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Episode description
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Kevin: Hey Michelle, how's it going?
Michelle: It's going great, Kev. I got a good cup of tea. I'm sitting here with you. You're in your little time-out booth.
Kevin: I'm always in my little time-out booth. And it's summer, so it's getting hotter and hotter in my little time-out booth. That's why last year we had the summer shorts, because it was too darned hot to record in this thing.
Michelle: Oh, you need to just toughen up, Kev.
Kevin: Well, the problem is, for people who don't know, we're talking about my voiceover booth, because I'm a professional voice artist. The time-out booth. The time-out booth, yeah. Or the coffin, or the phone booth, or the TARDIS. I've called it many, many different things. The problem is, when I'm recording, I can't run a fan in here, because the fan will be picked up by the microphone.
Michelle: Oh, of course!
Kevin: I never thought of that. When I record, I generally just, you know, for maybe TMI, but I just start stripping down. Oh, no! So, you know, we don't want, so Michelle doesn't want this episode to go too long, because she's going to start seeing things on the camera that she does not want to see.
Michelle: Well, you know what? So maybe you do need to have a cup of tea in there. There was a, you know, a cool little tidbit in the latest Forks Over Knives magazine, you know, being the tea sommelier nerd, as well as the nutritionist nerd. And I've known this for a very, very long time. It's very much tea 101. But a lot of people aren't aware that hot tea is actually good for you when it's hot outside. It's actually more cooling than drinking iced tea. Did you know that?
Kevin: I've heard that. I've heard that it's the old myth that it makes you sweat, which then cools you down.
Michelle: Yeah, drinking it will cool you down. Makes sense. Exactly. And this was verified. This is verified with researchers.
Kevin: Okay.
Michelle: Yeah, researchers here in Canada, University of Ottawa's Thermal Ergonomic Lab, found out that drinking hot water or hot tea triggers perspiration. So as long as you're wearing clothing that allows the sweat to evaporate and it's not too humid out, your core body temperature will decline, which is counterintuitive to what we think. Right. We think I'm hot. I want to drink something cold. But that's not going to that's going to momentarily make you feel cooler, but it's not going to actually cool your temperature down. So that's kind of fun. And then they also had in this little feature, like this is just all little snippets of updated research.
Kevin: Yeah.
Michelle: Nutrition Journal in 2020, it's a publication, they published a meta-analysis that found that regularly drinking green tea may significantly lower total cholesterol and LDL or the bad cholesterol. So, I mean, again, something that we knew, but it's nice to see, you know, newer research, you know, back and continuing to back that up.
Kevin: Right. Okay.
Michelle: Well, there were a couple of other little tidbits that I found really interesting that they put in here. Another bit that I knew, but it was it was nice to see in this little snippet article that a recent Northwestern University study found that tea can help filter contaminants like lead and cadmium from brewing water. So the reason that's significant, Kev, is that a lot of people don't know, like we kind of talked about this in our water episode, like way back at the beginning. I don't know. Was that like episode three? I don't know. It was really, really early in the podcast. But so people don't really know how much contaminants are in their water. And it could even be things like you could have lead from like being in a community with old infrastructure, the pipes or an old house or something like that. But the good news is if you're if you're steeping tea, the leaves like are really, really absorbent. So they can they can actually act like a filter. So if you steep the tea long enough and they're suggesting that you steep like, you know, like a five minute, like for five minutes, that it will reduce the lead levels by in what you're drinking by about 15 percent. So it can help like filter lead and cadmium, which are some of the heavy metals. And like those little metal ions will stick to the surface of the leaf instead of going into your body and staying in the water.
Kevin: Oh, wow. I know.
Michelle: Yeah. Pretty cool. Right. And then the last one was about microplastics. Have you heard about you've heard about microplastics about microplastics? That's what I actually want to talk about today, actually. And this sort of triggered me. So there's been a lot of criticism about the potential for microplastics in teabags. Now, you know, I'm a loose tea lady, right? So and this is one of many reasons why I have steered away from putting, you know, cramming tea in little bags, which I think is just cruel.
Kevin: Yeah. Poor little leaves.
Michelle: I know it's not nice. They want to be they want to swim. They want to unfurl. They want to just, you know, they want to live their full potential. They don't want to be crammed in a little bag. Anyway, McGill University 2019 did a study that found brewing a single plastic teabag releases eleven point six billion microplastic and three point one billion nano plastic particles into the brewing water. So, you know, that's terrifying. However, the good news is that, you know, it's only a small portion of the teabag market that's still using like microplastics, teabags with with microplastics. Most of them nowadays are made from more natural materials. But the article points out that some do contain polypropylene, which will be listed on the package. So like they may not be exclusively made of that, but if they do contain it, they they have to disclose it. Right. OK, so if you must have bags, then, you know, look for packaging that indicates that it's free of plastic or that it's compostable or that it's, you know, plant based or plant based materials or something like that. Or do as I do and just, you know, ditch the bag and steep real tea leaves in, you know, a mesh infuser or something.
Kevin: Yeah.
Michelle: Yeah.
Kevin: Bags I have are the ones under my eyes.
Michelle: Oh, Kevin. But microplastics, Kevin.
Kevin: Microplastics, Michelle.
Michelle: We should all be very, very concerned about microplastics. You may have heard them referred to as the forever particle. Yeah, because we're not really sure how long they take to break down. Like it could be could be 50 years or more. And if anyone has ever watched a documentary or National Geographic magazine, I remember at one particular point did a big spread on it that you can see these giant garbage collections in the ocean.
Kevin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Michelle: Like the plastic island or whatever they call it. It's just full of water bottles.
Kevin: Yeah, because the garbage gets caught up in currents and it creates these massive floating islands of everything, fishing nets and, you know, water bottles and you name it.
Michelle: It's absolutely horrible. And I think we can be we can be guilty in our culture being blissfully unaware of that. Right. Of course. Because we don't see it. And even even though when I just recently did a 10K road race, so annoying when I'm running along and I look over and I see that some other runner has like discarded a water bottle like along along the route. And and I don't even think we should be selling these things anymore, if I'm super honest with you. Like, why can't we be selling reusable water bottles, which are prevalent on the market everywhere and just creating water stations?
Kevin: Well, you know, we are we're slowly getting there because I think more and more I'm seeing like public water fountains. They have the the capacity to also fill a water bottle with the water coming down from a central spout. And that's getting more and more prevalent. So I think it's getting easier. I mean, you still see people coming out of the grocery store with, you know, six, twenty four packs of water bottles. And, you know, that's unfortunate whether you don't trust the city water you're in or whatever. But that's just an education thing. But it is getting easier, at least.
Michelle: Yeah, at least by the much like the much bigger containers. So you're the huge ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like these so like these little microplastic particles like end up, you know, as that big pile in the ocean. Like it starts to break down into smaller particles. They turn into these what they call microplastic are these like like smaller than one thousandth of a millimeter in diameter.
Kevin: Right.
Michelle: And and they're impossible to avoid. And according to like an article in The Economist that wasn't that long ago, they are also thought to make up around 10 percent of air pollution particles. So it's actually quite scary. It's scary. Like, how do they end up in the air? Like, that was kind of my question, but they apparently.
Kevin: So small, a current of wind could just bring it up. It's just like dust or volcanic ash or anything. If it's light enough and small enough. Yeah.
Michelle: And it's not just water bottles, right? Like it sheds from carpets, from soft toys, from synthetic textiles, from the use of plastic utensils and containers from takeouts and and other, you know, even things that we might have in our kitchen cupboard. If you're still hanging on the plastic containers and stuff like that. So for when you think about it, when you like as a if you step back and you kind of look at all of those consumable or or things that we have around our home and in our environment that is made of plastic. We are absolutely flooded with microplastics at an environmental level. And we know almost nothing really about what they what the overall impact that is to our health. And and people are starting to really worry about this. Researchers are really starting to study the impact of children as well. We don't know what the generational impact of this is going to be downstream on population health because they found these microplastic particles are like they go deep into the body through the bloodstream and they're finding them in placentas and they're finding them in like in in people's brains. So it's it's really, really, really concerning. So I'm all about the microplastics today. I just I thought it was really interesting. I wanted to take us back. Like, how did we even discover this? Right. Like, like who who was the who was the dude that that said, you know, we uncovered this as a problem other than the fact that there's like a giant island in the ocean made out of plastic.
Kevin: Yeah, yeah.
Michelle: That was maybe our first clue. Maybe. But it was a guy named Richard Thompson. OK, so so Richard Thompson was is a marine biologist at the University of Plymouth. And he and his colleagues were apparently the first to publish a landmark study in the journal Science reporting that plastic rubbish at the sea breaks down into these tiny pieces that are small enough to enter the food chain. Right. And so that's where, you know, study of this in this area began. But, you know, it's it's complex, right? Because I guess what they found out was it wasn't easy to study. It still isn't easy to study because they encountered barriers around this that they haven't encountered before in any other area of study. So like so, for example, like the amount of prep work that's required to take on a microplastic study, they have to learn how to set up a laboratory that's completely plastic free in order to prevent any cross contamination, you know, that might impact research samples. And they have to be able to in this test environment, make microplastic particles like small enough to resemble and be realistic to what a human might actually encounter in real life. So so it's complex and also also costly, which is why I think we're still in a place where everybody knows now to be concerned about it. And it's certainly an area of research and study, but we still don't know a whole lot about it yet. But one thing we do know is that it can for sure contribute to dysbiosis and it can interrupt our gut health. And, you know, gut health, again, isn't one of the other most very, very prominently studied areas within the food industry, you know, in terms of product research as well as health research. And we know now that the presence of microplastics could alter our gut health. So I hope our listeners, you know, that they're not starting to roll their eyes because everything seems to come back to the gut, right? Like we mentioned that over and over and over. And here's why, Kev, because we've got a gut brain access. We've got a gut heart access. We've got a gut kidney access. We've got this we've got this interplay with basically simply every every organ, pretty much prominent organ, because, you know, everything starts in the gut. That was one of the first things we learned, you know, in my study was that all disease begins in the gut. And it took me a long time to really understand that. So I get it if if our noobs are coming along and they're sort of, you know, maybe maybe hearing me say it enough and they and they believe it. But it's really hard to understand. But like so what is this access? What is this access between the gut and fill in the blank? Well, it's a biodirectional communication pathway between the gut and that other organ system. And what it simply means is it's where the gut and all of its various metabolites can influence the function of that organ and vice versa. So it's a biodirectional. This is just another signal of how interconnected everything is in our body. Are you hearing me light up like this is just you love talking about the gut.
Kevin: Because we're just walking stomachs, basically.
Michelle: We basically are. So like gut imbalances because of all these various pathways contribute to such a huge multitude of health issues and the progression of so many different chronic conditions. Right. And like, just think about it. Think about it's like the gut has the largest proportion of immune cells of any part of our body, 80 percent of our immune cells in the gut. It has like what the largest proportion potentially of neurotransmitters, like, you know, 90, 95 percent of our neurotransmitters are produced in our in the gut or at least of the serotonin. Serotonin is like 90, 95 percent. What's serotonin responsible for, for mood, for memory, for motivation, for our food intake, for our emotions, our attention span. And then like some of our GABA, like that happy, feel happy dopamine, like 50 percent of dopamine is produced in the gut. So if you have gut dysbiosis, meaning we've got like that imbalance of gut bacteria, all of these things become inhibited. So, yeah, it's really, really key. So the presence of these microplastics are really like a threat to our gut health, which means it's a threat to just about everything.
Kevin: They can throw off the sort of delicate balance of all these different, different little creatures and different species of creatures in your gut. And then you throw in some microplastics and some will like it, some won't. And, you know, some species might suffer or whatever. And that throws off your entire equilibrium.
Michelle: Yeah, and I don't think it's necessary, the first thing that our brain goes to, right? Like we think about the sugar, salt, and fat, and the junk food and other things. Like we know intuitively, like that we're making that food choice and that food choice is gonna impact our gut. But we don't think about these other influences, like airborne microplastics or the microplastics that come from like the packaging in the food, that gut lining and go into our bloodstream that weren't meant to. So it might be something like a protein molecule that didn't get broken down appropriately into its component amino acids. Just the entire protein slips through that lining. Now all of a sudden, whatever that protein represents might cause an allergic reaction. So you may have been able to, let me just make something up. You may have been able to eat like, like no problem. All of a sudden you've got whatever the influences are that contribute to it. You end up with get that dysbiosis. You end up having this intestinal permeability. all of a sudden you're having reactions whenever you eat that food and you're like that's weird like I never had an issue when I ate that food before doesn't mean we can't we can't go take steps to heal that but it's gonna take some time but understanding that you didn't really develop that allergy overnight or that sensitivity of even it might be a dip like but it actually was something that contributed over time but it doesn't. That's not the way you experience it. It's what it was supposed to. to the stomach.
Kevin: I don't want this. Yeah, yeah.
Michelle: Or it was supposed to get filtered out by that mechanism in the body so that we were protected from it and it gets excreted in another way, right? It gets soaked up by the fiber and let the body get rid of it. So it compromises that filtration and then it, you know,
Kevin: It goes rogue. We don't want going rogue in our bodies. That's not a good thing.
Michelle: So this can lead to exacerbate it by the presence of microplastics. It can lead to a more inflammation. So when it turns into systemic inflammation, meaning we've got little fires going on throughout the whole body and weakening more areas of the body, that can lead to things like or contribute to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and a host of other autoimmune diseases and like So at a lowest level, anxiety. I mean, I don't know even like I sometimes get anxious and I sometimes struggle with anxiety and I'm in really like intensely stressful periods. I can't say that my, you know, with my knowledge that I've, I have about nutrition and health and, and, and all of those tools in my toolbox. I don't know that my I've ever thought, Hmm, I wonder if microplastics It's kind of one of those silent disruptors that's part of the bigger picture. And my intention here is to make people aware, hey, that it's not just a little bit of a more than an environmental pollution issue, right? This becomes very... your health and your body. Exactly. So anxiety, depression, it can be a contributor. Klein. Okay. And then this was an interesting point they made in this one article. that dysbiosis can lead to a reduction of the production of short chain fatty acids, which are also crucial to brain health. Now, I, you may remember, I mentioned short chain fatty acids in one of our recent episodes when we were talking about fiber and feeding the gut and then the benefits of that, right? But I don't know that I actually explained that. Do you know what they are? Um, they're fat. with short chains? (laughs) - It's really that simple, right? There are like a short chain fatty acids. So, but I attributed it to the quality of the fiber or the like the prebiotics that we're eating to feed the healthy gut microbes, right? So it's the, so prebiotics feed those healthy bacteria and then in turn, those healthy little bacteria dudes, of that healthy good guys proliferation. And what they do is they are one of the pieces that are key to keeping that gut barrier healthy. They help to maintain the integrity of that. So these short chain fatty acids help keep the gut barrier strong so it's less susceptible to this mesh lining breaking down.
Kevin: It's a signal that there's something wrong that's a bit more fundamental than... looked at very quickly. Yeah, so what...
Michelle: Because we've got this gut brain access, we get a reduction in the production of short-chain fatty acids. That's all. are also crucial to our brain health. And this can lead to so many things, like even the simplest things like energy storage and energy expenditure in our body. There's so many things that can go wrong. So I think, like, what would the takeaway be here? Like, obviously, the prevalence in our environment and the risk to the food supply, but being aware might impact your choices. But I think we need to reduce our reliance on plastics. So it can be things like even the way we buy our food, Kev, like if you go to the grocery store and you're packing up your produce, what do you do? them in. There's always those little plastic bags, right? Right. So like, let's start there. Let's buy some reusable mesh things are super easy to buy now. You just pay for it once and then you can use them over and over again. When you're shopping, like look for things in glass jars instead of in plaster jars, right? If you do visit a butcher, like if that's part of the way that you like to eat, then you know, ask your butcher, can he pack whatever they're preparing for you in things like wax paper or other things like ask, like just have a conversation, see if they're willing to, like make them aware.
Kevin: This is how we raise awareness... start with consumers and voting with your money and vote at the register 100,000% Kevin, because that about the as you were talking about the butcher, it's like, don't wrap my meat in plastic, then if enough people say that, the butcher's gonna realize lose business if I don't do that because this is what my client base is asking for.
Michelle: That they're going to try to meet that demand with supply. But as soon as that happens, not profitable for them, then they'll change. - Of course. - Things like detergents, like look to buy. in boxes instead of in big plastic containers. Shopping bags is a no-brainer, right? Avoid plastic shopping bags. But I think we've got a different shopping bag problem now, don't you? so many of those reusable ones. Yeah, exactly. What else can we do? Oh, clothing. A lot of people don't maybe don't realize that, but like there can be micro like plastics hidden in your clothing. If you're if you're like buying clothing with synthetic materials, like polyester. So if you're I try as much as possible to go and thrift. It's not like it was in the old days where if you went to a thrift store, it was like discarded things for poor people or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Like we've got such a high consumption society now. So much privilege. So many people that just buy stuff with disposable. and they get bored with it and they give it to, there's really good stuff at thrift stores. Yeah, and I mean, and I would also position, if you're able to within your budget, if you're able to make a different choice that is going to cost a little bit more, but it's going to reduce the risk for you and your loved ones and your pets and the other people, on the planet and our forests and our oceans and our rivers and our streams, and I have lived through a generation that never had water bottles. And then we adapted through change management, our behavior to accept that convenience into our life. And now it's come full circle. I would say not only did we accept that convenience in our lives, but for a time, we were able to do that.
Kevin: Disposable water bottles were considered essential. And you almost panicked if you left the house even for five minutes without a water bottle, you know. We were basically told by the water bottle industry, you need these. And we adapted and we said, yes, you're absolutely right. I need to hydrate myself and I need to hydrate myself with bottled water and blah, blah, blah. And now we're finally realizing, okay, maybe that wasn't the best. And, you know, we can have, you know, ceramic water bottles or glass water bottles. usable water bottles that you can refill up with city water and that's just great.
Michelle: Exactly and if you're in a vulnerable community that doesn't have access to clean, safe drinking water, then I get that. I get that they can be essential. But there's other ways that we can deliver that. We can make them bigger. All of those water dispensing companies now offer big glass jugs instead of plastic ones. ways to do it. Yeah, so that's that that was my rant for today. Excellent. Well, that's a note of microponics.
Kevin: Exactly. It's very, very interesting how everything is interconnected. Well, thank you, Michelle. And it's time, as always, for the judge. And I have three today. It's going to be a bonus one because I'm feeling generous. Yeah. See, you know, Kevin, you, that's just, you just give until it hurts. Right. Exactly. Exactly, exactly. going. Okay. Number one. Why couldn't the motorcycle stand on its own? Why couldn't the motorcycle stand on its own cab? It was too tired. (laughing)
Michelle: - Oh my God. - Well, you can't just laugh at it by yourself.
Kevin: I guess that would help, wouldn't it? Oh, this is a great one! What's about a million... (laughing) What do you call a duck that gets straight A's?
Michelle: I don't know. What do you call a duck?
Kevin: A wise quacker.
Michelle: I've got one just for you. - Well, because I know. that you love walked into a bar jokes.
Michelle: I do!
Kevin: So, the past, present and future all walked into a bar. It was tense.
Michelle: I've heard that one before. All right. Will the listeners indulge me? I have to tell you a joke now.
Kevin: Okay, please do. This is a bonus everyone. A bonus.
Michelle: Because mentioned a duck and because you mentioned walks. I have a good walks into a bar joke.
Kevin: You're combining everything together, I love it. (laughing)
Michelle: Okay, duck walks into a bar and he says, "Hey bartender, And the bartender says, "No, this is a bar." And the duck goes, "Oh." And so he walks out. duck walks into a bar, same bar, same bartender, and says, "Hey bartender, do you got any grapes?" And the bartender says, "Bartender, she's just in here a few minutes ago." Have any grapes. Get out of here, duck. his head and goes, okay, he leaves. A few minutes later, same duck, same bar. Duck bar comes in and says, "Hey bartender, you got any grapes?" He goes, "Look, duck, I'm sick of seeing your face in here and coming in." for grapes. If I see you in here, we'll... more time than I am going to. to nail your feet to the bar. Now get out of here. So the duck leaves. A few minutes later, duck's really timid. and then slowly looking around and he goes, "Hey, bartender, got any nails?" The bartended said "no" and the the duck then asks "Got any grapes?"
Kevin: (laughing) your ducks and your walks into a bar. I love it. The synergy is beautiful. You set it up so perfect. unintentional. I, to all the listeners, I humbly apologize for setting that up. I'm completely delighted that made my day. Exactly. Well, I'm glad that could happen. That was kismet. OK, well, on that note, I will say thank you for listening. If you have any complaints, email Michelle directly. No, I mean, if you have any comments or feedback or questions, please email us at n4noobs@gmail.com. I don't know after that. Eat your greens.
Michelle: Be real, everyone. Don't be plastic. Don't be plastic.
Kevin: We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it. If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at n4noobs@gmail.com. That's the letter N. The number 4. N-O-O-B-S. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favourite platform might be. Also, please consider leaving a review below. We'll see you next time with another interesting topic. on nutrition for noobs are those of the hosts. It is not intended to be a substitute for medical, nutritional, or health advice.