You’re Being Tricked at the Grocery Store! | Mira Dessy Exposes the Food Label Lies

I am overjoyed to be talking about our topic today, ingredients. There are so many ingredients that we either don't know what they are, or we don't even know if they're in the food because they're not listed. Today, I will be talking with Mira Desi, the ingredient guru. She is a holistic nutrition professional, author, and popular public speaker. She knows that it's not just what you eat, but what's in what you eat. Over time, This philosophy has been expanded to include helping people understand the basics of building a preparedness pantry as one of the ingredients for a healthy life. Mira knows her ingredients. I am so excited for you to learn as well. Please enjoy guest Mira Desi. Hello, Mira.

Hey, James.

I'm so excited to have you on the show because, you know, ingredients are a passion of mine, and I know they are of yours. I mean, to the point where you are known as the Ingredient guru. Can you first talk about like when did your focus turn towards ingredients, and what was the catalyst for you? Because what's fascinating to me is that yes, you have nutritional you know education background, but you specifically focused on ingredients, and I don't find most people do that. They talk about it, but they don't. Dial it in to the point where it's their brand?

You know, it's so interesting because it actually sort of happened together. I was not always a holistic nutrition professional. I previously was a database administrator for an international research firm. So completely different career. And I got very sick. Essentially, I was having this whole issue where I was getting sicker and sicker. Lots of things were going wrong. Nobody could identify what was going on. And then I had an immune system collapse. The short story is I wound up being identified with multiple autoimmune disorders, given lots of medication. My joke now is that if there was an -ist, I had it. Gastroenterologist, cardiologist, endocrinologist, I just saw all of them. Nobody really talked to me about my food. And then one day a friend of mine happened to give me a book that rocked my world because it talked about artificial colors. And I was like, what? Wait a minute. And I should share that at the time, my friends were like, oh, you're one of the healthiest eaters I know. We belonged to the CSA. We gleaned in the farmer's field. I made all of our bread from scratch. I canned quarts and quarts of tomato sauce, applesauce, pickles, jams, jellies, everything. And yet we still had junk in our house. I began to realize that food was more important than I had been led to believe by all the medical professionals that I was seeing. And I also don't blame them for that. I have since learned that most doctors get somewhere south of 72 hours of nutrition education in all the years that they're in medical school. That's not a lot. And I began to research and learn everything I could. At a certain point, I turned to my husband and said, I think I have to go back to school. I just don't know where else to go with this. And I wound up going to school, became a nutrition educator, and I began to, first of all, reclaim my own health. As people began to notice that, they were like, hey, can you answer these questions for me? So I began a career. And as I was working with people, I realized nobody was talking about the foundation of what was in what you were eating. And for me, That was such a clear path. The more I cleaned out my pantry, the better I got. And then eventually I also got really frustrated because I kept saying the same thing over and over and I'm like, why is there no book? Why is this so difficult? Why can't people find this information? And I admit I'm a little slow on the uptake. It took me about a year to go, oh, maybe I should write a book. And then I wrote The Pantry Principle. And I discovered that it doesn't matter what your focus is as a nutrition professional and as a person who's learning to eat better, that's fabulous, but we all need to pay attention to what's in what we're eating in addition to what we're eating.

Well, and we really face some big hurdles with that. One of them being, we'll start with the first one. The first one is I don't understand what some of these things are, right? That's, that's one of the things people will say when they read a label, like, what is that? You know, 'cause there's all these formal names. Sometimes they're, they're, they're not clear foods.

Mm-hmm.

So how would you kind of help break that down for people? Like, hey, what are some of these foods that, that are commonly in most of these products that is on the label?

I think my biggest advice for people, first of all, is to just learn to read the label. You know, when we say the label, most people think about the nutrition panel. And if they're looking at that, they're only looking at a few things on there. There's actually a lot more information there if you pay attention. But the part that really gives you that deep dive is below that. And that's the ingredient panel. And my biggest suggestion to people is start reading that label. And if you don't know what something is, put it back until you can figure it out. Because I don't think you should have to have a degree in biochemistry to know what you're eating. Like food is food.

What are some basic though, label reading tips? Like, like for example, one, it would be, it's listed from highest quantity to lowest, right? That would be one. Are there some other kind of main main kind of, this is how to read that ingredient list?

Yeah, absolutely. So one of my biggest is if it has a number, don't eat it. You know, the joke is there's no such thing as an apple 24, just does not exist. And so if it has a number, that means it was created in a lab and they're identifying which formulation, polysorbate 80, polysorbate 60, You know, that kind of thing. If it's all—

Great tip.

Yeah. And if it's all capital letters, don't eat that either, because that is an abbreviation for a really long term that they don't have enough characters for on the label. So, you know, BHA is butylated hydroxyanisole. That's a lot of letters. So they just say BHA or BHT or EDTA or TBHQ. And so they have all of these different ways to abbreviate it and we don't pay attention. Like we skip over that.

Now, why is it, for example, in seasonings, you can, sometimes it will say salt, it will say garlic, uh, might say pepper, and then it will just say spices.

Yeah.

Why, why are they able to do that?

And, you know, one of the challenges I will say, first of all, is spices can hide a whole lot of things. So that becomes a problem. The reason they're allowed to do that is because it can potentially be considered a proprietary formula of spices. And so they're afraid that the home cook is going to read this and go, oh, I could make this at home and figure it out from what's on the label. And I'm going to tell you, it's really hard to do that. I think the other reason they do it a lot of times is because it does save on labeling space for certain things. If it's less than 2%, they can group it together and they don't have to individually identify.

Okay. These are such good granular tips. So reading the label, you've already listed like here, here's a couple of things we should think about. But that's the stuff that's actually listed in the ingredients.

Well, there's one more big tip that I want to share. This one's really, really important. As consumers learned that what's on the label is in volume order, the more there is of something, the higher up it is on the label. Food producers are very sneaky and they don't want people to see something like sugar As the number one ingredient. And so they will put multiple forms of sugar in there in descending order. And I have, believe it or not, seen labels that have had as much as, you know, 6 different forms of sugar. And so you have to read the label and go, oh gee, it's got honey and it's got rice bran syrup. Anything that's a syrup is a sweetener, you know, and it's got maltodextrin, which is a form of sugar. Like you have to educate yourself to learn what the different names for sugar are and see how many of those are there in order to really get a good idea of just how much there is. Because sometimes just looking at the grams of sugar on the label doesn't adequately identify that there's actually a lot more sugar in that than you think there is.

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great tip. And is there like a little bit of a cheat sheet with the sugar? If it ends in like -rose, does that typically mean it's a sweetener?

So, great question. Generally, if it ends in an -ose, fructose, sucrose, yeah, galactose, those are all sugars. The challenge is now we're getting into territory where not all -oses are fine. For example, allulose is a natural sugar, comes from a natural source. It tends to be found in things like raisins and dates and that sort of thing. But it's in itty-bitty amounts. And food producers have figured out how to make a lot of it because it's a lot sweeter and it bypasses how the body processes sugar. So it's essentially considered a lower calorie sweetener. The problem is anybody who has any kind of a digestive disorder typically has very, very challenging circumstances when it comes to trying to process that kind of sugar. Allulose can cause bloating, diarrhea, constipation, all kinds of issues. So that's one of those where it's supposedly a safe sugar name, but it's not as safe as you would think.

Well, I think you bring up a really great point though, is that You know, it could be a trending ingredient. It could be one that certain groups or influencers say, oh no, this is great. 'Cause I know some people are really behind allulose, for example. But if your body responds specifically around it, then you have to honor that, right?

Yeah.

We have to honor our body's experiences with it. As you said, as you started, You were eating what many would deem a very clean diet, and yet you were having health issues. Yeah.

Well, we weren't eating as clean as we thought we were. You know, we still had artificial colors in the house. We still had all kinds of additives and other things in our food. Like we still had Captain Crunch and, you know, Kraft macaroni and cheese. It's just that I made most of our food and we sourced a lot of good food. And we also had things that were not great for us. We had, we just had maybe a less typical American diet than the standard American diet.

Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I understand. And it, I mean, it, it is a testimony too, of you only know what you know, right? You know, we all think we're, you know, we're in one place and once you learn to do better, you do better. And so good kudos to you for, for adjusting what is very hard to do, which is your diet.

Yeah. Yeah. It took a long time. And I will share, for me personally, one of the biggest benefits, my primary autoimmune disorder is ulcerative colitis. And I will share that my last colonoscopy, because I've had a lot of them over the years, showed no signs of ulceration in my system. Now, mine was perhaps more mild than somebody who's on the verge of having to have a pouch or an operation to remove part of their intestines. can potentially do a lot of damage with that disorder. But I was in the fortunate position where changing my diet, changing my lifestyle, and incorporating a lot more of the things that my body needed allowed my body to restore itself. So, you know, there is hope for that.

And it's also a testimony of don't wait for a fire. If you start to see symptoms, Which we call the smoke. React then. Don't wait till it's gotten so bad that you have to go down that path of a pouch or surgery around losing parts of your colon, you know? So, but let's get back to the—

I do want to go back to the sugars though.

Oh yeah, go ahead. Go back to the sugar. Yeah.

Sure. So then there's another category of sugar called sugar alcohols and sugar alcohols tend to have less caloric impact than sugar. The challenge is in excess, they can be highly laxative, so we don't want to do a lot of them. The vast majority of sugar alcohols end in an -ol, erythritol, xylitol, those kinds of things, except for the weird one, isomalt, which you won't find in a home kitchen. So it usually appears on the label if it's being used in a commercial Confectionery situation.

Okay.

And then the other—

oh, go ahead.

Sorry, the last category. Well, not the last category. There's 2 more categories. One is the artificial sweeteners, and we could probably talk for a whole hour about that, but I don't recommend anybody eats them ever. They're not good for you. They have been repeatedly proven in laboratory settings to be very, very difficult and in many cases can cause cancer. Yet we insist on having them because we think we want to have the sweet without paying the price for eating sweet things. And the goal really is to learn to reset your palate.

And do those end with an -ame or what's— or that's not as consistent?

Not always, no. Because for example, we have things like sucralose, Right. And that kind of thing. So those are not great. And then we also have—

Aspartame.

Yeah, aspartame. But in addition to that, we have what are analogs or variants of lower caloric sweeteners. Like stevia comes from a plant and has zero calories and is many times sweeter than sugar, but stevia is from a plant, so you can't patent it, you can't trademark it, you can't own the name on it. And a couple of companies have gone on to create things like PureVia and Truvia that are made with stevia, but they're not really stevia. And this is where we just have to take the time to learn. And I wanna share for anybody who's listening, it's not something that you learn all at once, and it's not like you can get all of the categories all at once. You have to figure out what's more important to you. Is sweeteners important to you? Is preservatives more important to you? Artificial colors, quality of your meats, antibiotics in your food, like those kinds of things. Figure out where you want to start and just start there.

Great tip. I, before we move on to the next category, I want to just go back to stevia. I find it really fascinating. That you can, A, grow stevia in your backyard, right? And, and it's like you said, it's a plant. It has a leaf. You can steep that leaf in hot water and create a sweet tea. And it's, and it's quite medicinal in, in that form. Yet we see these white powders.

Mm-hmm.

You know, we see these liquid stevia things. There's no way that's 100% stevia, obviously, if it's a liquid or if it's a white powder, right? Because it's a green. Leaf.

Yeah.

So what are they adding to it? Which kind of carries us into the next topic of ingredients, which is the things that are not listed on the label or that are categorized as something like natural flavors or artificial flavors and may have up to 30 or 40 ingredients within that. Yeah.

And, and some of it has to do with like to get it white, it could be a bleaching process. Uh, you know, sometimes, and you have to be careful. about what's on the packet, because it may say stevia on the front, but when you flip it over, it's got maltodextrin or dextrose or something else and stevia. So it's not pure stevia. Usually if it's coming in a liquid, it's suspended in something.

Yeah. Alcohol or something. And in that situation where it has dextrose, those are, those would be considered fillers, right? So they're, they're creating a cost. You know, a lower cost product by lessening how much stevia is actually in there and putting in filler to make it cheaper.

And they can do that in part because stevia by itself is multitudes sweeter than table sugar. And so they can cut it quite a bit, still have it be very sweet, but use something cheaper. And one of the big challenges that we run into is when we have most of those fillers, by the way, tend to be corn-based.

GMO corn, essentially. Right.

That's exactly what I was going to say. And because it's cheaper, it's genetically modified corn, which means you're getting a whopping dose of glyphosate along with whatever you're putting it in, cup of tea, cup of coffee, baking with it, whatever. And glyphosate in and of itself is such a challenging ingredient. It's a chelator. It binds to minerals, which means that's not good for you. It also can alter the microbiome, biome. It changes your gut bacteria, which is really challenging when it comes to your digestive system and your overall wellness. So we really want to make sure that we are being mindful about those things because food producers are not going to necessarily identify that. Now, I am starting to see, because it's become mandated, that more and more labels are saying made with a bioengineered ingredient. I have not yet seen that on a packet of stevia that also has dextrin. And it may be that maybe it's on the— I usually only see those like at restaurants or somewhere else. It may be that it's on the box, you know?

Right. Yeah, I see it on gum. I do. Do you know, it's like, I wonder if there's only certain products they're requiring it on yet, because I'm pretty sure not every state is requiring that you list genetically modified ingredients yet?

So there's a ramp-up period, and so it takes time. They're given a certain amount of time in order to be able to change their packaging, their labeling, all of that. And they recognize that the bigger companies tend to be able to pivot more quickly, not that they want to, but they can. The smaller companies, it's more challenging. So the government often gives a period of 18 to 24 months for the switchover.

Which we're seeing right now in the red dye, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Sure.

Because what's interesting is that everyone's freaking out going like, woohoo, we won! But it's not so simple, right?

Yeah. Here's the thing. I am really happy that this has happened because I feel like it's a step in the right direction. It's not the end of the discussion though, because Just that one product, we have until January of 2027 to get it out of food products and January of 2028 to get it out of pharmaceuticals. And most people don't tend to read labels on or ask for labels on pharmaceuticals or personal care products or that kind of thing. They're very focused on food, which is great, and I love that. However, The red dye is really so embedded into everything that we are exposed to. So it's going to take a while to get it out. And the other thing is it's not the only red dye. There are other red dyes that can be substituted. And I think one of the things that frustrates me to no end about this is that In other countries around the world, Australia, Japan, the European Union, they don't allow these. And the companies that are here in the US manufacturing that will manufacture for other countries without it. They will use food-based dyes, beet juice, cherry juice. I mean, if you've ever worn red pants on a summer barbecue and touched your pants with Stained hands, that color doesn't come out. It's very bright, but it's cheaper and easier for them to use petrochemicals and create these lakes and dyes that are consistent every single time, and that's what they want.

Yeah. And just to clarify, petrochemicals are chemicals that are made with petroleum products.

Yes. Yes. It's a byproduct of the gas—

Gas industry.

Gas and petroleum.

Yeah. It's It's really alarming. And it all connects back to what you said earlier is that these, you know, these ingredients that seem so nefarious or just, or that don't seem like they're going to do much because you're, you're buying, let's say canned tomatoes, or you're buying something from a grocery store, which we already assume is safe, right? Just because it's in a grocery store on an aisle. So we don't connect that even in minuscule amounts, when you're getting them in everything, adds up.

Well, and that's part of the problem. So many of these ingredients fall under something called generally recognized as safe. So this now has been removed from that category, which is good, but there are a number of issues with The GRAS program, one is that the FDA does not have the manpower to go track down and check every single claim that every single food producer makes. So typically the food producer submits something for FDA approval and says, we hired scientists who have said that this is okay at this amount, like a little bit, so many parts per million. And the FDA goes, okay. Sometimes the FDA will say yes, and it has to have this special kind of notification on the label, usually some kind of a color notification. Sometimes companies will remove it 'cause they're like, oh wait, we're not quite, not quite ready for primetime, you know? But the companies are doing all of it. And the FDA says yes, and then somewhere down the line changes their mind. This is not the first time they have removed something. If you'll remember, trans fats years ago were generally recognized as safe, and now we know that they are incredibly bad for you. They have an enormous impact on cardiac heart health in very small amounts, and so it's no longer recognized as safe. Now, they did not ban it. So the difference here is this is being banned from the food supply, which is good. But yeah, if you look, you can still find trans fats in your food. It's just not recognized as safe.

And this now goes into that, the, the hidden ingredients within the, the terms or the catch-all ingredients, or to what you said earlier, if it's less than 2%, the ingredients that are not even listed, because as far as I know, sometimes natural flavors artificial flavors can even hide these fats, correct?

So, they're not allowed to label an artificial flavor as a natural flavor. If it's artificial, they do have— there are rules about what that category allows. However, if you look up, and I'm happy to send it to you if you want to put it in the show notes, the actual legal definition of what passes as natural flavor is so convoluted that basically it's anything except artificial.

Right. As long as it's come from a natural source. So one of the most popular traded ones is beaver butt for strawberry flavor, right?

Yeah. Well, so believe it or not, it's, it's considered natural strawberry, natural raspberry, or natural vanilla could potentially be made from castoreum. Now, the interesting thing is that I believe they don't put castoreum on the label because they don't want people to look it up and see what it is because it's kind of nauseating to think about that. We think, I don't know that I want to eat that. I did actually once have someone at a speaking engagement raise their hand and go, is it bad for you? I was like, actually, probably not. It's just Most of us don't like it. Weirdly enough, there is a liquor in one of the Scandinavian countries that is made from castoreum that proudly says castoreum liqueur. So apparently it's good.

I don't know. And that's the beaver—

It's the anal gland secretion of beavers.

Right. So, okay, question. If they're adding that natural flavor, how are they still able to say it's vegetarian?

So first of all, there is not as much castoreum in our food supply as we think. There used to be a lot more, but it was a byproduct of the beaver trade, of the fur trade. And so there's really not as much anymore. They actually used to put it in cigarettes as well, believe it or not.

Wow.

Yeah, there's so much stuff in cigarettes, it's ridiculous. Formaldehyde, all kinds of things. And so We don't have as much of it in our food as we think we do. It makes a good talking point that we need to remember that not everything is what we think it is. The term natural by itself means very little to nothing. When it comes to animal products, to meat products, it can mean that it's raised without added hormones, without antibiotics, that kind of thing. But when it comes to everything else, It means absolutely nothing. And so if they're saying it's natural strawberry, natural raspberry, natural vanilla on a vegetarian or vegan product, then it is not being sourced from castoreum because there are other sources from that.

Right. Okay. So let's dive into even more of this kind of the hidden or the unlabeled ingredients. Can you kind of share Some more tidbits of like, well, how, how will people even prepare themselves for these things? Or are there catch-all terms like natural flavors, artificial flavors that you can pretty much guarantee have, you know, however many more ingredients in it?

Yeah. So, um, one of the things that I like to encourage people to do, like I said, read the label. That definitely is a big part of it. And when we're reading the label, we also need to start to look at that whole panel because food producers are starting to, they pay attention. They spend millions of dollars every year to figure out what consumers are doing. What are the buzzwords that they like? What are the things that are important to them so that they can figure out how to get you to buy their product? And so as more people Are paying attention to the fact that things like BHA and BHT, which are preservatives that can— are not good for you. A lot of people can have an allergic response to them. We also know that they have, you know, a number of different health issues that can come from eating those. So food producers are taking them out of the ingredient panel and putting it below the panel. There's a very tiny little sentence that says BHT added to packaging to preserve freshness.

Oh, so they don't even have to put it in the ingredients?

They don't have to put it in the— because what happens is they're saying, oh, it's just in the packaging. It's not in the food, but it's a food contact material. It is touching the food.

Oh my goodness.

And so you're still getting exposed. So this is where we have to really learn to read. We also just have to learn how to break down what things are. Like I said, so trans fats actually is one of those things They use something called funny math. I call it funny math. I'm sure you would too. Funny math is where you may look at the label and we now have on the new label a breakdown of fat. It says total fat and then it tells us saturated, unsaturated, trans fat, and it may say 0 grams of trans fat. If you read the label and you see that it says hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated anything, Those are trans fats. And so you may be thinking, well, why does it say zero on the label? That's because it's the serving size. Yeah. Anything that's less than 0.5 grams per serving is considered zero. And, and that becomes a problem because you don't realize how much you're getting when that happens. Because you're thinking, you know, the numbers are good.

The issue though, is that most of us are eating the entire, you know, thing of ice cream.

Right, right. And it comes down to a difference between serving size and portion, because a serving size is what the manufacturer has determined is the amount that you should eat or are going to eat. A portion is what you actually serve yourself. The example that I tend to use when I'm talking about this with people is there are a number of cereals out there where the serving size is a quarter of a cup, which is about a handful.

No one eats that much. Nobody.

Right. Most people grab a bowl, grab a box, go, I'm about that hungry. They add milk and a spoon, they're good to go.

Or they go off of the bowl size, right? If you have enlarged bowls, you fill the entire bowl.

Right, exactly. Because the bigger the bowl is, the more you think you want. And the other thing that I think happens is many manufacturers will manipulate the serving size to get to the number that they want. I have also seen things where a serving size on, you know, an itty-bitty cookie is 2 cookies. And, you know, not that I'm expecting anybody to eat the whole sleeve of Thin Mints, but— You know, we often tend to eat more than that, which means if you're going by those numbers, you have to sit there and calculate all of those numbers to make sure that you understand what's going on. And if that label's wrong, 'cause it said 0 grams of trans fat, you're getting more than you think you are.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, very, very important. And I, you know, even with our product, We'll say like, oh, it's half a teaspoon or a teaspoon serving size. But what's fascinating is that anyone that's ever been in the kitchen who's used different types of measuring spoons knows that they don't always measure the same way.

Right.

And, and so even when we were formulating our supplement facts, um, because I wanted, for example, the sample sachet to be a certain amount of servings, I said, well, it's, it's, it's a half a teaspoon, but I made it a larger gram teaspoon than a smaller gram because I wanted to be able to say 2 servings instead of like 2.3. You know what I mean?

Right. Right. And that's the other thing that gets very confusing. You know, as a consumer, how are we supposed to do fractions on our food? We don't really stop to do those measurements and to figure out if that's what we really need.

Right. So what, what do you recommend? Like, so when, when someone is, uh, gets something and it says, well, this is how many servings, do you recommend that they go off of the, the nutritional facts box? Or, or do you recommend, well, actually, I think you need to go off of the size of your palm? Or, or how do you recommend people portion based on their specific size?

That's a really great question. I am not a huge fan of calorie counting. I feel we need to look more at the nutritional density of what we're eating. I do have a handout that I share with people that talks about, you know, this is approximately 3 to 4 ounces for animal protein, depending on, you know, how big your palm is. And this is about 1 ounce of a block of cheese, that kind of thing. And instead of really obsessing over the nutrition facts on the panel, I prefer that people look at the ingredients and add in more nutrient-dense foods, add in those real foods. Those are going to be far more satisfying, and you're going to find that you're eating less chips, less cookies, less pretzels, less of those kinds of things because Those are simply empty calorie filler foods. When you replace them with sugar snap peas and carrots and, you know, cherry tomatoes or apples or pears or other things like that, your body is much more satisfied. Part of the reason that sometimes we wind up feeling so hungry is because we may be full, but we are nutritionally depleted. We are not nourishing our body. The more we learn to nourish our body by learning to add delicious things before we start worrying about taking out too much, it becomes easier to make that switch.

So if we were to break down that concept into like some steps, I'm thinking about the person who, let's say, is addicted to eating chips or crackers or something crunchy that's probably, you know, more ultra-processed than we would want, right? For that person, so it sounds like you're suggesting maybe that if they are just eating those alone and they're finishing the bag in one sitting, that maybe they start adding a dip that is not overly processed, but that's actually like real food-based. So maybe like a hummus or, or, or some kind of ranch, but that's made with real ingredients.

Sure. Yes, absolutely. And I also encourage people, you know, one of the jokes, I have a class that I teach where we talk about reducing sugar in your diet. And I talk about, you know, you're sitting there at the end of the day on the sofa with your 2 best friends, Ben and Jerry. And the next thing you know, the spoon hits the bottom of the container. We don't ever want to eat out of the container. We want to serve ourselves from the package to a container. And then stop and think about if we're still hungry. So if you're someone who's used to just sitting there and eating because you're reading a book or you're on the sofa or you're just mindlessly munching, you're going to eat more than you really think you want. And that gives you the opportunity, like you said, add a beautiful dip. Add, I mean, if you're having crackers, why not have a good quality cheese with that? Why not have some slices of a really nice uncured sausage to go with it? You know, there are a lot of ways that we can still get that crunch, but add something that's got a little more nutrition. If we're someone who is used to more sweet things, I encourage them to look for ways to have a little bit less of that. And can we add some, like if you're having ice cream, instead of just a bowl of ice cream, can we take some frozen berries, soften them a little bit, And so that they're kind of like a little goopy and throw those on top. You know, that's going to be very sweet and you're not having 3 scoops of ice cream. Maybe you're only having 2 scoops of ice cream and eventually you get it down to 1. Or if we're looking to make changes where we're adding things, can we add nutritional density? For example, Pluck. I love Pluck. I recommend it all the time for people. It's great to add to so many things and you're getting like a little bit and it's so flavorful. And what we don't realize is all those other things, we are probably attracted to the salt and the crunch.

I just had an awareness the other day because we had someone reach out to us who was like, I don't find any of your seasonings to be flavorful. And I'm like, what? Like, I'm like, to me, they're all flavor because most seasonings, the first ingredient is salt. And so really, most seasonings are salt with some flavor. We are, I mean, salt's like our 3rd or 4th ingredient depending on the product. So we are flavor with some salt, right? And, or seasonings with some salt, I should say. And it occurred to me, I'm like, oh, I think they're confusing flavor with salt.

Hmm.

I think they're so used to having things that are so extremely salty that they think Because pluck is not extremely salty. They're like, it has no flavor. And so I, I offered to the person, I was like, what, why don't you actually just try adding a little salt to the pluck and see if that brings out the flavor for you? Because if it does, then that could be a sign that, you know, you have some adrenal dysfunction or something like that.

And it's also because we're typically not used to the subtlety of true flavor in this country. There's a really great book by C. Michael Moss, Salt, Sugar, Fat, and he talks about how that is the perfect trifecta. Food companies seek to find the exact balance of sugar, salt, and fat to get what they call the bliss point. And that's like the, I can't stop eating this, it's so good. Because it's hyperpalatable. And that leaves aside all the seasonings and flavorful herbs and spices and things that really do so much, not only for our food, for our enjoyment of our food, but that also add micronutrients. Those are micronutrient powerhouses, and we typically don't get enough of them in our diet.

You really don't. It's incredible.

One of the reasons why I love Pluck, because you've got like the zesty garlic is my current favorite. Just like going on a lot of things. But it doesn't have to be just salt. We need to learn, and luckily our palate shifts, we need to learn to accustom our palate to the nuances of true flavor rather than that punch in the mouth for those top-level flavorants.

And well, and sometimes to achieve that, we have to recalibrate our palate. And so sometimes that means, you know, elimination diets, removing these kind of extremely, like extremely sweet or extremely salty foods from our diets. And I want just to slightly go back a little bit. I have been, I have been Uber disciplined with measuring my food since January, actually since late December. And it's really providing a lot of education for me. And I have to say, like, cause I know you mentioned like you're not a huge calorie counter, but I have to say, for those that have never done it, I kind of recommend it. Like if you're, if you are eating something from a package. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Say cereal, to your point earlier, and it says the serving size is a 4th of a cup, and then it gives you grams. Put your bowl on a, on a, on a scale, a kitchen scale, zero it out, and then pour in exactly what they say is a serving and see visually what it looks like. Eat it just for that serving. See, is that satiating? Is it not? It's like these education points we never have gotten. We didn't get these in school.

And I'm going to share it totally. We did not learn that in school. We did not learn how to support our body, how to really tap into the bio-individuality of who each and every one of us are. Because for food producers, for pharmacy, for medications, for so many things, it's easier if they just address us all as we are all human rather than the fact that there are so many differences that really can impact How we respond to something or how we will be able to utilize something even. And I love that you're doing that, and I will share that does not go against my point in any way because my point is I don't really like counting calories. I think there is nothing wrong with looking at portions of different things to figure out what is the correct portion for you. Are you someone who needs more protein? Are you someone who needs a higher portion of certain things? Certain people do better with more fat in their diet just because of how they metabolize. Certain other people need a different balance because let's say maybe they have an oxalate issue. They can't do a lot of leafies and almonds and Figs and other things like that.

I too, you know, to that point about the oxalates, we know someone we're close to who just got a kidney stone. And, um, and we both kind of looked at each other. Now we don't fully know why they did, but we both kind of looked at each other and it was like, I think it's because they eat so many foods that have oxalates in them.

Well, and kidney stones are a little tricky because there's like 7 different kinds of kidney stones, but oxalates do tend to be the most common. And a lot of it is because we do. I think that's one of the other things. I actually just wrote about this for my newsletter. We talk about eating the rainbow, but really for most people, the rainbow stops at green. They're like, oh, I got all these green things on my plate. I'm good. And I'm sitting there thinking, what about orange and yellow and purple and white? What about white foods? Cauliflower is a beautiful white food. Most people go, Oh, I eat a lot of broccoli. I'm like, well, great. What about cauliflower? And we really have to learn to look at how to balance all of those different aspects. And again, it starts to sound very confusing if you're someone who's eating a standard American diet and all of a sudden you're hearing all these things about read the label and eat these foods and eat this way and do this or that. You're like, hmm, maybe not. And really, I just want to encourage people, start somewhere. And maybe I still want everybody to read the label, but maybe you start by saying, you know, I think maybe I could use more veggies in my diet. Because if you have more veggies, there's so much fiber and so much deliciousness and so much nutrition that there's not as much room for chips and crackers and pretzels and those kinds of things.

Yeah, I like what you're saying. I mean, you, you need to start, you, you need to kind of meet yourself where you are and then start with the next best step. And sometimes if you are someone that is eating a lot of ultra-processed foods like chips, cookies, um, I don't know, pastas, you know, all these, all these things that breads that maybe the next best step is, is to pull back on some of those and then start eating some more fresh vegetables. Like that might be your next first step. And I, I, I do want to emphasize to people, like, do not underestimate, like, taking a moment. Like, like sometimes we're rushing so much when we eat and being a little bit more mindful because, for example, you know, we tend to, in this modern day and age, we tend to frown on, on boundaries around things, you know, that's what causes eating disorders. If, if you limit calories or you do this and it's like, well, Well, maybe, but I think it's more than that, that just limiting the calories. I think it's the shaming of the food that the old generations used to do. You know, you can't leave this table until your whole plate is clean. Like there was a lot of shaming, a lot of energy and emotion that was put into our, our family dinner tables. And so it's not necessarily the boundary of, and the rules of the household that are the issue. It's sometimes it's the emotions.

Mm-hmm.

underneath them. But I want to say to people, like, so as I mentioned, I'm measuring things more. I'm also only allowing a certain amount of calories a day. And it's so fascinating to have these boundaries because now I, I'm seeing like, oh, I used to overeat my protein.

Mm-hmm.

Like, I'm eating way beyond what I need and, and also beyond what I actually want because I'm not Giving it a moment. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm sometimes either skipping a meal and then I'm eating tons at one meal, or I'm not eating enough fiber from my vegetables. And so I'm filling up on meat.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? So there's so many different potential reasons why, but my point is that I'm actually giving myself some space to see Like to test my comfort zones, you know, to stretch my comfort zones and to, to kind of, you know, test what is right and what is wrong, to rediscover what actually works for my body at this stage in my life.

And I love that you say that at this stage in my life. First of all, we, as you know, you and I have mentioned a couple of times, we are all bio-individual. Different people need different things. And we go through different stages and phases of our life. And, you know, so for example, when I was first diagnosed with all these different autoimmune disorders and I was really ill, just about the only nutritional advice I got was to shift to a vegetarian diet because it would be easier to digest for my system for what was going on. And so I was a vegetarian for about 7 years. And I did really well on that until I didn't. The last year was really hard. And I eventually realized that I needed to add meat back into my life. We don't eat the same all the way through our entire spectrum of life, because if we did, we'd all still be drinking breast milk.

Right.

I mean, our nutritional needs change, our body needs change. And we need to really learn how to tap into how does your body work? How does your body feel? What nourishes your body? And those are the things that are going to help you really make the most solid changes as you're learning to adapt your diet because you're tapping in. We are not really taught. at any point in our lives, unless we have to learn it for one reason or another, usually as an adult, how our body feels. How do we feel when we're hungry? How do we feel when we're sad? What do we eat when we're angry? Like, are, what are the things that nourish us? We don't touch any of that unless we stop to really think about it.

It is such a good point. I'm so grateful for this conversation. I mean, I, I know you do so many other things. You know, we were going to talk about Mira's, she's now focusing partially on real food emergency kits, being prepared for emergencies. There's so many amazing qualities to Mira beyond even the things I've already mentioned. I mean, in terms of her.

Yeah.

Kindness and connection, her craftiness. I mean, there's just so much. You're such a deep and lovely person. Um, and we can't cover it all here today. So, so I'm going to just highly recommend that everyone go find you online. And how can they do that?

So the, I'm everywhere as The Ingredient Guru. So my website is The Ingredient Guru, social media, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, The Ingredient Guru. The only thing that's different, I do have a newsletter called Food News You Can Use, where I talk about so many of the things that happen in the food industry. And that can be found at miradesi.substack.com. And it's free, but you can find that there if you wanted to be part of the newsletter and find out what they continue to do to our food.

Yeah, which is so important because as you mentioned, You can read the label, but if you don't understand it, there's not much you can do with it. And sometimes just the process of, you don't even need to change the fact that you're buying the food. That's not necessarily the first step. The first step is just start reading the label and start researching what are these things that I'm eating? Because we only know what we know.

Right.

So start learning more about those foods and then maybe That will inspire change.

Mm-hmm.

I have thoroughly enjoyed talking to you as usual. Thank you so much for imparting all this. I think we've really provided some great nuggets for everyone to actively incorporate into their lives immediately. Um, we will absolutely share any of those, um, PDFs that you mentioned. Um, So you can feel free to send those to us. We'll put those in the show notes. Any last parting kind of value you want to give?

So first of all, thank you so much for having me on. I just adore you and your family, and I am grateful always for the opportunity to talk with you. So thank you very much for that. The most important thing of the business of food seems really big and overwhelming. But really what's more important is taking the time to have fun with your food, to enjoy time with family, to nourish your body, to take that quiet time to sit with your food and to play in the kitchen. Like, just have fun with your food and then build from there.

I love it. Well, thank you so much, Mira, and thank you everyone for Joining us today. Have fun with your food. Stay curious with what ingredients are in your food, and please join us for future episodes. We're having so much fun. Thank you again, Mira, and thank you. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned. at eatpluck.com. That's eatpluck.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.