How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo [Episode #867]

This week’s topic is: How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo

I am so excited to have my very special guest, Dr. Uma Naidoo, who is a board certified Harvard nutritional psychiatrist, chef and bestselling author of This Is Your Brain On Food and Calm Your Mind With Food. Listen in as Dr. Naidoo shares her revolutionary guide to controlling your anxieties and calming your mind through….

TOPICS COVERED

• Using diet and lifestyle, such as exercise, spending time outdoors, and managing sleep and hydration, can help manage anxiety and improve overall well-being.
  
• Healthy eating plays a crucial role in mental health, and it is important to find an inclusive approach that works for each individual.
  
• The gut-brain connection is significant, and an unhealthy gut can lead to inflammation in the brain, contributing to anxiety.
  
• Understanding the impact of leptin and hormonal balance on appetite and satiety can help manage anxiety and support overall health.
  
• Follow the six pillars to calm your mind, including magnifying micronutrients, avoiding anxiety-triggering foods, and prioritizing healthy fats.
  
• Why frozen fruits and vegetables are excellent choices, as they are frozen at their peak and can be cost-effective and convenient.
  
• How to Balance macronutrients in your diet, focusing on the quality and choices of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.
  
• Why to Avoid extremes in protein consumption and prioritize well-sourced proteins.

 

FEATURED GUEST

 

About Dr. Uma Naidoo

Uma Naidoo, MD, is a board-certified Harvard Nutritional Psychiatrist, professional chef, and nutritional biologist. She is also the Founder and Director of the first and only hospital-based Nutritional and Metabolic Psychiatry Service in the United States, at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). She also serves as the Director of Nutritional Psychiatry at MGH Academy, the world-renowned educational organization, for which she designed and released the only CME-based Nutritional Psychiatry educational program for clinicians. Dr. Naidoo also serves on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, the Harvard Department of Nutrition, and is an instructor at The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts.

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Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly Snyder (00:01.038)
Hi loves and welcome back to our interview show on Monday. I am so excited and thrilled to have Dr. Uma Naidoo on our show today. She’s the author of this new wonderful book, Calm Your Mind With Food, a revolutionary guide to controlling your anxiety. Dr. Uma is a board certified Harvard nutritional psychiatrist. I love this combination.

She serves as the Director of Nutritional Psychiatry at MGH Academy. She’s on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Department of Nutrition. And she’s an instructor at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Dr. Uma, thank you so much for coming on our show today.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (00:46.943)
Thanks for having me, Kimberly. I’m so excited to talk to you.

Kimberly Snyder (00:50.51)
What I love about your philosophy so much, Dr. Uma, and diving into your book is that you are expanding our approach to food, which is very close to my heart. It’s not just about the way it looks, not just making it look pretty, not just the taste, although we want things to be delicious, but that food is a real tool in elevating the quality of our life, our happiness, our peace, as you talk about here so eloquently, our anxiety levels.

It’s powerful, isn’t it?

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (01:23.583)
It really is, and I think it’s something we often overlook as a tool that can help us feel better physically, but most importantly, emotionally as well.

Kimberly Snyder (01:34.03)
I love this. I love this topic and I can’t wait to dive in deeper. Before we do Dr. Uma, I want to mention to our listeners or viewers, our show is also on YouTube. If you’ve been listening to our show for a long time on Apple or Spotify, the full show is also on YouTube. A little reminder that the show notes from our show today with Dr. Uma.

will be on our website, mysolluna.com, as well as other articles, guided meditations, recipes, other shows I think you would enjoy. All right, so Dr. Uma, let’s dive right in. I love how you started the book talking more about your personal experience as a cancer survivor, about anxiety, and always just being concerned that things would come up, which of course is, you know,

I think for most all of us, we would be in that boat. And then you talk about how anxiety is so widespread. So before we go deeper, can you talk about that? I mean, we all know what happened with COVID. A lot of us were stressed, the world changed, but now we’re in this post -COVID era and it’s still such a big issue.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (02:36.767)
Bye.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (02:43.039)
Right. You know, the thing that, uh, Kimberly, that many people don’t realize is that anxiety is the most common worldwide diagnosis in mental health. And what COVID did is it accelerated the numbers. It really accelerated and increased the numbers. So from being the most common disorder, it has increased by 25%. Research has shown since COVID. So when, if we are feeling like everyone around us is anxious, this is quite the reality. Now.

It’s not a great feeling, but I think that part of why I wanted to share some of my own journey is also to share that anxiety can be part of a not so cool experience, but it can also be part of success and an experience that’s positive and it can present in different ways. And I think it’s important for us to know that because sometimes an individual comes in and tells me that they really need help with sleep. But as we…

as we work to fix things, they realized that there was underlying anxiety that was driving that insomnia. So it can really present in different ways.

Kimberly Snyder (03:42.764)
Hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (03:48.558)
Well, I definitely relate to that when I had a lot of anxiety and I was anxious around food and food choices. I also had pretty severe insomnia at times because it’s that the racing thoughts, it’s feeling in a way that we’re in this loop and it becomes very difficult to get out of that pattern. And when I started trying to meditate years ago, Dr. Uma, it was like a…

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (03:57.759)
Right.

Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (04:07.487)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (04:15.502)
What am I supposed to do with all these thoughts? Right? So can you talk about in your clinical research, you said there’s some good anxiety. Do you think the goal for us is to reduce anxiety or is it even possible to live an anxiety free existence in the first place?

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (04:19.487)
Right, right.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (04:25.855)
Hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (04:33.599)
You know, I’m sure that we can be fully free of anxiety because there’s some eustress or anxiety that is helpful. Think about, you know, when we’re in school or college or university, we had exams to write and we’d be, you know, burning the midnight oil, so to speak, as the expression goes, and studying until later than going the next day and passing that test. That type of anxiety is actually a drive that is helping us.

cope with a current circumstance. So unless there are other things going on which are unhealthy or abnormal, that’s actually helping us in a certain way. But the less healthy anxiety is the anxiety that really prevents us from functioning and getting out of bed in the morning and so worried that we can’t get to a Zoom meeting or a task or finish the list of things that our supervisor or someone we work with or part of.

Kimberly Snyder (05:20.714)
Wait.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (05:31.487)
you know, running, maybe you’re running your own brand, your own work, you just can’t get to those tasks. And then it becomes sort of dysfunctional way. It’s inhibiting you and preventing you from completing tasks. My feeling is that while it is individual for everyone, there’s a way in which we can harness the not cool parts to work for us. And some of the way that we do that is to how we eat, managing our diet. So we really, what we’re trying to do is on a scale, we’re trying to know all the opportunities.

that anxiety could be ramped up. One way is how we eat, another is exercise movement, just knowing your body and many people just feel exhilarated after they do a little bit of exercise. Even if it doesn’t necessarily come naturally to them, they feel better because of the endorphin release. Spending time outdoors, so 10 minutes of daylight before we place our sunscreen or sunblock actually gives us 80 % of our vitamin D, which helps our mood but also lowers anxiety.

Kimberly Snyder (06:28.012)
Mmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (06:31.039)
So it’s many different things. It’s hydration, it’s enough sleep, like we talked about. All of these things combined can actually help really fend off anxiety. And then the parts that are not so cool, if we’ve learned like a breath work exercise, it can help us through that moment. So in my opinion, there might be a way that we can improve how we’re feeling and learn to live with a little bit of it so that we can cope but still have a fulfilling life.

Kimberly Snyder (07:01.122)
beautifully said, a little bit of it. And for me, doctor, when I meditate and I go into that more spaciousness in the morning, when I do go into a trigger or something happens with a deadline, it’s easier for me to come back faster and also to make better food choices. Because in the past, in those stressful times, I might reach for those chips and try to crunch out my tension or whatever it was.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (07:08.479)
Right. Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (07:16.615)
Hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (07:25.647)
Exactly. It’s so true and it speaks to, I think, the experience that a lot of people have. You know, days when we feel more centered, we just naturally make better choices in our lives and at work and especially with the food we eat.

Kimberly Snyder (07:41.07)
I love how you wrote the book too, Dr. Uma, because I’m going through this book and you’re presenting it in a very inclusive way. All the amazing research, everything that you’ve done. And then I actually wrote it down in my notes. I said, all the way on page 131, Dr. Uma shares in the most inclusive way, by the way, I am vegetarian. But…

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (08:07.965)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (08:08.302)
You know, everybody can choose and there’s different social, you know, just the social, the environmental. I too, Dr. Uma have been plant -based, fully plant -based for I think now, you know, I don’t know, 14 years or so. And my husband is not plant -based, but this is what feels right for me. And so I just loved to read that, but also that you don’t demonize all the different diets. And when you’re talking here about anti -inflammation, which we’ll talk about,

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (08:14.591)
Mm -hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (08:23.679)
Well, amazing, amazing.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (08:35.837)
Okay.

Kimberly Snyder (08:37.646)
It’s really for however we choose to eat, we can fit your powerful principles into different diets.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (08:46.431)
Well, that’s exactly how I intended, Kim Rises. So thank you for pointing that out. I too come from a family where not everyone is vegetarian, but I grew up in my biological family of origin, a purely vegetarian, and it was just the way I was raised. So for me, it was something I really didn’t necessarily choose early on in my life, but it worked and I was more than happy to be inclusive of what everyone else ate. It just didn’t happen to be how I was raised.

But I think culinary school and studying nutrition and having your family that eats anything around me is super important because it sort of teaches you that you can find your way to healthy eating. That’s also delicious, by the way, through whichever path you choose. I think that when these factors, whichever diet it is that you follow, whichever foods, can be backed up by good clinical science and research. I think it’s…

more inclusive and it helps more people. Because if I say to you, you know, why don’t you have seafood today, Kimberly? Well, that’s not what you eat. So the fact that it’s rich in Omega -3s, you and I would have to find the plant -based sources that would give us that excellent version of the Omega -3 fatty acids. And we might require a few hacks to make it more absorbable and more available to us. But I think it’s important because I feel that

many individuals that I treat and see come in so confused and so worried that it worsens their stress, it worsens anxiety. What should I eat? I heard this is the new superfood. I hear I should be eating more protein. I hear I should give up this food. And it really, it adds to more panic, to be honest, because we shouldn’t have to be facing those things.

Kimberly Snyder (10:21.16)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (10:34.926)
Well, and it is confusing, Doctor. There’s a lot floating around and it gets circulated through the media and social media. And I love how you talk about some of these, you know, the longevity. Talk about the Blue Zones. Dan Buettner is a dear friend of mine. He’s been on this podcast several times. You talk about, hey, fiber, right? Things that seem, I would say basic, but yes, of course, like almost like yes. But now on the other hand, there are,

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (10:41.407)
Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (10:50.463)
Yes. Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (11:04.458)
diets out there that are demonizing vegetables. Like these full carnivore diets. And so then there’s people saying, oh, well now this is what, you know, it’s just, it’s confusing for the average person to weed through, you know, what is, what is, what is what.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (11:08.255)
Yeah. Right.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (11:23.823)
Exactly. It’s confusing and people feel like there’s something they cannot eat. They feel worse. They feel like they have to exclude entire food groups and they get confused. So it’s important. For me, it’s hugely important to be inclusive and to help people understand that there are many different ways to feel better emotionally.

A lot of it is principles of healthy eating that will help more things in your life. It’ll help your heart health potentially. But you know, my focus in my clinical work and my research has really been improvement of the mental health. So when I see that happen for people, it becomes really important.

Kimberly Snyder (12:12.366)
So when you’re dealing with clients and you’re seeing an improvement in mental health, is that self -assessment or is it either sleeping more hours or is it just their experiential coming in and saying, wow, I just feel so much more inspired in life? How do you measure that, doctor?

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (12:27.487)
Right. So, you know, part of it is based on the clinical assessments and scales that we do in mental health. So we test anxiety, you know, we ask people their symptoms and that’s all part of the assessment. So, you know, I think that for me, it’s observational, it’s doing these clinical scales, it’s assessing whether someone is feeling improved, are they sleeping more hours, are they sleeping more deeply.

Are they noticing that they’re not waking up with that anxious, horrible feeling in their stomach and they can actually get out of bed and maybe do a meditation or something else or even just get into their day. Some people don’t always meditate in the morning. So again, that’s a flexibility in terms of when it works for them. And then, so there are objective measures in the scales and then there are the symptom measures in how someone is appearing. And often I find something like sleep.

Kimberly Snyder (13:00.566)
Hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (13:25.511)
improves and people start to feel better because they’ve had a good night’s sleep and so many things start to feel a little bit better and even starts to help lift that anxiety. So there are different, you know, different pointers along the way that we track.

Kimberly Snyder (13:42.062)
And thank you for that. And speaking of which you make some really amazing connections in the book. I want to go down through some of them. Um, first of all, and we’ll get to that in a moment, anti inflammation and anti anxiety, but first let’s talk about the gut, the guts role in our health. You talk about how IBS has been correlated in those with anxiety and depression. So we hear a lot about the gut brain connection. I’ve been a huge.

I’d been getting for gut health for a long time coming from someone who is very bloated, very constipated, had a lot of issues with my gut, also paralleled my anxiety doctor. So I very much relate to this. Talk a little bit more specifically about this connection between anxiety and gut health.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (14:15.455)
Mm -hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (14:20.831)
Great. Great.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (14:26.461)
You know, the… Sure, so for a very long time we didn’t really realize that the gut and brain were so intricately connected. And that’s new research that’s occurred over the last two decades. Although Hippocrates spoke to this connection eons ago. And as the father of modern allopathic medicine, he knew there was a connection, but the science of the research had to follow. And now that we understand that the gut and brain arise from the exact same cells in the human embryo.

they divide apart, they form two organs and they remain connected by the 10th cranial nerve, the vagus nerve, and that acts like a two -way system, a two -way messaging system with chemical messages. So the two organs are communicating all the time about and with chemical messages. And then you realize that you also understand that serotonin and serotonin receptors, well, 90 to 95 % of them are in the gut. So where the food is being digested,

and is interacting with the trillions of microbes that live there is also where the receptors, the production of those receptors, all of this is sort of happening in the same area. So to unpack it a little bit, I say to people, you know, what happens when you have a headache? And many people will say, well, I try to do this or that to help calm my headache. But then eventually if it doesn’t go away, I’ll take headache pills. I said, well, what do you do when you take headache pills? Well, I put it in my mouth, I take some water, sip water.

I hope the headache goes away. And I say to them, but the pain, the discomfort is in your head and you are taking something through your mouth, it’s going through a gut, it’s going through your digestive system, how do you explain that? And I pose that as a question then so that they start to see, well, oh, that’s what you mean. You can actually consume something, you can swallow something. It can be food, it can be a pill.

and it is getting broken down, digested, it’s going through that process, it’s interacting with those microbes and could act in different parts of your body, but one of those parts is your brain. And so we start to fill in the gaps of our understanding around how food and nutrition can slowly and steadily impact our gut health, but also our brain health.

Kimberly Snyder (16:39.694)
Ah, isn’t it amazing in, you know, in Aryaveda, this statement, as is the micro, as is the macro, just the circles upon circles, the interrelatedness. We aren’t these fragmented beings, are we, Dr. Uma? And, you know, it’s just shows it’s here and it’s here. And if we want to feel good here, we have to look down into our bodies. It’s amazing. It’s beautiful. You know, when you were talking, I was thinking almost like a spider’s web.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (16:46.495)
Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (16:52.447)
No, not at all.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (17:01.055)
Wait, it’s so true.

Kimberly Snyder (17:06.862)
And yes, you know, the research is backing that up, but also intuitively, doctor, when we, you know, we just know something’s going on and it’s hard sometimes for people to have that vocabulary. You know, your clients come to you or people come to me as well. They don’t have the language, but they know it’s going on and it’s, it’s going on in different areas. You see it in your body. You’re bloated. You’re not sleeping well. You’re having these thoughts. It’s going all over the place.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (17:07.935)
Yeah.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (17:18.847)
Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (17:23.517)
Wait.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (17:28.063)
Yes. Yes. It’s not in one place and that’s another important concept. It doesn’t just present as one thing or one place. You know, you could feel jittery, you could have sweaty palms, you could have a heart that’s racing, you could be sleeping poorly, have an inability to focus, you can’t settle down, you’re so anxious you can’t eat something, if you drink water or eat food you feel nauseous, so it can present in all these different ways.

It’s important for us to identify that it could be an issue and that there are ways that we can help.

Kimberly Snyder (17:59.822)
And then one of the ways, one of the big links you make here, let’s talk about inflammation for a minute. So we hear this word tossed around now, and a lot of people correlate inflammation to precursor to many illnesses. We hear about autoimmune conditions, which we may know someone that has, or maybe we have it, or we’re just whatever. But I don’t think this link has been so clearly drawn between inflammation and mental health anxiety. So.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (18:12.895)
Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (18:18.015)
Okay.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (18:28.241)
Mm -hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (18:28.782)
Tell us about this link, which is such a big part of what you’re saying here in the book. When we eat an anti -inflammatory diet, we can be less anxious, which is huge.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (18:35.455)
Yeah.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (18:40.063)
It is, it is. And thank you for pointing that out because I feel like another thing that’s overlooked is that our gut inflammation and inflammation in our body can lead to inflammation in the brain because again of that gut -brain ecosystem. So if we’re consuming a fast food diet, a diet that’s really full of ultra -processed processed foods, junk foods and fast foods and lots of added sugars,

Kimberly Snyder (18:54.966)
Mmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (19:08.751)
It’s possible that what we’re doing is setting up our gut for inflammation because the bad microbes that live in the gut love these unhealthy foods and when they thrive, they really overtake and overcome the good microbes and then start to damage the inside of the gut. And so once that happens, you are setting up this imbalance in your gut and it’s called dysbiosis. It’s, you know,

basically setting you up for inflammation and over time that inflammation will reach the brain as well. So it’s not immediate because it’s something that happens more slowly but it starts and our microbes respond to the foods that we eat within two hours. You may not notice the difference but they are responding. They are really actively part of this process and you know what we want to do is keep our body.

our gut, our brain, our body in harmony with one another. And one of the ways to do that is to, for more often than not, be eating healthier options than unhealthy options.

Kimberly Snyder (20:17.71)
It’s so empowering to know again, it’s all connected and every day we’re showing up to choose what we eat. We all have to eat meals unless we’re fasting for some reason. And so, wow, again, making this link here is what’s my racing mind and my poor sleep. And here’s what I’m eating. And I can really do something to help this situation.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (20:22.271)
Yeah. Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (20:36.381)
Great.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (20:40.095)
to help that. That’s right, because sometimes people come in and they’ve been eating or for whatever reason something has changed in their lives and they’re just consuming a less healthy diet and haven’t even noticed because it’s not, it may be that they’re working out and they’re still active, they’ve gained weight, but they’ve actually changed their diet and they don’t realize it. So it can be hugely powerful for them to be able to identify that.

Kimberly Snyder (20:53.74)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (21:08.076)
That’s right, to identify it. And then there’s, you know, again, the struggle with weight starts to come up and they’re like, whoa, what’s going on? And another thing you talk about is anxiety and leptin. We know this hormone has to do with appetite and satiated. So we’re feeling satiated. Can you explain a little bit about this connection, which again, once again, shows how everything is so interconnected.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (21:17.917)
Mm hmm. Yes.

Correct. Yes, correct. Correct.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (21:32.091)
is on it to connect it. So, you know, when we eat meals, we have these hunger hormones and the hormone leptin is there to tell us that we satiated, we’re full, we’ve eaten enough, we’ve had that healthy salad for lunch, we’ve had a nice plate for dinner and, you know, we’re ready to take a walk or have a glass of water or enjoy a conversation with a family member or friend, whatever it might be. But when we’re eating those less healthy foods and we continue to do that.

We maybe add extra sugars to our diet, our ability reaching for candy, cookies, cake, ice cream, all the time with ultra processed foods as well. There’s a way in which our gut health gets impaired, our metabolism gets impaired, and we can reach a point where this hormone, which is there to regulate our appetite, really gets resistant. So it stops working in the way that it should.

Kimberly Snyder (22:27.862)
Mmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (22:30.879)
So it starts telling us that, hey, you’ve eaten a plate of food for dinner, you’re full now. It sort of tricks you and it’s not working, so you feel, well, kind of hungry. I either need a second plate of food or I’m going to have a ton of snacks, you know, because I’m just not able to be satiated. I’m not full after I’ve eaten. I’ve eaten all this food. So you don’t often realize it, but it could be the signal that leptinism is firing. It’s sort of getting you getting to that place.

and leptin resistance. So I think the overarching message here is that a lack of healthy eating, and again, it doesn’t have to be 100 % of the time, just be, you know, more times than not. I want people to feel flexible with it, to be able to make it sustainable, doesn’t have to be perfect, but for most of the time, you’re making those healthier choices. That’s going to work to your advantage. But if that equation flips,

Kimberly Snyder (23:01.966)
Mmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (23:29.119)
and you are really eating fast food, junk foods, ultra processed foods all the time, then it’s possible that over time you can develop neptune resistance. What will happen is that will increase your anxiety and your worry because your metabolism is so intricately related with all of this.

Kimberly Snyder (23:47.404)
Mm. So you keep using the term, Doctor, healthy eating, right? Which again, I want to dive into your six principles, which are beautifully laid out. But just to expand on that a little bit with the confusion out there, what I get a lot of questions about is, again, I love Ayurvedic cooking. I love Ayurvedic principles. I love natural eating.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (23:54.623)
you

I’m sorry.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (24:12.093)
Mm -hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (24:14.188)
And then there’s these books that come out and things that get put out, sort of demonizing a lot of plant foods and saying, oh, well now shouldn’t be eating the lentils and the legumes. There’s lectins, there’s oxalates, be careful of eating greens. So people get these ideas and then they write to me and they say, are these really healthy foods? So there’s this section in the book, which I loved how you wrote, you said, you know, a lot of us and the amounts we’re eating, unless there’s some sort of nutritional like actual issue,

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (24:15.261)
Right.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (24:28.381)
Right.

Kimberly Snyder (24:41.966)
don’t really need to worry about these things so much, especially for boiling, soaking, sprouting. Please teach us, Dr. Oma. Teach us.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (24:48.735)
That’s right. Yes. So, you know, there are lots of foods that get demonized for different reasons. And some of the plant foods that get demonized, what people will try to tell you, and it’s not that the fact is untrue, the fact is true. It can may contain lectins, but when you know cooking, when you know food, when you understand nutrition, you understand their ways around this. So spinach contains oxalates. If you have a problem with bile stones, you may be

about that. So steam the spinach or lightly boil it. Because that will actually lower the level of oxalates in spinach, but spinach has a ton of other nutrients that are so important for your brain. So it’s simple things like that we need to understand a little better. That’s what I break down in the book a little bit. Because a fool doesn’t have to be demonized, whether it’s someone eating steak or someone eating

that means legumes it doesn’t need to have to be demonized it’s always the quality what you’re eating the quantity and portion because if you’re eating you know three bowls of beans i’m not sure that’s gonna be good for you either and if you’re eating a massive steak i don’t think that’s good for you either there’s always something about having the right quantity of food or a portion and having good quality food where you get it from is important and then paying attention to preparation which could impact those

something people call anti -nutrients in the food. But they can easily be managed just by some simple steps, often with the cooking methods.

Kimberly Snyder (26:22.542)
Yes. And then one of the things you talk about is pairing the non -heme iron, the plant -based iron with vitamin C, right? So that could be lemons on greens and things like that.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (26:29.777)
Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (26:34.803)
Correct. So my favorite actually is extra dark natural chocolate is the highest source of plant -based iron. And it’s got to be, we’re not talking candy bars here people, we’re talking actually the chunks of dark chocolate and often once you acquire taste, it’s super delicious. But one of the really cool things I learned in culinary school was to pair dark chocolate with oranges.

Kimberly Snyder (26:44.172)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (27:00.876)
Ahhhh

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (27:00.923)
And I never understood it. I didn’t know there was science behind it. And I think that the flavor is delicious, but it’s a great way because you get your vitamin C from the citrus, but you’re also helping that iron from the chocolate. But you’re right, by adding citrus to my favorite way to dress a salad of any of those greens, especially the ones that are rich in plant -based diet, is with something like lemon.

squeeze of lemon and fresh lemon and lemon zest is so delicious to me. And so it’s an easy thing to do.

Kimberly Snyder (27:37.774)
You know, Dr. Uma, before we started, I was sharing with you, I’m between here and Hawaii. I’m between LA and Hawaii. And in Hawaii, we have a little farm, we’re growing cacao and we have a lot of orange trees. I’ve been a huge chocolate lover. So now I’m thinking, hey, I’m going to make a mix with the cacao, some kind of combination with the oranges. It’s delicious. And like you said, it’s really nutritionally viable.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (27:47.487)
Oh, oh.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (27:51.167)
I love that.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (28:02.591)
It really is. And oranges, you need the vitamin C, you want the fiber, you want all the micronutrients from that too. So it’s just a good combination.

Kimberly Snyder (28:14.638)
But in general, and what you say here in the book, it’s not that complicated, right? So people don’t have to be scared. I can never eat lentils again. The simple thing, soak them overnight, cook them, because we eat a lot of lentil veggie soup over here in my house, Dr. Uma. So it’s just, again, one of the things that I want to dispel this myth is that eating healthy, which seems like, of course, like it should be easy for us to understand, it doesn’t have to be confusing.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (28:25.951)
Mm -hmm. Press your cook. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm

Kimberly Snyder (28:42.094)
in this world where there’s so many things people here on social media are around. It’s simple.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (28:42.687)
It doesn’t have to be confusing. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I totally agree if you eat legumes and beans, there are ways to prepare them. They’re soaking, sprouting, so many things you can do to still enjoy them. Same thing with any other food. So I think we need to go beyond the very polarizing views that we hear often on social media about, you know, I’ve seen people say, don’t eat that food.

and this food is bad and I think that’s where people just get confused. We wouldn’t be able to eat as many foods as possible as long as they are healthier whole foods and by that I mean the less of the packaged processed, ultra processed foods we eat, the difficult to avoid completely. But the less of them that we consume, the better it’s going to be for ourselves.

Kimberly Snyder (29:35.886)
And then there’s a section here, practically speaking, and then I want to go into your wonderful principles, which talk about variety. They talk about these things we’re talking about so people can really, you know, get a little bit more of that amazing depth in your wisdom. Dr. Someone’s in a food desert, right? I get this question. I don’t have access to the farmer’s market. That sounds great. What about frozen fruit and frozen veggies? What’s your take on that?

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (30:00.415)
I think they’re excellent choices and here are my principles of using them. In the United States, fruit and vegetables are frozen at their peak, so they are great choices. They are economical, they’re cost effective, they last longer, and you don’t have to spend the time cleaning the broccoli or the cauliflower, whatever it might be. But just look at the package. Make sure there’s no added syrup, sugar, salt, or sauce, and you’re good to go.

And sometimes these frozen vegetables come with a small little packet of sauce. You just don’t have to use that. Just use the actual cauliflower, the actual broccoli. And you know, these are good choices for you. Canned legumes, beans, lentils. So I like canned chickpeas, canned black beans, and then canned salmon. These are canned clams and oysters. Actually good and nutritious choices if you’re not able to get them fresh or you’re not

in a town that produces or sells fresh seafood. Many people aren’t, but you can still deal with the canned versions because they’re still nutritious.

Kimberly Snyder (31:07.79)
Well, again, that’s good to know. And also from a cost perspective, there’s, you know, bulk stores where you can get things in bigger amounts, where it’s not just, oh, my whole life has to be driving to this. The closest farmers market is three hours away. That just may not work for people’s actual, you know, lifestyle.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (31:15.091)
That’s right.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (31:22.175)
That’s right. Actual lifestyles, that’s right. I completely agree. So make the healthy choices when you can and understand that certain of these canned foods or even frozen foods are perfectly fine choices for us.

Kimberly Snyder (31:40.942)
So now we’re going to talk about the fun part, doctor. I want to go into your, you have a section in the book here where it goes from laying this out so we really understand how important this is, and then you go into the solution. And one thing I want to hit on here before we go into your principles is the macronutrients. Just this morning, this morning, Dr. Uma, I was talking to my father and he’s like, again, he’s also reading a lot of stuff and he’s read my other books and he’s still saying to me, what are the percentage of the macronutrients I should be eating? Right?

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (32:05.459)
Mm -hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (32:10.559)
Right, great.

Kimberly Snyder (32:10.708)
And I think that’s a big thing. We’re always wondering, people say, oh, I eat this much protein, this much. We all know we all have different individual bodies. Can you talk about it, about your, your take on macronutrients in a general sense?

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (32:24.579)
Yes, so we want to help the amount of fats, protein and carbohydrates. It’s the choices of each of those that actually are vitally important. I might even say the quality and choice that we make is a little bit more important than the quantity at this point. There’s a big movement at the modem to talk about the amount of protein and that’s not a mistake. That protein is extremely important for our bodies. So having enough protein,

Kimberly Snyder (32:41.644)
Mmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (32:54.015)
As someone who is plant -based, vegetarian, I have to make sure that I get my protein and get enough protein from various sources. So I, at times, will have a protein smoothie to amplify my protein for that day. So it’s not that it’s unimportant, but we really want to pay attention to, say, the types of carbohydrates. You can eat a donut and get carbohydrates, but you can also eat cauliflower and get carbohydrates. So complex forms of carbohydrates are much better for our body.

Kimberly Snyder (33:04.716)
Mm -hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (33:22.559)
They even out our blood sugar because when we eat them, we don’t have those, you know, brushes of glucose spikes and things like that. We have our blood sugars more than even keel. And when it’s on an even keel, we are feeling less anxious. We are feeling calmer. So having nutritious foods, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, or whatever your choices may be versus the simple carbs, you know, the just only eating pasta, only eating.

White rice or or sliced better, whatever it might be those are going to to you know Be digested very quickly in your body I always say fibers your friend and fiber from things like vegetables and food beans nuts legumes are really good choices for us So with carbohydrates where you choose them, we need them for bodies don’t exclude them But where you choose them becomes important with fats. We want to focus on the healthy fats and we want to focus on things like avocado

extra virgin olive oil, nuts and seeds, these have great healthy fats in them. If you do consume meat having well -sourced beef, perfectly fine, but the quantity you eat or the quality also becomes important. And then I think it’s important to also understand that with all of the foods, I think about it more…

as a nutritional psychiatry anti -anxiety plate. And my biggest principle around it is it’s largely filled with plant foods, right? Whatever those choices are. Excuse me.

Kimberly Snyder (34:56.938)
Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (35:03.123)
And so leafy greens, legumes, beans, vegetables, whatever your choices are. Maybe you add a few berries to that dish. It could be sides of vegetables. It could be a great salad that you’re having. Then you want your portion of a clean protein. And by that, I mean a well -sourced protein. So for me, it could be organic, non -gym or tofu. It could be tempeh. It could be some beans and legumes. And then…

and you want your healthy fats, like we mentioned, maybe a few pieces of avocado, maybe you have a dressing that you’ve made with some extra virgin olive oil, and then you want to have your serving of grains. So when you think about it, it’s largely plants and it’s these three smaller portions of the other types of foods. And for grains, what I want people to think about is actual whole grains. So think about quinoa, think about barley, think about these that we don’t usually eat.

Kimberly Snyder (35:56.874)
Mm -hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (36:02.559)
but they’re actually whole grains because I’ve got microbes really thrive from whole grains as well. They need them. So I don’t want people to throw them out and exclude them. I just want them to make better choices.

Kimberly Snyder (36:15.694)
So when I’m picturing your plate, doctor, and you’ve got the vegetables and you’ve got the carbs, again, back to, shall we say more extreme diets, if someone’s cutting out carbs, if they’re cutting out vegetables and now they’re having huge amounts of meat, do you see that as an issue in the world today, doctor, where people are focusing so much on protein, they’re having too much protein or pro -tox, it’s sometimes called.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (36:37.469)
Right.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (36:40.831)
So I think there’s definitely something, I definitely think there’s a case of too much protein at times. As you pointed out earlier, Kimberly, all of us are individual and actually our nutrition is much more precision and personalized now and precision based. So someone might be eating a huge amount of say steaks and be completely fine, but I wouldn’t say that’s the way to go, right? That’s not the general principle of how we want to be eating. So for the everyday person.

Kimberly Snyder (37:02.252)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (37:09.855)
think about it as a balance, having your body in balance. So wherever you source your protein or whatever your choice of protein is, it should be a good quality if you can help it. But let me be clear, if you are not, if this is outside of your price range, if it’s organic meats and grass -fed can be more expensive. Obtaining organic non -GMO tofu, tempeh, these can be more pricey. So in that case, I’d still rather eat a whole food. I’d still rather you eat

Kimberly Snyder (37:35.062)
Mm -hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (37:39.817)
actual food than a processed version of whatever the food might be. So again, when you can organic benefits not possible, at least eat the whole food. So I think that there’s a lot going on about the amount of protein. I don’t think all of it is accurate. I think we need to be paid attention to it. I think we need to eat enough protein. There are calculations that can easily be obtained from a nutritionist.

a dietitian to help guide you for your weight, your height, and all of that, and calculate sort of a guidance, a range of how much you should be eating. And you can supplement that with what I do a few times a week if I need to, if I’m brushing, traveling, flying. I might have a smoothie as one of my in -between meals on that day. But when you can consume the food, that’s always better. So I think any of these extremes, the too much protein, the…

Kimberly Snyder (38:24.682)
Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (38:34.841)
no carbs, have this extra fat, only eat plants and never, I think that people can be split on both sides of the spectrum. But I think if we can be inclusive and say, okay, I happen to be vegetarian and I don’t eat those foods, but this is how I eat when I put my plate together. And my clinical work is around how can I guide you with what you eat? And that’s where the principles come from.

Kimberly Snyder (38:56.366)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (39:01.976)
Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (39:04.031)
So I just feel it’s maybe I don’t like the controversy that gets created with those because ultimately it doesn’t help people eat healthier.

Kimberly Snyder (39:16.686)
And it’s just these fixed positions, right? So much debating, so much right, wrong. A lot of ego gets brought in and ultimately we’re here to be healthier. Like you said, it creates more anxiety. It’s like, what are we doing? It’s like, yes, it does. It does.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (39:20.029)
Yeah.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (39:23.801)
I do.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (39:28.637)
It suddenly increases anxiety. It’s not helping my clinical work, but I see people get so worried about food.

Kimberly Snyder (39:35.15)
Well, that’s what I love.

Well, I love this approach you have in your book, Doctor, and then speaking to you, you just have this really calming, soft, feminine energy that’s like the mother, you know? Like, it’s just such a beautiful energy, Doctor, I have to say. So let’s go into the six pillars to calm your mind. If you could take, and of course your book has many wonderful details about these. It goes into much more than we can list here, but if you want to just…

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (39:48.989)
Thank you.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (39:52.863)
Thank you.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (40:02.143)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (40:05.902)
run through them and give a little bit of description. That would be great.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (40:11.839)
So I’m going to go through some of the pillars. Some of my favorites are something we’ve talked about, magnify those micronutrients we touched on, iron, and making sure that we have lots of sources of iron becomes important, whatever your diet may be. And why? Because it turns out that iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency in the world. And guess what? Iron deficiency is associated with higher levels of anxiety, especially in women and children.

Kimberly Snyder (40:39.446)
Mmmmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (40:41.695)
So it’s just an easy thing that we can do. So think about, you know, there’s a whole middle section in the book where I talk about macronutrients and micronutrients. So magnifying these becomes important. The other principle I like to talk about is one thing that many people don’t realize, which is you have to sort of, you’ve got to lower those anxiety -producing foods. And the way that you can do that is think about, you know,

and an unhealthy habit that you may have picked up along the way. And try to, you know, course correct on that habit. It might be that you have started eating a lot of ice cream during the pandemic. So one of those pillars is avoid anxiety -triggering foods. And really, every one of us probably has a habit that we’ve picked up. For some people, it was the pandemic. Sometimes it was just last week.

that they really know is bothering them and they want to improve. It might be that that food habit is actually driving anxiety. So I want people to pay attention to reducing and avoiding anxiety -triggering foods. And the third one I want to mention is something again we’ve talked about, but remember, it’s really important is to prioritize those healthy fats because they’re satiating, they’re so important for our brain.

Kimberly Snyder (41:54.87)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (42:03.5)
Mm -hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (42:07.051)
They’re important for the nutrients they provide, but they also really help anxiety. So I want people to think about that as well.

Kimberly Snyder (42:17.134)
Yes, I love these. And then you just talk about, again, which goes, what I love is this consistency balance. It’s not extreme and it’s not, oh, scary, you know, for people. And then at the back of the book, and I was flipping through, you have amazing recipes. I’m very excited to try quite a lot of this. Do you enjoy cooking very much, doctor, when you’re cooking for yourself or you have free time? Are you always cooking or do you keep it pretty simple?

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (42:46.559)
I love it and it depends. I love for it to be simple, easy, delicious. That’s where spices come in, you know, for my everyday. But you know, I love to challenge myself on a weekend or, you know, recently I was testing a recipe for a different type of bread made with different types of ingredients that has a low glycemic index and a low carb.

Kimberly Snyder (42:47.694)
Ha ha!

Kimberly Snyder (43:01.548)
Mmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (43:16.415)
but rich in fiber. And it was really a great challenge for me to try to figure it out because it, for me, it provides a substitution of a processed food with actually a whole food that I’m making myself. So I love to up my game. I love to challenge myself. And so on those days, I may be doing a little bit more in the kitchen, but it’s always fun.

Kimberly Snyder (43:38.158)
You know, when I meet someone and I say it for me, it’s, it’s energy, Dr. Umo, when I see, when I meet someone like you and I’m like, wow, her energy is beautiful. I am very interested in your recipes because it says a lot about where you’re creating that from. I want to call out a few that I’m really excited about. There’s a Burmese chickpea tofu and then a tikka masala tofu. I’m a huge organic non -GMO tofu, tempeh lover myself.

Kimberly Snyder (44:07.438)
And then in your Dr. Uma’s cherry calm smoothie, I love how you add frozen cherries with the cacao, which isn’t a combination that, you sometimes we forget about frozen cherries because we have our little, we have our little arsenal of fruit that we go to and you have homemade hemp milk. I mean, this is just delicious, wonderful. I love it. I love everything that you have here in the book.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (44:14.557)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

It will naturally come. Yeah. I will. Yeah.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (44:33.983)
Thank you.

Kimberly Snyder (44:35.182)
I was reading your book. It was funny. I have to share this quick story, Dr. Uma, was in the corner of my bedroom. We have a little desk. I was reading your book and then my husband was on the bed on his cell phone. I was reading and reading it and then I got to that page 131 and I said, Hey babe, Dr. Uma is a vegetarian.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (44:45.631)
I’m gonna go to bed.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (44:53.343)
That’s so funny. That’s so funny.

Kimberly Snyder (44:55.022)
I said with all her research and all her wisdom and all her intelligence, she has chosen this. And it was just, you know, again, we’re open to all diets here. We don’t demonize any, but as a plant -based eater myself, it made me so happy. Dr. Uma, is there anything we didn’t cover in your amazing book, Calm Your Mind With Food?

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (45:08.191)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (45:13.471)
Thank you. No, I think you did a great job with the questions, Kimberly. You covered the real breadth of the book and thank you for loving the recipes. I’m so excited to hear what you think of them when you try them out. I actually like the Burmese tofu one because it’s a different way to make tofu, right? And it just provides one more alternative for the recipes intended to be flexible so you can put in whichever protein you want.

And I say that because I have to do that for my own family, but it’s also cool to have other forms of protein, right? Then just, sometimes I get a little tired of tofu too, because I want to mix it up and I want to think of other things. So I’m always challenging myself to make new things that I could also enjoy.

Kimberly Snyder (45:50.286)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (46:03.438)
And also practically speaking, doctor, like you said, mix it up at Costco, organic non -GMO, a whole box, which makes, I don’t know, a bunch of meals is like seven or $8. So tofu is one of those things that we can add different flavors. We could make it very delicious and new. And then I see on here.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (46:12.007)
Hehe.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (46:15.423)
That’s right, that’s right. That’s really… yes.

People even make a delicious sauce for that. They do so many creative things and I do that sometimes, but it’s amazing how they blend the tofu. They kind of use a little bit of plant -based milk and they blend it up and they create a sauce for the food. Obviously you have to flavor with your spices and all of that, but it’s just so clever to create that creaminess.

Kimberly Snyder (46:29.356)
Oh.

Kimberly Snyder (46:45.326)
Well, Dr. Uma, congratulations so much on your book. Here’s the cover again, you guys that are watching this, Calm Your Mind With Food, A Revolutionary Guide to Controlling Your Anxiety. Congratulations, Dr. Uma. She’s got Dr. Mark Hyman endorsing the book, Dr. Deepak Chopra, a friend of mine as well, Dr. Uma, and just so beautifully written. So I can’t recommend it enough. And thank you so much, Dr. Uma. I love talking to you.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (46:49.759)
Thank you.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (47:03.487)
Yes.

Dr Uma Naidoo MD (47:07.455)
Thank you. Thank you so much for… I really enjoyed it myself. Thank you for having me, Kimberly.

Kimberly Snyder (47:17.358)
Alright loves, remember to check out the show notes on our website, mysolluna .com and we will be back here Thursday for our next Q &A segment as always. Till then, take great care, eat healthy as Dr. Uma tells us and we’ll see you back here soon. Namaste.