at the outset of our conversation is just that, you know, people here eat the rainbow and they might just think, oh, that's like, you know, that's just like a nutrition gimmick. Or maybe it's just about like pretty colors. But there really is so much science behind this and I, I thought you'd be the perfect person to, to ask about and who could maybe speak, speak to some of that really standout evidence that you've discovered in all your time researching this topic of, you know, how does this approach of really just thinking about getting more diverse colors in the foods we eat, how does that then equate to better health and vitality?

That's great. That's definitely my sweet spot of what I love to talk about the science of something that sounds so simple because there really is a lot of science underneath saying eat the rainbow. And it's, it's not something that I would say is even new. There have been other opinion leading organizations that have been talking about this like five a day and, you know, just different groups that have talked about this in a variety of different ways, but now we have different and deeper understanding of why. So the way that I talk about the rainbow is in terms of function, which really speaks to your functional medicine connection and your coaching. Right. So I like to look at things in terms of body systems and the functions. So the way that I started to explore these colors, I, I started to realize that there could, there was almost like a code There was a color code within nature that was connected to function. And it's, it's just a general template. It's not something that's set in stone. But as I started to look at the scientific publications, I could say, like, oh, wow. Red colored foods seem to be connected to healthy immune and inflammatory response. Oh, wow. Orange foods, these carotenoids, beta carotene, they seem to be connected to the endocrine system and hormones and even adipose tissue. And then yellow. And actually even within some of the colors there is its own mini spirit spectrum. So yellow, tan, brown, digestive health fiber, catalysts, acids, prebiotic fibers, green. Green is the code of the vascular system. So the heart, the cardiovascular system. So we think of green foods being full of things like magnesium and folate. And folate, technically, you know, we think of that as vitamin, mineral, but there's chlorophyll, you know, that we have other things in there interacting with some of these really important cardiovascular agents. Nitrates would be another one where when we take these leafy greens in, we can convert them through a number of different enzymes into nitric oxide. And so then we get this expansion. Well, you know, today I, as I mentioned to you, I'm wearing this blue green color because I associate the thyroid with blue green. And there aren't a lot of blue green foods. So the way that I talk about those in the rainbow diet is to talk about green plants that grow in the blue sea or blue ocean. Right. So thinking about sea plants, so Nori, Wakame, dulse, a lot of these sea plants are rich in things like iodine, but then also just trace minerals in general. And I feel like trace minerals are an important aspect of thyroid health as well as our overall physiology. So I like to have fun with the blue green. There aren't, you know, we could talk even spirulina and some of the aspects. But you know, in general, what we're looking at there is things that grow in water could be important or even to look at the format of the food. So when I talk about the throat and thyroid, even in this whole area, I'm talking about mindful eating, slow eating, making sure that, you know, the pace, the how of eating is also accounted for. So that's why the rainbow diet is a little bit more than just the colors. Sometimes it's the what, the why, the when and the how. Blue, purple correlates to the brain, and white I have a connection to. Well, in the book I talk about fasting, clearing, detoxification. It's Kind of like getting back to your. Your clean slate, you know, going back and pushing that reset button within.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I love that. And thank you for, you know, coming with your thyroid color. That's so fun and really interesting to think about how some of those foods might weave in. But, yeah, I. I think, you know, I. To me, I just see you've taken this so far beyond just that 2D rainbow. This is like a more of a 5D philosophy where it isn't just about the colors of the food. Then we're integrating ideas about the chakras, about our female hormonal cycles and shifts and seasons, and really going fully kaleidoscopic with that spectrum. I'd love to maybe just ask you one more question about your trajectory with your work and how that has blossomed and continues to kind of expand and unfold for you that way, into going so far beyond just the science and food and nutrition and color, but into that spiritual realm as well.

I think in science, once you're a scientist, you're a seeker, and you're always looking for the truth. That's why you do experiments. It's like, what's the truth? Like, what does this do? It has to be reproducible. It has to, you know, be a context where you form a question and you're seeking to answer it. And oftentimes I have felt that we can't get answers from science alone. In fact, some of the science can be contradictory, and that can depend based on how the study design was set up. You know, we've learned so much about genes and the type of food, the timing of food, you know, so many different variables to really control for. So I think science is a really good method. We need it. I appreciate it. It's. It's a good. It. It is a tool. It is. You know, that's how I see it in. In the way of us employing it in order to deepen our understanding of some natural phenomenon or aspect. I. I think I came into this spiritual aspect because I was seeking and I was thinking, you know, what? You know, whether it was me with my health issues or a family member with health issues, sometimes, I wasn't finding that that could just be solved with nutrition or different aspects of supplements alone. And I was thinking, what's the deeper. Why. Why does this person have this? Why wasn't it something else? And even within functional medicine, we have what's called the matrix. And the matrix is like a one pager, and it gives you, you know, certain aspects of what to kind of examine as it relates to a person's health. And right in the middle of the matrix is mental, emotional and spiritual. But we don't really focus a lot on this, even though it's right there in the middle. I feel like, you know, some people like to get deeper into it and they feel more apt and qualified to do that. And other people are just like, you know, I just know it's there, it's important, but I need to focus on the physiology. Well, I was just too curious. You know, I. I have done other trainings that would help me to understand a little bit more about the psychology and get into the symbolism. You know, some of my teachers in that realm would be people like Dr. Carolyn Mace, who is a medical intuitive and has written numerous books, even with a medical doctor, Dr. Norm Shealy, where she talks about. They have this whole book, why People Don't Heal and How They Can. Well, that kind of got me thinking. And then Louise Hay's book, you Can Heal youl Life, back in the 90s, you know, and this was all during the time in my 20s when I started to think deeply, like, why do I have these issues with my reproductive system? Why is it my gut? What is happening here? So it was kind of a layered approach where I was thinking, you know what? There are so many ancient traditions that don't have science, but they have wisdom, and they have the wisdom from observation. And that wisdom is oftentimes passed down through generations, and it isn't questioned. It's like it's already known. It's known through the community. And so, you know, we can even think about that with plants. There is a whole herbal tradition of how to view. And I'm not an herbalist, by the way, but I can appreciate that there is a whole botanical, herbal tradition of using plants in a more traditional way, in traditional formats. So not necessarily a dietary supplement, but maybe a decoction or some kind of preparation, a tea for something. And so maybe it doesn't have science, but it can still work. So it just brought me to the point of appreciation, of saying, you know what? I understand operating systems. I understand a systems approach because of functional medicine. And what the chakra system provided was also that it was a system. And it was a system through my functional medicine eyes that I could see was connected to the endocrine system. You know, you have the red adrenals, the orange, the ovaries or the testes, the reproductive portion of yellow right in the middle of the body, right where the digestive tract Is which makes sense because there's a lot of heat and a lot of transformation. You know, we're burning up things to make it energy, you know, with. Then we have green, which is, you know, the heart chakra, blue, green, the throat chakra, and blue, purple and white. And it was like, oh, wait a minute, this is like pineal gland, pituitary, thyroid. And the heart is even seen as an endocrine gland if you look at the science. So I'm thinking to myself, as I would get into this esoteric literature and by the way, I also did study in yoga and yoga also, if you look at it beyond just the asanas, the poses and kind of go into like the philosophy, you start to see like, wow, they're all kind of referencing this system. And for me, the two systems just overlaid perfectly on top of each other. It was like, oh, of course, this is the communication system in the body. This is like there's a lot of activity of these endocrine glands sending out hormones to have communication widespread, whether it's melatonin for the pineal gland or cortisol for the adrenals, or thyroid hormone for the thyroid gland. It's like it's communicating. So that was kind of how I got to that point of merging systems into one. It's like, I kind of see it like a holograph, like, or a hologram of, you know, of course, the, the physical, functional medicine aspects of like what we can see, feel and know that we can verify through science. But then there is like, wow, the symbolism of the thyroid gland, this metabolism we're integrating, like this little butterfly shaped gland is so powerful and. And yet it's also very vulnerable. Right. And look where it is, like in a very vulnerable place of the body. It's not like deep in the thoracic cavity or the lower body. It's like right here. So anyway, it just caused me to start thinking symbolically instead of just only scientifically about disease and wellness.

Yeah. And I think that layered approach is just so needed today for us in how we relate to our health as individuals, as societies, as a planet. And I see that layered approach so much in. I've been reading the Rainbow diet and you go through all the different colors and it isn't just talking about, oh, well, this food color tends to have these phytonutrients which do these for your health. It's all these different factors and questions and ways of looking at the body through, you know, how it can affect us energetically, how it can affect Us in creating, you know, discomfort and disease in the body or the opposite. So, and it's so interesting to think about that ancient chakra system, you know, that's been around for so long and how I just feel like you really, you know, there's those lightning bolt moments where we hit something and it's like there's so much here to explore and think about. I know in my community we talk a lot about not just eat the rainbow, but we, you know, we integrate the chakra conversation into that. And so much of what we're doing in everything we talk about there, it's about communication and how we can listen to and feel and tune into, like, what is going on in my body. It's not just about am I bloated, is my heart rate elevated, am I retaining water? It's about am I speaking my truth, is it about am I creatively stimulated, how is my self confidence coming from my diaphragm, how does that part of me feel in response to these different inputs and really developing that line of communication with ourselves? And so, yeah, I just love how you put that in a way that I think makes it really easy to kind of sink our teeth into looking at this really big, complex, multifaceted thing and going, oh, this is how this all comes together in such a beautiful holistic way. But I am curious, you know, you kind of touched on the thyroid piece. I am curious about maybe your thoughts on like, things like inflammation and fatigue and some of those things that often come along for those of us who are dealing with hypothyroidism. Hashimoto's autoimmunity. Are there any particular colors or phytonutrients that stand out? I know we talked about like the under the sea foods, but are there others that maybe kind of flag in your mind around some of those really common symptoms? Hey, thyroid thrivers. Ginny here. I just want to pop in with a quick message that if you're listening to today's show and thinking I'm ready to learn more about this thyroid healing journey, about what foods to eat, what foods to avoid. One of the best ways to do it is to sign up for my free thyroid friendly grocery guide. This features over 130 delicious, colorful, nutrient dense foods we can eat. So this list is gluten free, dairy free, soy free, refined, sugar free, and free of processed foods. Because there can be a lot of emphasis, especially when we're starting out on all that we can't have and all that we're supposed to avoid, but really the purpose of Thyroid Friendly eating is to incorporate more of the good stuff. So to grab your copy instantly of the Thyroid Friendly Grocery Guide, you can go to hypothyroidchef.com SLG Grocery. I'll send you the guide and you'll also get put on my free weekly newsletter. So you'll get fresh recipes, you'll get updates on the podcast, you'll get personal notes from me, special discounts, and all kinds of goodies that I send out to my mailing list for free just once a week. So go ahead and grab that@HypothyroidChef.com grocery okay, back to the show.

So there is a, first of all, great question. And I had no idea that your group was so integrative and expansive. And I really feel like that's, that's beautiful. It's, it's nice to be so comprehensive in one's approach, right, because you're going to have different parts that will speak more clearly to some more than others. And so, you know, you just kind of find your way with that. So that's, that's great to hear. As far as this is how I see it. So when I'm thinking of the thyroid gland, that becomes a pivot point, right? Like we can look at the thyroid gland and then look at its relationship to all the other glands. And in fact, I offer a practitioner training that I started back in 2014 where we would have questionnaires to figure out which of the endocrine circuit, which of these seven glands are out of balance. So let's just say that you do have Hashimoto's, but maybe it's not the throat chakra or what I call truth that comes up high. Maybe it's actually the root or the adrenal system. Every person is going to have a different interrelationship, different manifestation of symptoms. And so what I like to look at is the unique relationships that each of the glands have. And for one person, it might be ovaries and thyroid that they really need to work through. So every time they get their period, there is this disruption and things get worse with their thyroid. And so that, that's kind of like a, this dynamic. Remember how I was saying about my gut skin and my reproductive system? So I could chalk that up to, okay, that was like really my root, my flow and my, my fire. Like my, my lower three chakras that were connecting, like if I'm looking at that with energetic eyes. So I. Same here. And I would say, okay, let's start with the root system. Let's look at the adrenals. Because we know that adrenals can impair thyroid health and also change things like inflammatory response, immune response. Cortisol is so powerful. And I often feel that while this is an interconnected system, there are some things that pull more strongly at our, our overall network. Right. So starting with the root, starting with cortisol is such a good place. And when I to your question about colors, I would be thinking about those red colored foods. I would be thinking about like, what is inflaming us? When I'm thinking red colored foods, just to qualify that a little bit, I'm thinking of things like berries. So thinking of things like strawberries or even watermelon or, you know, supportive nutrients, phytonutrients for the adrenals, like things that are high in vitamin C, like even tomatoes. The thing with red. Red is a curious color though, because it cuts both ways. For some people, red colored foods might actually be perturbing inflammation, like if they're sensitive to nightshades. Right, so. Or whether it's goji berries or, you know, is there something that we're sensitive to that we need to be looking at? So I would say it's good to have an assessment to kind of direct a person's approach a little bit more in a therapeutic direction. But if we're just saying, like, in general, what do we need to be looking at for thyroid? I mean, obviously the whole rainbow is very important for everybody. So I kind of see that as like ground zero. That's kind of like where we all start. But then after that foundation, we go more into the personalized therapeutics to kind of see like, okay, what's tugging on what, because it's like a spider's web. So if we have something going on with thyroid, what's underneath that? Is it the ovaries? Is it the adrenals? Is it really the gut? And like we have a, you know, we have dysbiosis. So maybe we now need to focus on yellow, tan and brown and get those higher fiber foods in in order to nourish the gut microbiome in order to signal things like the thyroid better. Maybe it is toxin load. Maybe we need to look at not just the colors of the foods, but also different characteristics. So in the rainbow diet, I talk about four things. Color, which we're mostly getting into now. Then there's also creativity, which I touched upon a little bit as you asked me about my story. But there's a way to bring creativity into food. Then there's diversity. And diversity speaks to dietary diversity, but also life experiences and changing things up. You know, life ruts and food ruts kind of getting out of those little bubbles. And then the fourth one is rhythm. So with rhythm, we're talking circadian rhythm, lunar rhythm, menstrual rhythm, hormonal rhythms, just solar rhythms. You know, there can be so many different rhythms that we're enmeshed with. So I think it's kind of a more expansive answer. Not as tight and easy for the question just to say, like, is it just one color for the gland? It's like the relationship, just like you mentioned about communication. And we know in functional medicine, you know, the communication node is an important one. So what are we communicating? How is that being communicated through and is there miscommunication? Do we need to lean more on red colored foods and get cortisol, insulin, glucose in alignment so that we help with inflammation, blood sugar response and immune health, which will ultimately help the thyroid? So it's kind of like, you know, there are many ways, as I would call it, there are many paths to take and some might get you there faster than others. But I would say that going through the endocrine system overall is, is so important to acknowledge and to have an understanding of because I just feel like it's, it's like an inner compass, it's like this inner navigation system. And because the thyroid is so sensitive, it's letting you know right away like something is off. It's the sentinel organ, as we know. Right. Because that's what Dr. Bland and others have called it. You know, my work has mostly been in, I would say the environmental health aspects. And so looking at the role of whether it's endocrine disruptors or environmental toxicants and the impact on thyroid and how the thyroid can be especially vulnerable to the, the overall total toxic load, which I'm sure you've discussed in your group.

Oh, yes, yeah, yeah. That's another wellness challenge and workshop that we have is, you know, on low tox living because. Yeah, and I love that quote from Dr. Bland about, you know, the thyroid is really the sentinel gland for the environment. So that's one thing I love about my work, is it isn't just, it's about so much more than just the thyroid, which I think is the same thing you're saying in, in your answer. It's not just about the thyroid. It's not just about the autoimmunity. It's this whole system and the intricacies there. And, and as you said, what's pulling on what? And that doesn't just apply to our bodies. It applies to our immediate environments and our greater environments, including the planet that we live on. So it just becomes more and more expansive the deeper you go into that. But you talked about the different. I forget what you called them, but rhythm and creativity and those different aspects of. And I'd love to maybe explore that a little bit because I think there's. Especially now with so much conflicting information, you know, social media, lots of misinformation, lots of influencers, like everybody's, you know, shouting something different from the rooftops to, like, get traffic and, you know, get likes and whatever. And then people start coming to food from a place of fear and restriction. You know, don't eat this. Cut that out. And I feel like this model really invites more of that curiosity and creativity. So I'm curious about your. Your take on that. Mindset shifts. On that mindset shift, like, what. What do you see happening with people? Because you've worked, you know, as a clinician with people on, you know, applying these things and, you know, really as the creator of this, like, I'd love to hear. What do you think makes it so unique that way? How does it. How does it do that for us?

I.

These are probably another question without a simple answer, but it is really remarkable to me how shifting our lens really opens doors for people where all of a sudden they're like, I'm having fun, fun nourishing myself for maybe the first time ever. That's really powerful.

Yeah, I love how you said that. You know, and it's true, because clinically speaking, I would say that most people know what they need to do. It's just that they're not doing it. And there can be so many things that stand in the way of that. It might actually be their physiology where, from a neurochemistry point of view, they just have so much fatigue, they just can't muster up the energy or, you know, they just feel off, they're inflamed, they're in pain, whatever it is. There could be an actual physiologic basis to kind of moving them along. And then, you know, psychologically, it can be hard because many people just want the shiny object. And that's why they're looking for things on social media, because, like, what's the latest thing? What's the quick fix? And, you know, it doesn't always work like that. Food is something constant, consistent. It's like a relationship with food. And like I mentioned before, it's not just what we're eating, it's how we are eating, it's when we are eating. And it's why, you know, we might have emotional reasons, we might have, you know, emotional eating, which is constantly plaguing us, because it's even been estimated some time ago that over 75% of overeating is due to emotional reasons. But so often we don't acknowledge that in the therapeutic encounter, it's just like, eat these foods and you know, I'm not going to give you any more info because that's all I can do.

Right.

So I would say, I mean, here, here was kind of my clinical strategy. I'll just tell you personally what I did because I wrestled with this because I felt like, how come not everybody just does this? And that did kind of lead me into more of this rainbow approach. Because I was feeling like for the people that like structure and nutrition and they just wanted to be told what to do, they would do really well with me on an elimination diet, or whether it was a more paleo like diet, whatever it was, they could follow it for some time. But then what happened? They would just kind of fall off. They couldn't sustain it. Yeah. And it just became too much. It became unbearable. There were just too many things to keep track of. The moment they weren't on the diet and they fell off. Then it was really hard to get back on. So that's why I was thinking, okay, if I look at my rebellious teenage self, I didn't want to be eating those foods either that my mom was having us eat. But I really was into locus of control. I wanted to have like a sense of independence and also connection with food and also kind of the fun experience that the kids were having with certain foods. Like whether I was going to Girl Scouts or sporting events, you know, kind of seeing that food was joy. So I. That's where bringing in something like the rainbow diet and making it fun. Because I have a fun story too of a colleague of mine who did almost exactly what you did with your son, where she had a five year old at the time, he's now a little bit older, probably eight. And you know, she just, you know, she did this thing with him where they just checked the boxes and so it was fun. They could measure it and it was colorful. And I kind of felt like, you know, with nutrition, there have been so many changing tunes over the years. Like people get confused and then they're like, well, why should I really do this when I don't know if this is really the right thing, but with the new, with the rainbow approach, it is much more, I would say, validated by science. Like, if you kind of, if you look at the science and say, okay, what can you not easily refute? It's eating fruits and vegetables and plant foods. I'm not talking about the processed plant foods, I'm talking about the whole varieties. So, you know, looking at the actual food in its original format or some slight derivation thereof, but I found that when I was talking about the colors of food and had a little bit more fun with it, that people could stay with it, then they didn't feel so bad if they stopped eating from a certain food plan that I gave them. So I actually leveraged my inner teenager to figure out that we need to make food fun, artful. It needs to be relatable. It needs to be something that you can feel and translates into our everyday in some way. And quite honestly, you know, most people, when you ask them about, why do you want to be healthy? You need to understand the motivator. And I would do this 5 why thing with clients where I would say, so why do you want to be healthy? And then they would say, I'll give you an exact answer here with a certain client that I had. He was at the time, he was in his mid-40s and he was a musician and he was struggling with diabetes. In fact, he was, you know, just heading in that direction of having type 2 diabetes. He was eating lots of processed carbohydrates. He had erratic times that he would eat because he was a musician and he loved his music. He would be playing at like, for long hours, late night on the weekend. And so then his sleep would get irregular and he would have alcohol and different foods. So when I first met with him, I'm thinking, oh, wow, this is, this can be a challenge because he doesn't have like a set schedule where I can like weave in a routine. So the first question, one of the first questions I asked him was, you know, what means the most to you right now? What is like super important? And he said, my music. That his music was so important. And I said, okay, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most important thing in your life and 1 being not important at all, what is music? And he said, 10. I said, okay, great. I said, what is health to you? Like your, your health? And immediately I was expecting him to say 10. He said seven. He said seven. And then I was thinking, okay. So all of my conversations with him about food and health need to be connected to what means the most for him. And you would know this with coaching. You know, it's like motivational interviewing. Why. Why do you want to be healthy? Okay, why do you want this feeling? Why do you want more energy? Why do you want a better mood? Why do you want to sleep better? Like, just opening the door and listening, I feel like also catapulted a lot of change. And then it would be inspired through their locus of control, rather than me saying for them to do it. But I just opened the door so that they could start to see, like, oh, you know, if I want to play music and I want to do that well, and if I become diabetic and then, you know, maybe I lose my peripheral senses and, you know, my fingers can't play guitar as well, or I get some numbness and my. Like, I won't be able to play music, so I better do something about it now. So it's one way to kind of put it. And for other people, it's like, no, I want to be healthy because of my family. I want to be there for my kids. I want to see, you know, my kids graduate and get married and do all of these things. So everybody has different motivators, and those motivators may change throughout life. And even if we think it's one motivator, I would say go deeper. Go deeper into, like, why is it music? Why, like, what is it about the music that is fulfilling for you? And then you're going to get another answer. Okay, well, then, what is it about that? What is it about that? You know, I. I looked at Simon Sinek's. So Simon Sinek is a. You know, he. You know who he is. He. He's written a number of books, and he does a lot of corporate kind of trainings and such. And he talks about the five whys. So I like to think of the five whys or the why. He talks about the why. And I feel like once we can understand the why, getting there is a bit easier than we can understand the how. That's just been my. My personal take is to understand, and, you know, I'll just toss this into the mix. One of my teachers, Barb Schultz, she said, deanna, always ask the client what food they're not willing to give up, because that's most likely the food that's keeping them in dysfunction. So that was also a really great clinical pearl, because, you know, I would especially want to ask that question as we were moving into going into an elimination diet, because Some people have a lot of fear about that. Like, oh my gosh, there's no way I could give up chocolate. It's like, oh, chocolate. You know, chocolate is the food. And then when you start to go into chocolate from a physical and also a psychological perspective, you can start to see that there's something deeper to. Let's just say it's the chocolate. Right. There's a way to kind of unearth and get into that space a little bit more because, you know, we have so many imprints on food. We have family imprints, we have ancestral imprints like foods that are carried down the line. We have just time of year aspects that we associate with foods. So it's. Food is a very layered, complex dynamic that we're constantly interfacing with on a day to day basis.

Yeah, so many golden nuggets there. I think for the listeners too, who are on a health journey and they're on that, that quest to figure out like, what is my why and also what is my how. So we kind of need both. And I couldn't agree more with, you know, a lot of what I do on coaching calls talking about that why and really painting your, your highest vision of health in vibrant color, in detail so that you've got that in your mind, you know, exactly what you're sort of hoping for, working towards. And then let's come up with the tools. And I just, you know, circling back to Eat the Rainbow. I think one reason it works so well for people who have identified that why and now they're ready for the how is there's so much focus on those nutrition labels as you kind of touched on the macros, right. The rules. And then Eat the Rainbow just suddenly like lifts that and suddenly we're kids again with the, you know, we've got the giant piece of white paper paints, right. And we're having fun again with food and, and really nourishing and energizing our bodies. I always say to my community it's Eat the rainbows like a nutritional magic trick because it shifts our focus away from this. And I can't do that to now we're thinking about color, we're thinking about. It brings like our appreciation of food and beauty to the forefront, noticing, you know, how that comes into play. And then without even like realizing it, we're upping our fiber intake and we're increasing our consumption of hydrating foods and micronutrients and we're feeling better, we're more energized, we're connecting with nature and the beauty of the natural world through all these abundant foods that the planet provides. And, you know, there's just so many, like, layers there that I think it just, It's a really. It's a wonderful catalyst I find in the people that I work with. So. So I just want, you know, to thank you. And also I want the listeners to hear like, this is. If you've been struggling, like, this is a wonderful. Like I always say, let's come at this from a different angle. If what you're doing isn't working, sometimes you just got to come at it, like from the side or, you know, just.

Yes, something. It's like a blind spot. You know, we all have health blind spots, like things that we could be doing, but we just can't see into it. And that's why having a coach is so important, because it's like, oh, did you think of this? Yeah, people have those aha moments. It's like, oh, yeah, I could try that. Hadn't thought about that.

Yeah. And I love how your work is so both and too, because I feel like right now we're in this time where the conversation around food and wellness, it feels like we're stuck in either or world. You know, it's either evidence or intuition. It's either medicine or food and lifestyle. Like, those things have to be on different sides of a battlefield with a line drawn down the middle. And it's really. I don't think it's helping us.

Work.

Really helps us, I think, step into the world of both. And so that's just a really unique thing about what you do. I guess as we kind of start to, like, wrap things up, I'd love it if we could maybe close with like, just some simple practical tips that can help the listeners maybe get started. Like, if someone, as you said, is feeling low energy, maybe they're overwhelmed, brain fog, their digestion is sluggish, they're just feeling hypothyroid, let's say, and they want to start exploring this. Are there like, simple steps that you like to recommend to help people get started?

Well, first I would focus on color. Like, just not even just the colors of food. You don't have to measure serving sizes or anything, but just trying to take pictures of your food and then look at it like art and say, ah, I have a lot of green in this. Or, you know, I need more blue, purple foods. I'm not getting enough blue purple.

So.

So just taking pictures of food, looking at it and assessing yourself, like, how are you doing? Like, do that through the day, just like different things that you're eating, and then at the end of the day.

Just kind of like food journal.

Yes. And it is so valuable to do that. Like, it is. It's so much better than, I think, a food log, because people could write down salad, but then unless you see the salad, you don't really know.

Right.

Like, the vibrancy of that salad. Right. So I do think, yeah, just simple pictures of food would be one place to start. The second thing would be try a new food every week. So that might be something brand new. It could also be something that you just haven't tried in a long time. So one of the things, like, for example, star fruit. Like, when was the last time you had a star fruit? And that may not be in season right now. But, you know, I'm just trying to think of, you know, or even like celerac or leek or, you know, a rutabaga, you know, things that we maybe don't commonly do, but maybe it's a seasonal food and you're kind of curious. And then you just do a little bit of a search on it, like, how could I prepare a rutabaga? What would be, like, the best, easiest way for me to make this? And there are different things you can do. I treat a rutabaga, for example, like a beet. I just cut it up, cube it, and just steam it. And then I can, if I want, mash it up and make it like mashed potatoes. So, like, that's just one example, but, like one new food a week, and that's just one. And then the third thing I would say is spices. We can get so much from spices. In fact, I've also put together a rainbow of spices. And if you think about it, you can get the rainbow through spices. So you can if think of the reds, like paprika or cayenne pepper, you know, you think of, like, all of these red beautiful kind of spices. Some of them are blends, which can be even better. Or you can make your own blend. Or if you don't feel like you have the energy to do that, just get a blend orange, like turmeric yellow, like ginger green. So many different green spices. And so when I think of spices, what is that? That is a plant that has been dried and then in some kind of, I would say a powdered form, typically is how most of us are going to do that, you know, with cinnamon. Sometimes people like the quill, or sometimes people like to take cardamom pods and Then put that into like a tea, like a chai tea. But for most of us who don't have a lot of energy, we're going to do powders and so they're all ready for us. All we have to do is shake them in our, our food and they amp up the nutrient density, especially, especially the phytonutrient density. So I would say those are the three things. Take pictures of your food, look at the colors, assess. Are you getting the rainbow number two, you know, definitely try that one food per week. And then number three, bring in spices because not only will the spices add to the phytonutrient density, but they'll also make your food taste better. So that's kind of a bonus there.

Yeah. These are such fun ideas. I love that. Yeah, I just have been experimenting with cinnamon and my smoothies. One of my friends, you know, we shared like smoothie ideas and things during the Eat the Rainbow challenge. Like what, how, what are different things we can do, ways to get more colors and, and things in. And she was adding cinnamon to her smoothies and it's actually so delicious, you could even sprinkle some into your morning coffee or something like that. Yeah. So fun. Okay, one last quick question. And this is, this is kind of a personal one because, you know, my eight year old son isn't eight anymore. Now he's 14. I know. Remember, rebellious teenager. And part of that rebellion, I'm sure a lot of kids do, this is rejecting those healthy plant foods. You know, I'm not, I'm just going to eat. Like the other day he had like a noodle stuff sandwich. It was like, you know, like, come on, what happened to this kid who was eating salads and you know, do you have any, any tips on how, how a parent might bring Eat the Rainbow back around on that level that might appeal to a teenager?

That's a great question.

With it, you can appeal to anyone, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. So one of the things you can do is figure out what are their favorite foods. Right. So let me just give you an example because I was doing a group session earlier, like over the weekend, and one of the women in the group, she wasn't a teenager, but she just had a fixation on chocolate peanuts. Chocolate covered peanuts.

Okay.

Found it so hard to let go of that. You know, she just wanted to indulge in them. So what you can do with a teenager, let's just say that a teenager said, you know, chocolate covered peanuts. I'm just obsessed with these. What I would say is to then choose the best form of those. So what I had mentioned with her is that, you know, actually chocolate is not necessarily a terrible food and nor are peanuts. And I had a client some years ago who actually had the same fixation and we talked about, okay, is there a way for her to create just bring in the best chocolate, high cocoa percentage, the best kind of peanuts. Not the oily, salted, roasted, damaged ones, but actually like get your own peanuts. And then she made little peanut clusters on a cookie sheet. She poured over this chocolate that was sweetened and at the time she was using stevia and then she froze them and she kept them in the freezer. So then it was like she could still have that food. So in the case of your son, bread inherently could be up leveled and it could be a gluten free bread, right? Like, or even, you know, I just recently found this really nice brand which is made from buckwheat, sprouted buckwheat. And it's like a seed bread. It's like, this is awesome. This is like such a great, high fiber, no gluten bread. And he likes noodles. You know, I often look at the symbolism too. Why is he gravitating to bread and noodles? Well, you know, high carbs, you know, this changes brain chemistry. You know, just like the feel good experience. So you might even want to ask him, like, you know, how are things going? Like, if when we move more towards carbohydrate, I feel like we're looking for more energy. We're looking for metaphorically like more sweetness in life. What is going on? Is he having more stress at school? Like, here's where you can do both. You can say, let's uplevel the noodles. You know, there's so many cool noodle types now, like whether you do like the shirataki noodles or which are very much like, you know, ramen noodles but like up leveled in terms of fiber and other things. The, the bread can be up leveled, but then on the other side you can also be looking at like, wow, he's gravitating to a lot of these simple process carbs. What's going on? Like, why is he needing energy? Is he fatigued? Is he stressed out? What's going on that, you know, he's looking for that, right. In the case of the chocolate covered peanuts. Just to go back to that woman, because I did ask her that, you know, we talked about up leveling the food and then we talked about, okay, like why I did a, a more extensive activity with her to figure out her why. And the why behind the chocolate covered peanuts was because her father would eat them. He kept them in the car. And so, like, it was just like an always available comfort food. And so she kind of grew up with it. So it was for her to, you know, she wasn't going to let go of it and she wasn't going to find alternate sources of comfort then to work on the food to make it work for her and so that she didn't have the guilt from it.

Right, right. Yes. Okay. That's great. That gives me so much to work with. Thank you. Yeah. Because I'm like, he loves, like, pumpkin bread. You know, I could probably do like zucchini bread. I think it was just at this age, it's a lot about fitting in and eating what your friends are eating too. And that's true.

And he's going through a growth spurt. I mean, he's 14, so he just needs calories. You know, when I look at teens, like, they just eat like huge amounts, like, especially boys. So I often think, like, he's just needing, like, just energy, most likely, and calories. He's growing. So, yeah, there, there could be ways to do some habit stacking there with his food and layer things in getting more energy so that he has sustained energy. I don't know if he plays sports, but, you know, just in a way of like giving him sustained energy rather than the quick carbs all the time.

Right, right. Yes. Yeah. Well, hopefully that's helpful to some of the other parents listening. I know something his dad and I have been talking about a lot. But for anyone out there who's ready to get started with this, Deanna has a beautiful book called the Rainbow Diet. Can you maybe tell us a little bit more about this and where the listeners can find it and learn more about your work?

You bet. Thank you for bringing out the book. And actually the book was just redone this year, so in February I came out with a new version. And this one, you know, I kind of gave the publisher a hard time with the copy that you have, because I'm like, it's the Rainbow Diet. But we didn't do color. So we decided they. They helped me with this. And so this is full color and it has a lot of pictures and it has like the tracker, it has a lot of. I basically scraped all of the tools that I have as downloads on my website and I put them in here. The recipes are in here. But this book is structured a little bit different than the one that you have. The one that you have is a little bit more of the workbook, deeper thinking. And this is more of like phytochemicals, like the chapter on red, the chapter on orange. It kind of goes into like the meaning of the color and then what are the colors of foods? So yeah, different versions of it for different people.

Well, I'll definitely put a link to that in the show notes and to your website, but thank you so much for being here and for this really fascinating conversation. It's been just absolutely a joy and to everybody listening, if you want to reconnect with this, work with Dr. Minick with the healing power of food, you know, this is your sign to maybe try something new. Maybe try coming at this from a new angle and start thinking about the color on your plate. So once again you can find Deanna's work@deannaminick.com and I'll link to all that in the show notes. Until next time. Keep it colorful everyone, and keep on thriving. Thriving. Thanks so much for spending this time with me and tuning in to today's episode of the Thyroid Healthy Bites Podcast. If you've enjoyed today's show, please don't forget to like subscribe or leave a review on your podcast platform of choice. Your support makes this show possible. For more Thyroid healthy food and lifestyle inspiration, check out my free library of Thyroid friendly recipes and lifestyle content at Hypothyroid and the Hypothyroid Chef YouTube channel. As we wrap it up, head to the Show Notes for information and links to everything we talked about today, along with the link to my free Thyroid Friendly Grocery Guide download. I'm Ginny Mahar, your thyroid health and cooking coach. Wishing you happy cooking, happy thriving and the best of health. See you next time.