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Transcript

Kevin: So how should I open this? What do you want me to do?

Michelle: I'll open it.

Kevin: You'll open it? Oh, hey, Michelle.

Michelle: No, hey, Kevin, how are you? I'm great.

Kevin: How are you doing, Michelle?

Michelle: I'm doing great. Excellent. Yeah, much better than last time.

Kevin: Well, yeah, that kind of goes without saying. I mean, last time was, last episode was interesting. It was interesting. It was like you and I dropped too many gummies or something. I think so. I think so. And just for a little tiny callback, I just have to say, cruciferous. Okay, that's it. That's it. That's it. Okay. Okay, serious now.

Michelle: Did you end up making your Bang Bang Cauliflower again?

Kevin: I didn't. No, I haven't had the chance. No, no, no, no. It's been, but it's high on my list. I actually have cauliflower in my CRISPR drawer right now. Fantastic. So I'm all ready to make it.

Michelle: So you're all poised to go.

Kevin: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Michelle: So when you went shopping, have you noticed the rise in the cost of groceries?

Kevin: That probably qualifies for the most redundant question I've ever heard you ask, Michelle. Yes. The price of groceries is stupid these days.

Michelle: It's unbelievable. It's like everything got more expensive during COVID. And now tariffs or whatever or uncertainty and supply chains and disruptions just in general. It's like they're not going to go back down. Do you know what I mean? They always say, oh, this is temporary. And it's not.

Kevin: Well, that's the thing. I mean, the supply chain isn't disrupted anymore. Hello, we no longer have COVID. But meanwhile, the grocery companies are making profits hand over fist.

Michelle: Hand over fist. I was looking at this article on Food Navigator Europe, and they talked about the top three trends for 2026. And a lot of it is in this consumer. What they're getting from these consumer preference studies that they're doing is that this increase in cost is driving a lot of the new trends. So not a surprise that affordability is the biggest concern for consumers. And it says that they did a poll in Britain, 67% of people in Britain reported that they don't see the total cost of living improving. This shows no signs of changing with 80% of the British public actively worried about the rising prices, even over the short term. They're even concerned six months out. So these consumer trend or survey companies are always doing these polls and and then manufacturing and industries is looking to try to understand, you know, what is the consumer want? Where are things going? Right. Anyway, so affordability is is number one. And the thing is, this generation, though, they want to pay less, but they want more value for what they're getting. Right. That's not a surprise. And then trend number two is health conscious eating, which is what we're all about. Right. Yeah. So health conscious eating isn't new, but the influence is getting stronger and stronger. And more than ever, consumers are thinking better for you options. But they also unlike our previous generation where it was all about fast food. Right. You know, convenience, which which turned into fast, casual and other things. Right. This generation doesn't want to compromise on taste and texture. So so they're they're wanting the health conscious, but they also want the new term is food joy.

Kevin: OK, well, that's good.

Michelle: They want I'm all for joy, more food, joy, more joy.

Kevin: I like that food.

Michelle: I like that, too. That would be a good name for a podcast. That's that's my new phrase. More food joy. And you know what, Kevin? I would say your kitchen is full of food joy.

Kevin: I like food joy. I didn't even realize that that was a thing. But I've I've been food joy for a while. Yeah.

Michelle: And and trend three kind of went hand in hand with affordability was adding value increases to spend. So what they mean by that are things like the affordable luxuries, as well as they're willing to pay more for things that are cleaner, clean label products.

Kevin: OK, oh, good. OK, wonderful.

Michelle: So in summary, the consumers, they're looking ahead for 2026. They're looking for more value, better nutrition at a lower cost.

Kevin: No argument from me.

Michelle: So this made me so I was looking at this. And and then there's this listing that comes out every year by Environmental Work Group, like just around this idea of quality. How can we increase and increase quality on our plate while we're including more fresh, natural whole foods? OK, they have the EWG puts out their dirty dozen and their clean 15. So the concept behind the dirty dozen and the clean 15 is if I can't afford to buy organic produce or I can't afford to buy all of my produce organic, where is the best bang for my buck in terms of which foods tend to have the most pesticide residues and which ones have the least?

Kevin: Right. So then the dirty dozen has more in the clean 15 has the least.

Michelle: OK, clean 15 or don't worry about buying organic and the dirty dozen are if you're going to if you're if you are going to pay for organic, here's your best bang for buck. And I want to I want to share this list with you and the listeners, but with a grain of salt. OK, so I took I have always kind of paid attention to this list when it comes out. And, you know, always particularly having been a tea merchant, like we're always very, very concerned about pesticide residues in tea leaves. Right. Anything, you know, my expression, anything I'm putting in my mouth. Exactly. I should know what I'm putting in my mouth.

Kevin: Totally.

Michelle: But I've also, you know, being being so close to the food industry at the same time and how you can get over concerned or overhyped about one single thing and lose the forest for the trees. You know how we're always talking about that.

Kevin: Right. Yeah. You focus too much on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Michelle: So because you can you can get over hyper focused on this and actually lose the macro point of your diet. Right. So I was I was looking at it from that perspective. So first, let's just talk about what is currently on the most recent Dirty Dozen by the Environmental Working Group.

Kevin: The Dirty Dozen. OK.

Michelle: And I would say I think the spirit behind the Dirty Dozen is that there's a good spirit behind it. They're like, how can we help consumers know if when they if they care about these things, you know, where's the best bang for organic. Right. OK. So on the Dirty Dozen, according to the Environmental Working Group, let me just qualify with that are apples, kale, collard and mustard. Greens are kind of put together in one category. Potatoes, pears, blueberries, nectarines, blackberries, cherries, peaches, grapes, spinach. And then the like for several and several years in a row, I couldn't even tell you how many strawberries are is at the top of the list of the most pesticide residue. OK. And then the Clean 15 are the the 15 items with the lowest amounts of pesticide residues, according to EWG's analysis. And what they were analyzing, by the way, apparently was the USDA's database. OK, so they they didn't do their own analysis. They were using this data already available. So the Clean 15, where they say, don't worry about organic sweet peas, mangoes, asparagus, cabbage, carrots, watermelon, cauliflower, bananas, mushrooms, kiwi, papaya, onion, sweet corn and avocados. And then the the cleanest of all was the pineapple. OK. Yeah. So, you know, there's a few things here. Critics, including the Alliance for Food and Farming, they argue, they as well as others, argue that this list can be misleading because it ranks produce based on the presence of trace residues. And these trace residues, even though they may be more or less, they are still even the higher in like in that dirty dozen list are still far below any level of health concern. OK. Right. So McGill University actually wrote an article about this that I thought was, you know, pretty compelling. And there's here's some other things to consider. Like I'm not saying the list is bad, but I'm saying, you know, be a little bit critical when you're when you're looking at this.

Kevin: Take it with a grain of salt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It reminds me a little bit about we had a discussion a few episodes ago about raw versus cooked and boiling versus baking. And you had said like the most 14 percent nutrient loss, 14 percent was. Yeah. And it's like instead of focusing on the 14 percent loss, focus on the 86 percent maintained. And so, yeah, keep keep your eye on the prize and understand we're talking, you know, in in tiny, tiny amounts.

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. And boiling the potato is still better than buying French fries. Exactly.

Kevin: Yes. Even if you lose that 14 percent of nutrients, you're still keeping 86 percent of the nutrients. Right.

Michelle: Exactly. It is along those lines. So so so to keep in mind, too, and I know this all too well from buying tea, just because something has an organic certification on it does not does not mean it's pesticide free. Right. There is a whole host of organic organic certified pesticides. The the other thing is that we live in a country here in Canada that actually has good import standards for residues. There are standards for MRLs is the term maximum residue levels.

Kevin: OK.

Michelle: And Canada Food Inspection Agency is pretty strict around these MRLs when they're importing food. And I know this from having been a tea buyer.

Kevin: Right. Right.

Michelle: And having talked to people at origin and stuff like that, when when they talk about what they have to go through to get actually be allowed to import their tea into Canada. So and I don't have any reason to believe that they would be any less diligent when it comes to produce. Right.

Kevin: It's not like they're allowing strawberries with like, you know, a three inch thick coating of pesticide gunk on them like pass through.

Michelle: So so that's that's just my that's my opinion. OK. Right. I don't have any science around that. And the other thing is that McGill and others have pointed out that the fruits and vegetables listed each year on that list are far below the minimum threshold to the fact that an adult or even a child, which is where a lot of the concern comes in, is because they worry about little little human bodies, of course, consuming a lot of these things and it being a greater toxic load to them than than to a grown up body. Right. Of course. But even for a child, you'd have to consume an extraordinarily enormous quantity before there was actually any real risk. So there's two Canadian dieticians, for example, Jess Penner and Nita Sharda. They're from Manitoba and they have a pretty cool blog and they point out that strawberries, for example, which are always, you know, kind of have been number one on the most dirty of the list for a lot of years.

Kevin: At the top of the list of the dirty dozen.

Michelle: Yeah, that they said, let's assume strawberries contain the highest allowable residue, which is still safe. A child could eat one hundred and eighty one servings of strawberries in one day without any negative impact to their health. So we're not saying that, you know, your child will or should eat that many strawberries, but assuming that you somehow manage to, it still wouldn't wouldn't pose harm.

Kevin: And that was a hundred and eighty one servings, not a hundred and eighty one berries. So that's like, correct. That's I don't know how many berries are in a serving, but that's like a thousand individual strawberries or something. Oh, my God. OK.

Michelle: It was comforting to me to to to read that and to have that sensibility injected into my critical thinking because strawberries are the thing, because I see it repeatedly on the top of the dirty dozen.

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: Repeatedly that I'm I'm really cautious when I'm in the grocery store. And that's one of the items that, yes, you sometimes can get organic strawberries, but you can't always. And then it does come into my thinking, oh, should I buy the strawberries?

Kevin: Right. Right.

Michelle: Or or I feel I have to do extra diligence to wash them.

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: So anyway. But then, you know, in defense of EWG's list, I want to be balanced when I'm looking at this. I'm just taking you through Michelle's Michelle's reasoning of this. OK, whether anybody should listen to me, I don't know.

Kevin: Yeah. Your thought process. No, I love it. I love it. I like being inside your brain. I like it. It's a good place to be.

Michelle: I think that their intention to inform consumers is a good thing. Right.

Kevin: Of course.

Michelle: The scientific consensus also does support that organic produce does confer a benefit in, you know, over the long term, reducing exposures. Right. And this has been demonstrated through biomonitoring and intervention studies like even recent ones. So these studies confirm when they when they do that, like these large studies that switching to organic does reduce urinary pesticide biomarkers. OK, that's one of the ways that they can tell, you know, what exposure are you getting?

Kevin: Right. Comes in, always comes out.

Michelle: So I also understand the spirit of the concern that, you know, there is an argument that I think the people in the EWG camp may make that from there are so many different pesticides now in our in our food supply.

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: That it could be concerning from a public health standpoint, given that, you know, we know that the government standards, you know, tend to regulate pesticides, considering them one at a time. Mm hmm. And they don't necessarily. The concern is, do they consider the potential total toxic burden when they're bundled together? Right.

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: And I don't know the answer to that. I'm just I'm just pointing out that I think that's one of the concerns.

Kevin: Right. Which is a valid concern.

Michelle: Because just because you tested things individually when we don't know what the impact on the human health is when they're all bundled together. And I don't know that anybody has or I'm not even sure they can study that very, very well at this point. One of the concerns EWG makes, for example, is that there's so little available data on this impact of multiple pesticides and how it interacts with each of the other body systems and that the mixtures of those chemical compounds might create different health risks that haven't yet been evaluated. Right. So anyway, anyway, when I kind of look at all this and I look at, well, like, let's not get overhyped about it, but there's valid concerns. I mean, don't we all want to reduce our exposure?

Kevin: Well, of course.

Michelle: So at the end of the day, the key takeaway for me, Kevin, is that. Sure. Yeah. If you have the budget and the desire, choose organic where possible. You will reduce your exposures to these residues and that's that's got to be a good thing.

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: But what I'm really worried about for the average consumer is that we know from the studies that have been done on the existing MRLs is that the risk, like we said with the strawberries, it's not huge.

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: We have good standards and regulations. We have good standards and regulations here. I think the USDA has good standards. We all have good standards around this. And, you know, the risk of avoiding those foods because you're now afraid of pesticide residue potentially creates more harm. Now you're you're missing out on all of this nutrition and you're making other choices that maybe aren't quite as helpful or you're not getting the plant diversity.

Kevin: Exactly. You should be getting in your diet.

Michelle: Right.

Kevin: Yeah. One question I have and I'm sure you won't be able to answer this. It's more I'm thinking out loud than anything, but I'm wondering how frozen versus fresh sort of works into this, because just looking at strawberries and I know we're talking, you know, very low levels. But I'm wondering if if strawberries really are, you know, the toxic waste dump that everyone's saying, like, would frozen strawberries be better or worse? Because at least if I buy a bag of frozen strawberries versus a pint of fresh strawberries, at least I can wash the fresh strawberries to within an inch of their little lives and and try to get off all of the. And they're, you know, being the most the most paranoid consumer.

Michelle: Yeah, no, exactly.

Kevin: Whereas, you know, I assume that frozen strawberries would be washed before they're flash frozen?

Michelle: I would think so. They would be washed well.

Kevin: And I'm actually wondering if like the industrial cleaning of them might actually be like stronger than any cleaning that I could do at home. So I'm wondering actually if frozen might even be better than fresh. I don't know. It's just interesting.

Michelle: Well, I don't I don't know. I don't know how. I mean, I have to I'd have to believe that the you know, again, there'd be safe safety standards for consumption. And they would I would say this, the frozen ones most certainly have been washed. Of course, they were frozen. And the human might not necessarily do that when they pull the strawberries out of their fridge.

Kevin: And I'd also like to think since we're recording this in the middle of February, I also think that the frozen strawberries are probably far healthier.

Michelle: They're probably tastier too.

Kevin: More nutritious and certainly much tastier than the crummy strawberries that we can get here in Canada in the middle of February, which are like pure white when you cut them open. It's only the very outside layer that has any red to them.

Michelle: Right. Well, OK, so so we've kind of talked about the risk. Let's then go to this thread that you're pointing us to. Let's talk about, you know, what the consumer can do. OK, sure. Yes. And and, you know, we've talked about this many times. I think frozen is a really reasonable alternative. There's no reason to believe you're getting any less like you maybe maybe you're missing out on some live enzymes and things like that over over getting it fresh out of your garden. Sure. But when you pick up a strawberry in the grocery store, it's not fresh out of your garden anyway.

Kevin: So exactly, exactly.

Michelle: You're just you're just getting really when you're after a strawberry from the grocery store as opposed to frozen, you're you're using it for a different application. You're after a texture. You're after that freshness, right? Like, but if you're throwing it in your smoothie, who cares?

Kevin: Exactly. But also the frozen strawberry would have been frozen much sooner to being picked than it would have been flash frozen. Yeah, exactly. In which case it probably has a little it hasn't been sitting on a truck and, you know, or plane or whatever for weeks to get to us. So, yeah, that's also a good thing.

Michelle: So even if you're buying organic, whether it's organic or not organic, you should still wash your produce. There's a bunch of reasons why you wash your produce, right? Like, of course, it's not just about pesticides residue. You're also potentially, you know, getting dirt residues, bacteria. You don't want bacteria on your food.

Kevin: The person who sneezed in the grocery store and picked up that apple and then put it back. I've seen that. I've seen people pick up apples, turn them all around, maul them with their hands, then put them back and choose another one. It's like, no, that's gross.

Michelle: Or the kid trailing along behind the parent who picked their nose.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly. You never know what's happening in grocery stores, honestly. Having worked in the food industry, having worked in fast food, I have seen some nasty things. So I'm very careful about I just assume the worst when it comes to food. So I wash everything.

Michelle: Between the time produce is harvested to when it arrives at your house, like you said, there's all kinds of potential cross-contaminations from it being handled in different ways, right? Yes. And washing with water will further reduce pesticide residues. So you want to wash your produce under running water, cool running water for 20 to 30 seconds. You also want to use friction. You want to rub it firmly with your hands. You want to use a clean produce brush for things like apples and carrots and cucumbers and potatoes. I always, you know what I use? You know, those little scrubbies that are so prevalent now that have like the smiley face scrubbies. I use a clean one of those as my produce brush. I just find it to be perfect because it's really noticeable on my apples in particular because you know how apples almost have like a little waxy coating. I scrape that right off. So what you don't have to do is you do not have to use any type of commercial and you shouldn't use any type of detergent or commercial soap. Like first of all, we don't even know that those are food safe. And you could be potentially adding something. What is actually proven to be the most evidence-based for helping to reduce surface residues is using a 1% baking soda solution with water. So things like the blueberries and the strawberries, that's what I tend to do a lot of the time at home. And you use just a teaspoon of baking soda per two cups of water or half a liter of water and soak it for, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes while you do something else and then rinse it thoroughly under running water. On my laziest afternoon where I don't want to wait for it to soak, I'll dump the blueberries in a strainer and I'll just sprinkle baking soda on top of it and spray it off. But we know that just rinsing with the water gets a lot of these surface residues out.

Kevin: Good, because that's all I do. I don't do the baking soda. Too much work.

Michelle: Yeah, for sure. But if it's in the back of your mind, if you're a little bit traumatized by EWG's Dirty Dozen, sure, you can do these extra soaks. And those soaks, you don't need to do it with everything, but it's best for things like apples, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, leafy greens. The baking soda helps to break down certain pesticide molecules and certain common surface insecticides or fungicides. It can't do anything about what might be inside of a peel.

Kevin: Right, of course.

Michelle: But again, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly. Better to eat food with a tiny bit of pesticide than to not eat the fresh food at all. Yeah, exactly.

Michelle: The other tactic that doesn't really do much difference is if you just throw some running water over something without scrubbing it. That doesn't tend to make much difference. You need the friction plus the water, according to the evidence here. Okay, so the other thing that you can do is you can do a vinegar soak. One part vinegar to three parts water, soak for 10 to 15 minutes again, rinse well. And it's a little bit less effective than baking soda, but it can make some difference if somebody is worried about that. When you're washing your leafy greens, you should separate the leaves, soak and agitate them a little bit, and then rinse them thoroughly. You obviously don't want to break the membranes. You don't want to ruin the integrity of your greens. And if your berries are very soft, just rinse them gently just before eating. Don't give them a long soak. I've noticed that. Have you noticed that? If you overwash your blueberries and your strawberries, they're not...

Kevin: Well, I find it's more with raspberries and blackberries. True. I find they break down in a heartbeat. And if you squeeze them just a little bit... So those I just basically run under running water. And I'll sort of shake them in my hands a little bit. But that's all I'll do because I'd rather eat more pesticide than have a mushy berry.

Michelle: Yeah, for sure.

Kevin: That's my choice.

Michelle: The other thing that I do is if you're concerned about reducing your exposure is... I'm... You know this. I'm a huge believer in growing your own food.

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: And it can be a raised garden bed. It can be a garden if you actually happen to have property. I'm a big fan of the indoor-outdoor aeroponic garden. My favorite thing to do is I have vertical aeroponic in my kitchen. I grow greens and herbs year round. Right now, I'm in between planting. So this is reminding me I have to get my seeds. But I have one or two going most of the time. And in cold weather, it's inside my kitchen. And in the nicer seasons, it's out on my deck. And it's actually a very nice thing on my deck. It doesn't take much maintenance. I can grow just about anything on those gardens. But I choose to focus on greens simply because A, the cost of produce. Right. And greens are what we consume the most of. And you get the most bang for your buck on that technology. By growing greens. Because the things on the vines, it's super fun to grow crazy things on the vine. I know my brother, on his, grew these massive, envious eggplants. But you get very poor yield on eggplant as opposed to if you had used that technology to grow the greens. To make kale or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Makes sense. And you do save money when you do this. It does reduce your grocery bill. Full disclosure to the audience. I've been a big believer in this a long time. I am an affiliate seller as part of my nutrition practice. The goal here is not to sell anything to anybody.

Kevin: Send your check in the mail.

Michelle: Just full disclosure. I am happy to help anybody with this that is interested in the technology. We can put a link in the show notes. But that's not the goal of my sharing that. It's a great way for people to get more affordable, fresh produce. Because certainly if you've grown it indoors in your kitchen, there is zero residues of anything.

Kevin: You control. If you want to add a pesticide, you can. But you control 100% what has gone on to that little sapling or that plant.

Michelle: And there's lots of technologies out there for that, right from the tabletop. I chose the tower garden because I do believe they're basically were one of the first in this space. And a lot of the ones out there are copycats of them. But it's the easiest to clean. That's a big thing for me.

Kevin: That's exactly, exactly.

Michelle: If it's a pain in the ass, I'm not going to do it.

Kevin: Yeah. No, for sure. For sure.

Michelle: Yeah. So, you know, like just the long and the short. Getting back to our topic here of the pesticide residues. There's such huge evidence on the risk of and the prevalence of people in North America not getting enough servings of fruits and vegetables. The average person we know, there's very good data, do not have enough servings of fruits and vegetables as it is. So we don't need to create more reasons for people to avoid them unnecessarily. Because fruit and vegetable intake is so critical to good health outcomes. And for that reason, I'm really kind of stepping away from these dirty dozen clean 15 lists, because even in my own brain, I think they sort of start to create a little bit of paranoia in my mind, like around things like strawberries.

Kevin: Yeah.

Michelle: It's increasingly difficult also to get this list off of EWG's website. And that's something that has recently sort of turned me off a little bit, because you're constantly having to click through pop-ups and donation pages with that force you to enter your email and your phone number. So that's turned me off just a little bit. But the risk of avoiding these foods because you're now afraid of pesticide residues, you know, introduces a risk that I'm not willing to take. Right. I did a talk a couple weeks ago, in fact, Kevin, at the London Health and Wellness Expo. And this lady approached me who said, we talked a little bit about this in the last episode, like if you have a cruciferous vegetable, do I eat it raw or do I cut it and let it sit for 15 minutes or do I lightly steam it or do I buy organic? And I just said to her, I said, you know what? Don't worry about any of that. I'm just super happy to hear that you bought cruciferous vegetables and you're going to eat them. So like that is the most important thing because, you know, there's more health risk of you not eating it at all, like splitting splitting hairs over 15 minutes of cutting it open or eating it immediately or steaming it. Eat it the way that you will like to eat it. Right. Exactly. That is the most important thing. If you want to and you can afford organic, great. If you can't wash it, you're still doing a really good thing. These exposures are really not so huge that we should be worrying about it. It's not like somebody has like stood there with a can of glyphosate, sprayed it on your food and you're putting it in your mouth.

Kevin: You know what I mean? Exactly. Unless you plan on sitting down and eating 181 servings of strawberries in one sitting, then you need to be careful. But if that's not you, if that's not the situation, then just don't sweat it.

Michelle: And that was the amount for a child, Kevin.

Kevin: So it would have to be. Oh, and that's a child. Oh, yes. So to be like, what? 500 servings. If you're going to eat 5,000 berries in one sitting, then I'd actually like to meet you because you're a very interesting person.

Michelle: You're probably going to overexpose and develop an allergy, quite honestly, if you're eating strawberries in that quantity.

Kevin: You're going to turn red and you're going to become a strawberry, essentially.

Michelle: And you're going to have like explosive diarrhea.

Kevin: Yeah, you have other issues than just your pesticide exposure if you eat that many strawberries. So don't sweat it.

Michelle: This is what I mean about being real. Like, just be real. Like, what's the risk that you're trying to avoid? And are you trading it for a different risk?

Kevin: Exactly. Exactly. And what's the worst case scenario? Yeah.

Michelle: So just eat real food. Eat the best quality within your means. That's what I always tell people. I'm just super happy if you bought broccoli and you bought cauliflower and you're making plans to make something delicious that you're going to love to eat. Exactly. Don't worry about, oh, I have to wait 15 minutes.

Kevin: Because you'll eat more of it if you make something delicious.

Michelle: Right. And if you do chop it open and it happens to sit there for 15 minutes, then yay, you won. But if you ate it right away, it's not like, oh my goodness, it wasn't good for me. Of course it was. Exactly. Of course it was.

Kevin: Excellent. Well, very interesting. I didn't even know that this existed. And now that I do, I don't care all that much. But it is good to know. Like, it's good to be – that's what I love about this podcast. That it brings attention to what's real and what isn't and what you should be paying attention to and what it's like, yeah, no big deal. Don't sweat it too much.

Michelle: Yeah. I mean, like I said, I used to really pay close attention and I used to get that list and I used to take it out and put it – we used to have a whiteboard in our kitchen. I used to put it up there. So my family knew, okay, make sure that you're – You wash this and yeah. Yeah. But I've kind of come to the conclusion, you know what, you should wash everything.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly.

Michelle: You don't need – so don't worry about it. Just buy the food, eat the food, grow the food, eat the food.

Kevin: Yeah, eat the food. There we go. That's what it comes down to. Eat the food. Don't sweat about the food.

Michelle: We don't need to make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Kevin: Exactly. You have to eat three times a day or more. Don't overcomplicate your life, honestly.

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. Don't create a reason to avoid the healthy option, right? It's still going to be healthier than anything that you're going to buy in a package, put in a microwave or buy, you know, in a drive-through window or even in a restaurant. Exactly. We don't know what goes on. I mean, of course, there's a lot of fantastic restaurants out there. I'm not saying don't support your local restaurant. I used to have one. But still, it's important to focus on what can I do in my kitchen? That's what this is about, right?

Kevin: Exactly, because that's where you eat most of your meals.

Michelle: It's where you should, especially in these rising food prices, right? Exactly. Go to the restaurant, support your local restaurants for sure, especially the mom and pops.

Kevin: But it's like Cookie Monster says, it's a special treat. It's not an everyday treat.

Michelle: Right on.

Kevin: And I was going to do my Cookie Monster voice, but I decided not to because that would just have taken it too far over the edge. Okay.

Michelle: Well, do you have a joke for me today?

Kevin: I have two jokes for you today. Oh, no. Just because. So first, what do you call a cow in an earthquake? I don't know. A milkshake.

Michelle: Oh, no. That could turn into butter really quick.

Kevin: That's true. Butter and skim milk. Okay. And then this. Ew. Okay. Stop it. Okay. Second joke. What happens to an illegally parked frog?

Michelle: I've never really thought about a frog is parking, but no, you have my attention.

Kevin: He gets towed.

Michelle: Oh, no.

Kevin: Oh, bum, bum, bum. Actually, that one's cute. That's cute. I think of Kermit the Frog when I... Okay. Well, thank you, Michelle. And if our listeners have any questions, they can get in touch with us at n4noobs at gmail.com. Or on either Facebook or Instagram now at Nutrition for Noobs. And until next time, eat your greens. And be real, everyone.

Michelle: Just eat the food. And practice food joy. Food joy.

Kevin: Food joy. I'm telling you.

Michelle: I like that. I'm telling you, we should almost change the name of our podcast.

Kevin: Practice food joy. Practice safe food. Yeah, that's what this one could be called. This has been Nutrition for Noobs. 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 at gmail.com. That's the letter N, the number 4, N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favourite platform might be. Also, please consider leaving a review or telling your friends. That's the best way to spread the word. We'll see you next time with another interesting topic. The views and opinions expressed on Nutrition for Noobs are those of the hosts. It is not intended to be a substitute for medical, nutritional or health advice. Listeners should seek a personal consultation with a qualified practitioner if they have any concerns or before commencing any actions mentioned in the podcast.