For our season finale we speak with the octogenarian vegan athlete Paul Youd, who discovered a new lease of life after choosing veganism at the age of 66.
He now raises money for charities with his ultra-marathon and press-up challenges, and is well on his way to complete 100 ultra marathons before his 100th birthday.
We're sure you will be inspired by this conversation where we dive into how shifting to a plant-based diet cured Paul's arthritis pains, to his favourite meals and his biggest challenges, and of course the documentary showcasing his incredible achievements called ' More Like Paul'.
To find out more:
https://shortstopfilms.co.uk/more-like-paul
To buy tickets for the premier screening:
https://exeterphoenix.org.uk/events/more-like-paul
To connect with Paul on Instagram @youdpaul
To read more about Paul's work and sponsor him :
https://nobreadisanisland.blogspot.com/2013/02/52-diet-cake-in-mug-vegan.html
And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to be informed when we're back for season five!
For episode 15 we are joined by Plant-Based Health Professionals U.K. member, Ailsa McHardy, registered paediatric dietitian, and founder of Little Nutrition, to get her advice on food with a focus on children.
Ailsa has over 14 years experience as a dietitian. We discuss trends in children's diets, healthfully bringing up children plant-based, fussy eaters, growth concerns, and, in seasonality discussions, the joys of salad and watercress.
To get in touch with Ailsa: www.littlenutrition.co.uk
Instagram: @littlenutritionwithailsa
The links to the Family and children's zone on the PBHP website and the factsheets discussed:
https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/kids
https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/IronFactsheet201123.pdf
In this bonus episode Daisy and Clare talk to Georges Hayek, owner and general manager at Hayek Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon. When you listen to Georges speak about the health benefits and the context for patient 'choice', you may wonder why we make such a meal out of hospital food in the UK and beyond.
Inspired? Help us take action on hospital food in the UK
https://plantsfirsthealthcare.com/
In episode 14 of this season we are joined by Cóilín Nunan, to discuss the growing global threat of antibiotic resistance and how the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture is contributing to this silent pandemic.
Cóilín is the Policy and Science Manager of the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, an alliance of seventy-one member organisations campaigning against the overuse of antibiotics in animal farming.
Cóilín breaks down how antibiotics are used not only to treat infections but also prevent disease in crowded, unsanitary conditions. This results in a breeding ground for drug-resistant bacteria that can affect both animals and humans.
This discussion highlights why we view the shift to plant-based diets as one of the key ways to drive down this overuse, and protect antibiotics for when we actually need them within healthcare.
Please share this episode widely to help raise awareness and be part of the change towards a better future for all.
To find out more about the alliance's work and to get involved: https://www.saveourantibiotics.org/
If you've heard that you'll get doughy trying to build muscle on beans, or indeed anything else that's made you doubt pulses even for a second, then this nugget's for you. Daisy and Clare discuss the nutrition of a range of legumes, as well as health benefits and environmental impacts, and how best to cook and eat them.
Didinger, C.; Thompson, H.J. Defining Nutritional andFunctional Niches of Legumes: A Call for Clarity to Distinguish a Future Role for Pulses in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Nutrients 2021, 13,1100. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13041100
Mullins AP, Arjmandi BH. Health Benefits of Plant-BasedNutrition: Focus on Beans in Cardiometabolic Diseases. Nutrients. 2021 Feb5;13(2):519. doi: 10.3390/nu13020519. PMID: 33562498; PMCID: PMC7915747.
In episode 13 of this season we are joined by the Food Foundation's Rebecca Tobi, and Plant-Based Health Professionals UK's founder, Dr Shireen Kassam to discuss the latest Food Foundation report 'Meat Facts'.
Rebecca is a Registered Nutritionist (RNutr), has a masters in Nutrition for Global Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and is the Food Foundation's Senior Business and Investor Engagement manager.
Rebecca's in-depth knowledge of the report, combined with Shireen's expertise on the health implications of eating red, processed, and other meats, ensure this is a really rich discussion.
The UK may continue to ignore the health warnings that are associated with meat consumption but hopefully anyone who is listening to this episode will take action to curb their own consumption for individual and planetary health.
Find the full report here: https://foodfoundation.org.uk/publication/meat-facts
The latest UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey:
The excellent Food Foundation Podcast, Pod Bites:
https://foodfoundation.org.uk/podcasts
For this week's nugget we are joined by NHS dietitian Didem Varol, who guides us through the delights and challenges of opting for plant-based food when eating out in Turkey, or when re-creating Middle Eastern flavours at home.
Follow Didem on Instagram @plantgevity or find her at www.plantgevity.com
This week we are delighted to welcome Professor Paul Behrens to the Nutshell.
Paul is a British Academy Global Professor based at the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford where his research focuses on the impacts of food system transformations.
His research and writing on food and energy systems, land use and climate change has appeared in scientific journals and media outlets and he is the editor and author of the textbook ‘Food and Sustainability’.
As an academic with a background in Physics, Professor Behrens is an environmental expert, and he combines this expertise with a communication style that is accessible to all in his book ‘The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science’ which we discuss in this episode.
To buy the book:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/PaulBehrens
To connect:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-behrens-6b586427/?originalSubdomain=uk
Links to further information discussed in this episode:
https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/the-planetary-health-diet-and-you/
https://en.fvm.dk/Media/638484294982868221/Danish-Action-Plan-for-Plant-based-Foods.pdf
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cropped/
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/author/zacharyboren/
https://www.ft.com/susannah-savage
https://www.theguardian.com/profile/arthurneslen
https://foodfoundation.org.uk/publication/meat-facts
https://foodfoundation.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-05/TFF_Meat%20Facts.pdf
https://foodfoundation.org.uk/initiatives/broken-plate
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2514664525000104
This week's 'nugget' episode showcases the work of Dr Camille Hirons, a GP with special interest in lifestyle medicine and reducing health inequalities.
Esselstyn CB Jr, Ellis SG, Medendorp SV, Crowe TD. A strategy to arrest and reverse coronary artery disease: a 5-year longitudinal study of a single physician's practice. J Fam Pract. 1995 Dec;41(6):560-8. PMID: 7500065.Buettner D, Skemp S. Blue Zones: Lessons From the World's Longest Lived. Am J Lifestyle Med. 2016 Jul 7;10(5):318-321. doi: 10.1177/1559827616637066. PMID: 30202288; PMCID: PMC6125071.The Core 20 NHS work on health inequalities:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/equality/equality-hub/national-healthcare-inequalities-improvement-programme/core20plus5/
Connect with Dr Cami:
https://www.lifestylemedicineaccelerator.co.uk/
On Instagram: the_lifestyle_med_gp
Get qualified:
https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/iblm/iblm-certification
And to get tickets for the upcoming Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine in person and online conferences:
https://nlmc.org.uk/
This week we are pleased to be welcoming Dr Neal Barnard, M.D. to the Nutshell.
Dr Barnard has an incredible plant-based health CV including founding the Barnard Medical Center in Washington DC, which aims to make nutrition part of routine medical care, as well as working as adjunct Professor of Medicine at George Washington University.
He is however perhaps most well known for his role as Founder and President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine ( PCRM) - an organisation advocating for preventative medicine, good nutrition and higher ethical standards in research.
He himself has led research studies focusing on the role of diet in problems such as diabetes, weight management, and chronic pain and as a result has produced a number of fantastic studies, and books, and we had the opportunity to talk with him about his latest book 'The Power Foods Diet'.
Link to find out more about PCRM:
To buy Dr Barnard's latest book:
Don't forget to get your tickets to this year's Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine Conference in London, by following this link:
And if you enjoy this episode please don't forget to share, rate and review!
Sea salt, iodised salt, Himalayan salt, and lo-salt: what should we be using? Well less of all of them it seems, but why exactly, and how can we do that? Daisy and Clare talk it through, whilst leaving room for a touch of the plant-based eater's favourite - kala namak.
This week, in episode 10, we are talking about chronic kidney disease and diet, and so are excited to be joined by Angeline Taylor, a registered dietitian of over 15 years who has worked within the kidney specialty for most of those years.
Angeline is extremely passionate and committed to supporting those with kidney conditions to live a healthy lifestyle.
She holds the positions of Renal Dietitian in the NHS, Chair of the British Dietetic Association Kidney Specialist Group, and Renal Dietitian for Kidney Care UK's Kidney Kitchen. She also sits on the UK Kidney Association Sustainability Committee and advocates a plant-based approach to managing kidney disease.
Angeline sees patients with a variety of kidney conditions at various stages of the disease, from early to advanced stages of chronic kidney disease, dialysis, kidney transplantation, as well as acute illness on a busy NHS ward.
In collaboration with the Plant-Based Health Professionals UK, she has developed a range of factsheets on plant-based diets for people with kidney disease.
https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/factsheets
The international guidelines discussed:
The BDA’s Kidney Dietitian Specialist Group
https://www.bda.uk.com/specialist-groups-and-branches/kidney-dietitian-specialist-group.html
Angeline’s work at Kidney Kitchen:
https://kidneycareuk.org/get-support/healthy-diet-support/kidney-kitchen/
To connect with Angeline: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angeline-taylor-32901946/
Nuts are full of fibre, unsaturated fats, vitamins, and polyphenols. So this week's nugget will get you up to speed on why you should be including them in your diet, whilst reassuring they are not 'a second on the lips, a lifetime on the hips'.
In line with the recent World Day for Laboratory Animals on 24th April, we spoke with Savita Nutan, founder of Medicine Without Cruelty.
In this episode Savita highlights the suffering of laboratory animals, how unreliable animal experiments are, and how poorly they translate to human health outcomes.
As such Savita is committed to ending animal testing in science, medicine and dentistry.
Her organisation’s mission is to educate, advocate, and innovate, ensuring that scientific progress is achieved through humane and effective animal-free alternatives.
And it seems that innovative technologies are revolutionising research and testing offering accurate, ethical and sustainable solutions without needing to use animals, so tune in to find out more about this important topic.
To connect with Savita:
https://medicinewithoutcruelty.com/
Celebrating with chocolate can continue. Just make sure it's the dark variety (for maximum flavanoids), you're mindful of portion control, and that it's fairly traded.
https://foodispower.org/chocolate-list/
Katz DL, Doughty K, Ali A. Cocoa and chocolate in human health and disease. Antioxid Redox Signal. 2011 Nov 15;15(10):2779-811. doi: 10.1089/ars.2010.3697. Epub 2011 Jun 13. PMID: 21470061; PMCID: PMC4696435.
Tan TYC, Lim XY, Yeo JHH, Lee SWH, Lai NM. The Health Effects of Chocolate and Cocoa: A Systematic Review. Nutrients. 2021 Aug 24;13(9):2909. doi: 10.3390/nu13092909. PMID: 34578786; PMCID: PMC8470865.
This week we welcome nutritionist and founding member of Greencuisine Trust, Daphne Lambert, to the Nutshell.Daphne has cooked, studied, taught and written about food all her adult life. She has run a nutritional consultancy practice for over 25 years working with schools, colleges and organisations looking at ways to nourish well being. Through inspiring projects, courses and events, Greencuisine Trust works to improve the knowledge and understanding of the inter-relationship between food, culture, biodiversity, agriculture and the environment.
To connect with Daphne:
https://www.greencuisinetrust.org/
Nettle recipes!
Nettle pesto
150g nettle tops (top5/7 leaves)
25g shelled hemp seeds
2 cloves garlic finely chopped or handful wild garlic chopped
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes (optional)
approx 200ml olive oil
salt & black pepper
Bring a pan, large enough to take the nettles 1⁄2 filled with water to the boil. Add the nettles bring back to the boil and cook for 30 seconds. Drain through a sieve over a bowl to save the cooking water.
Immediately plunge the nettles into very cold water. As soon as they are cold, remove and squeeze them dry.
Put the nettles into a food processor along with the garlic. Process together for 30 seconds then slowly trickle in enough oil to make a soft paste. Stir in the nuts and optional yeast flakes. Season your pesto with salt and pepper to taste. Will keep well in the fridge for a couple of weeks.The reserved nettle water is a nourishing drink.
Nettle soup
serves 4
400g nettle tops
200g floury potatoes peeled if necessary & roughly chopped
1litre well flavoured vegetable stock
salt & black pepper
Plunge the nettle tops into boiling water for 30 seconds. Drain through a sieve over a bowl to save the cooking water for a nourishing herbal tea. Immediately plunge the nettles into cold water to refresh, drain and set aside.
Put the potatoes and stock into a pan and gently simmer with the lid
on until tender. Add the nettle tops to the pan, cook for a further 3 minutes, remove from the heat, cool slightly then blitz in a food processor. Return to the pan and gently bring back to the boil. If it seems too thick add a little more stock. Season as necessary with salt & black pepper.
Potato & nettle rosti
6 medium well scrubbed potatoes
2 large handfuls of nettle tops
olive oil
salt and pepper
Plunge the nettles into boiling water for 30 seconds, strain (reserving the water to drink) and refresh the nettles in cold water. Strain and with your hands squeeze the nettles dry then roughly chop.
Grate the potatoes onto a tea towel and gently wring out any excess moisture. Season well with salt pepper and mix in the nettles. Gently heat the oil in a frying pan. Pile in the potato mixture and press down well. Over a moderate heat cook until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Flip over and repeat on the other side. Transfer to a dish and serve cut in wedges
Links from today's episode:
https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/21-day-challenge
https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/rethinking-easter-choosing-lentils-instead-of-lamb
https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/allergen-free-lentil-loaf
https://www.goodtogrowuk.org/charlesdowding.co.ukhttps://www.ukorganic.org/blog/articles/dirty-dozen-a-list-of-pesticide-residue-levels-in-food-from-pan-uk
In this week's nugget: Is supplementing with B12 unnatural? Is there a role for fortification? And how would I even know if I was deficient in B12? Our advice would always be to keep calm, and take the supplement....
Let's crush this myth once and for all that red meat is the go-to if your iron levels are low. You asked us for some straight-forward guidance on ensuring diets are iron replete, so we thought it was time to record an iron nugget, or should we say 'ingot'....
