Anna Heinauer | Photograph by Adam Williams
Overview: Anna Heinauer is an integrative nutrition health coach and she’s co-owner of The Lettucehead Food Company. Host Adam Williams talks with Anna about many things nutrition. Like, what is it, really? And why should we care about it?
They talk about the value of local food sources and the costs of short- versus long-term nutritional choices. They also talk about why the food pyramid chart that so many of us grew up with is bogus and what nutritional guidance has replaced that pyramid.
Adam also gets Anna’s insights on some “tricky foods,” and asks about the impact of genetics and bio-individuality on one’s health. Among other nutritious things.
SHOW NOTES, LINKS, CREDITS & TRANSCRIPT
The We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast is a collaboration with Chaffee County Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority, and is supported by the Colorado Public Health & Environment: Office of Health Disparities.
Along with being distributed on podcast listening platforms (e.g. Spotify, Apple), Looking Upstream is broadcast weekly at 1 p.m. on Tuesdays, on KHEN 106.9 community radio in Salida, Colo., and can be listened to on-demand via khen.org.
Anna Heinauer & The Lettucehead Food Company
Website: thelettucehead.com
Instagram: instagram.com/thelettuceheadfoodcompany
Facebook: facebook.com/TheLettuceheadFoodCompany
We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream
Website: wearechaffeepod.com
Instagram: instagram.com/wearechaffeepod
CREDITS
Looking Upstream Host, Producer, Photographer & Website Manager: Adam Williams
Looking Upstream Engineer & Producer: Jon Pray
We Are Chaffee Community Advocacy Coordinator: Lisa Martin
Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment: Andrea Carlstrom
TRANSCRIPT
Note: Transcripts are produced using a transcription service. Although it is largely accurate, minor errors inevitably exist.
[Intro music, guitar instrumental]
Adam Williams (00:15): Welcome to We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream, a conversational podcast of community, humanness and well-being, rooted in Chaffee County, Colorado. I’m Adam Williams and today I’m talking with Anna Heinauer. Anna is an integrative nutrition health coach and she’s co-owner of The Lettucehead Food Company, along with her husband, Adam Heinauer.
Anna and I get into many things, nutrition here, like what is it really? And why should we care about it? And why should we prioritize buying local produce? We talk about why the Food Pyramid chart that so many of us grew up with is bogus and what nutritional guidance has replaced that pyramid. Actually quite a while ago, as it turns out. It seems that I was a bit out of the loop.
We also talk about some keys to dietary discipline and success over time and the real costs of our nutritional choices short versus long-term. And I ask about some tricky foods, foods that seem like they’re healthy choices, but might not always be quite what we think they are.
(01:16): I also ask about why when I stop running and being ultra active I gain lots and lots of weight, while someone else in my family can subsist on cheeseburgers and no veggies and no exercise and never not be thin. Which is to say, Anna sheds some light on the role of genetics and bio-individuality in our health journeys besides the nutritional choices we make, food and otherwise.
I also learned about the icon who inspired Anna to write her children’s book, “Alice and the Garden,” which got some extra shine from a Hollywood celebrity, by the way, and her famous holiday gift guide a few years back. I did not see that coming. And it’s a reminder that it’s amazing the things that pop up when we get into conversation with people.
(02:03): Speaking of reminders, Looking Upstream is bumping up to weekly episodes starting in September and I’m pretty excited about that. And I think it’s a really cool signal of growth and engagement with you and the community at large and this podcast, so thank you for that. The Looking Upstream podcast is supported by Chaffee County Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority.
Show notes with links and a full transcript of this and all Looking Upstream conversations are available online as always, but now at a new website, wearechaffeepod.com. That is the same as the podcast’s Instagram handle, @wearechaffeepod.
So the new website is wearechaffeepod.com. And all episodes, the full archive of 50 plus conversations that I’ve had so far with guests on this show, they’re all published there. There’s also a new monthly Looking Upstream email newsletter that you can subscribe to from the new website.
Now, here is Anna Heinauer.
[Transition music, guitar instrumental]
Adam Williams: Okay, let’s talk about nutrition.
Anna Heinauer (03:18): All right.
Adam Williams (03:18): I feel like this has been a big part of your life, as an integrative nutrition health coach, as co-owner with your husband, Adam Heinauer, of the Lettucehead Food Company. And I want to learn more about your background on that before we launch into some of the expertise and things that you have to share with us today. So what first drew your interest to nutrition, well-being, health, food?
Anna Heinauer (03:43): Yeah. Yeah, I mean to say I’ve always been a big fan of food in general, but my background is in healthcare consulting. So before we kind of took the leap into small business and moved to Buena Vista, I worked with hospitals as a consultant to help them analyze their patient outcomes, so mostly around public health and population health initiatives.
So that being, diabetes management, understanding heart failure readmissions, just really understanding how we can help keep patients out of the hospital. And it just really became very apparent in my work with hospitals that nutrition was rarely a part of the conversation.
(04:30): So preventative wellness just doesn’t seem to be a big foundation when it comes to our Western medicine culture. And it was just always shocking to me to be sitting around talking about chronic conditions and the people that we would be meeting with, the nurses, the doctors, they’d be drinking Big Gulps and eating Chick-fil-A, and it just seemed like such a disconnect that it was just kind of mind blowing that the kind of basic foundation of our health, food and nutrition wasn’t a part of the conversation.
So that being said, at some point during my career, I kind of went on the side and did an integrative nutrition certification, so was able to learn about so much that we do not learn in school and we do not learn in our day-to-day culture about what’s important in our diets and just how it actually affects not only our long-term health, but our health today and how we can actually just feel good and function well on a day-to-day basis.
Adam Williams (05:40): I’m curious what integrative means in the integrative nutrition piece of your story there. Because is it food and exercise and sleep and all those sorts of things? Or what all really is brought into that perspective?
Anna Heinauer (05:54): Yeah, no, you’re exactly on the right track. The program I went through Institute of Integrative Nutrition, they think of primary foods as actually not the food that we eat, but sleep and anything from your stress levels to your career, things that really fuel you as a human and understanding that you could have the cleanest diet in the world, you could exercise all day, but unless you’re really taking time for yourself, unless you are prioritizing all these other items like sleep and relationships, you need all that to really have optimal health.
And so it’s a more holistic approach where it’s not just counting calories or how much protein you’re getting in a meal, it’s understanding that food is the foundation in so many ways, but there’s so many other aspects that we need to be thinking about to optimize our health.
Adam Williams (06:52): That we don’t consider preventive care is amazing to me and it always has been. And I don’t understand why we don’t. And the idea that the people who are the leading experts in our lives, our primary doctors and those around them in the medical care profession that we’re not talking about nutrition and we’re not talking about preventive measures, it’s, well, and myself as an example, I only go to the doctor when I’m sick and I have to. And even then I might not.
Anna Heinauer (07:21): Right.
Adam Williams (07:22): And why is that our mentality? Have you learned anything about that or talked with others in the field about that or just given your own thoughts to why do we do this?
Anna Heinauer (07:32): Yeah, it definitely feels like it’s just kind of the culture that we find ourselves in. And I think of it as very much this culture and society of convenience and fast food. When I say fast food, I don’t just mean literal fast food, but that we think of our lives as so fast paced that all these other things seem extraneous where it’s like, “Oh, well I don’t have time to do a home cooked meal,” or it’s so much easier to just grab something or go through the drive-through or whatever it is.
And we live in a world where we are so fast paced that convenience feels like the number one priority sometimes rather than having a culture of connection and slow food and understanding that when we slow ourselves down and actually take time for ourselves all this other time opens up because you are able to prioritize yourself and feel good.
Adam Williams (08:30): Like I said, you and Adam co-own the Lettucehead Food Company. First of all, would you care to describe what that is? Because I could call it, oh, it’s a small grocery store, and I think it is that, but I think it’s more.
Anna Heinauer (08:43): Yeah, I know, I always struggle with it. I think we often call it a health food store, but it isn’t just a health food store. We definitely have all of your grocery needs, but for us, what’s really priority is organic produce, local produce, and really local in general is our priority. So we try to bring as many local producers, both farmers, ranchers, folks making all sorts of things, whether it’s food products or home goods, to lift up our community and really help people feel connected with what’s on their plate. So we source from a bunch of local farms.
Adam goes down every two weeks to the San Luis Valley to pick up from a ranch, Blue Range that they are regenerative, they’re Audubon certified, which means the birds get a great environment, which is super cool. They teach the next generation of ranchers. So it’s products that we feel good about selling and we hope that people feel good about buying. And for us, it’s a positive force in the food system is what I would hope.
Adam Williams (09:51): I’m curious what local means in terms of radius, because I think that I learned many years ago, oh, that doesn’t mean it just came from our neighborhood, there’s more perspective and maybe, like you just said, going down to the San Luis Valley, that’s what, up to a couple of hours?
Anna Heinauer (10:06): Yeah, yeah. It’s a five hour round trip for him. But I consider anything within the Colorado area, especially within the valley, local. And when I think about things grown in Buena Vista as almost like hyper local.
Adam Williams (10:18): Okay.
Anna Heinauer (10:19): And obviously I’m not sure if that’s the exact definition, I think it’s a little bit nuanced where you can have it as you need to use those terms. But there’s three local farms in Buena Vista that produce during the summer, Headwater Farms, Meadows Edge and Trout Creek, and they’re all within 15 minutes of the store.
They all follow organic growing practices, they’re all family locally owned, and it’s really cool to see that these farmers are just dropping off at our store. You might meet the farmer that grew your food when you’re buying greens at our store. So for me, local is supporting the community within our Colorado area.
Adam Williams (11:07): I think that’s a common way of looking at it, is that there is a radius, there is some distance that’s allowed and especially when you consider that otherwise what’s in our main grocery stores and things are coming from around the world, this is very local. It’s not thousands of miles away, it might be 100 or whatever it is.
You’ve shared with me there are two goals for the Lettucehead in terms of I would say education, maybe it’s outreach. The first one is to promote and support local agriculture and its importance to the community. So we’ve already started touching on that. And then second, to increase healthy food access for low-income populations that are in our community.
(11:44): If we take those one at a time, let’s start with the first one, we’re already kind of there with supporting local ag. I’m curious how you describe the importance of supporting local agriculture to someone who really just doesn’t know why they should care over, let’s say, what it costs to buy something at the store. Or maybe they just don’t know any other reason to care, they just want what they want and if it comes from Taiwan, so be it.
Anna Heinauer (12:06): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think there’s always been kind of this disconnect with what we eat. When you buy something packaged up, you don’t necessarily, especially when it comes to meat products and things like that, you’re not envisioning the process of where this animal is coming from and how it gets onto your plate. Same with if you’re buying a frozen meal, all the different aspects that go into the food that’s grown and all those different things.
So a big part of it is mindset shift, and for some people that might not feel super accessible or a priority today. But for me and for I think so many people appreciating and feeling connected to what’s on your plate, not only from a nutrition standpoint, it’s more nutrient dense. From a sustainability standpoint, you’re not traveling across the world or across the country with this food so it has a lower environmental impact. And especially living in a small community, understanding that you are directly supporting a family that grew this 10 minutes from your house.
(13:10): And when it comes to food prices, I know that grocery prices feel so large these days and you can feel the inflation on when you’re looking at your receipts, when you’re feeling how it affects your paycheck. But I would also argue that this is the most important part of your diet in terms of your health.
And so ideally, you’re spending more money on the preventative wellness so that you aren’t spending it down the road on pharmaceuticals or care that you need for chronic decisions because you didn’t prioritize your health and nutrition at this point. And everything is a matter of priority. When you go and get a cup of coffee, it’s crazy how much that costs now. And buying some local produce is going to be a lot cheaper than going out to dinner, than going and buying coffee or alcohol for yourself. So again, it’s just kind of finding what’s a priority for you and having that shift in mindset.
Adam Williams (14:09): The perspective on that makes a huge difference. It’s like you can go to a baseball game and you can pay, I don’t even know what it is now, if it’s $10 for a hot dog or maybe more, I don’t know.
Anna Heinauer (14:09): I know, it’s wild.
Adam Williams (14:19): Or you can go buy a pack of them at the store, for example. And it’s the same with every other food item. We can find a context where it feels more expensive, and then if we are just buying groceries… We’re going to get to something later I think that pertains to budget.
Because I come from a particular experience and frame of mind around how do we look at food, how do we look at budget? And I suspect a lot of others do. But before we get there, I do want to get to your second goal. What challenges or needs are you seeing for healthy food access right now for low-income populations within our community?
Anna Heinauer (14:54): Yeah, and this is something that I think as we’ve really navigated running a small business, it’s such a balance, right? Because we’re not a lucrative business. It’s not like we’re making high margins. We have high costs. It’s remarkable, our energy bill every month to run the X amount of freezers and coolers that we have in our space.
And so we’re always looking at how do we still keep our operation running, but also make food affordable for people? And I think especially for low-income populations, it’s always a challenge. And because with food insecurity, a lot of that comes with a lack of access to education, access to resources to really know what is available.
(15:42): So the EBT food stamps program in our area is awesome because if you are in EBT benefits, you can shop at our store, buy any groceries that you want to and be able to actually spend more for organic, local, et cetera, and use your EBT benefits to do so. And we have been trying to get the word out that we accept EBT a little bit more, just because I think there’s a lot of folks in our county that have EBT that aren’t aware that they can use it at small grocery stores, that they don’t have to go to a big chain and buy prepared foods with it. You can absolutely use it for locally grown produce and locally grown and raised meats and whatnot.
(16:27): And then the other piece is we’ve really found that having different price points. So, so much produce comes in and we’re kind of predisposition to really think about a perfect looking apple or a perfect looking cucumber or whatever it is. And the reality is, especially when it’s organically grown, things look imperfect, things get wrinkly, things get kind of brown, and that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. I take all that home and cook with it, but I don’t necessarily want people to pay full price for something that doesn’t look great, especially just because we are so used to wanting perfect produce.
And so we package imperfect produce and discount it, we do $1 bags, $3 bags, so to make things feel a little bit more accessible where most people don’t mind if they’re getting some wrinkly apples or whatever, especially if you’re cooking with something, it doesn’t matter exactly what it looks like. So we’re trying to find little ways to make some food more accessible and discounted that still is great food to have in your kitchen and to cook with.
Adam Williams (17:31): I want to ask about your integrative nutrition health coach experience a little bit here more. And I think I’d like to start with what might feel like a super basic question, but I like to create a baseline just in case, I don’t want to leave anybody behind. What is the purpose of nutrition?
Nutrition is meant as fuel for our bodies. It’s not just food. It’s not just a pastime. It’s not just a comfort. It’s not just something we have to put on our bodies, but it doesn’t matter what, right? These are the thoughts that are going through my head as I think about what nutrition is and maybe that actually there’s probably some people don’t really even understand what the word means and why we need to care at all about any of this.
Anna Heinauer (18:14): Yeah, absolutely. And you’re right, so food is information for our bodies. And so I think people really think about food and nutrition in terms of weight gain or how they look or sometimes how it makes you feel. But really at its core, food is telling our body what it should be doing in terms of how our cells grow, how our immune system responds to things, how cognitively we are able to respond and our memory. I
t affects every single thing in our body. And I think we think about calories and fats and proteins, but all of our food has vitamins and minerals and information that is telling our cells at a very, very granular level what it should be doing in terms of our energy, in terms of our sleep, in terms of our mental health. It’s just remarkable that it just is absolutely going to affect essentially any aspect of health that you might think about.
(19:16): And when I think about nutrition, I think the one thing I wish everyone thought about when they decided what they were eating is this idea of nutritional density. And so rather than thinking about caloric content, so you’re like, “Oh, it’s just 100 calorie snack pack of pretzels,” but what’s in the 100 calories of pretzels? It’s probably bleached flour, maybe a little corn syrup, nothing that’s going to fuel your body.
It’s not going to give your body information or energy. It’s just kind of there. And so there’s a lot of good visuals you can find online that it’s comparing 140 calories of a Twinkie to 140 calories of a pear. And well, a pear is just a pear. You can look at the ingredients list and it’s things you can recognize as just a pear, not chemicals and preservatives that you can’t pronounce. But it’s going to give you fiber, which is going to fill you up. It’s going to give you vitamins and minerals that are antioxidants to help support your immune system.
(20:23): So when you think about nutritional density, I always think about what is this food providing for me? Maybe it’s just a taste and you like the flavor and you’re going to eat something else later. But especially when I look at my 2-year-old who is running around and burning all this energy, it’s like, well, if I give him a source of protein, like a piece of jerky or meat stick or whatever that he’s obsessed with, that is actually going to provide him protein and fats and energy rather than if I give him pretzels, he’s just going to be hungry 10 minutes later because it didn’t actually provide him anything.
Adam Williams (20:58): Several months ago I started looking at what I was eating again. I mean I go through cycles with it over time, but I had been in a state of injury from running, cycling, things like that. I was not for a long time able to exercise in the way that I was used to. And I had grown accustomed to relying on a tremendous amount of calorie burn and then eat whatever I want. And when I wasn’t able to do that anymore, I put on more than 30 pounds over, I don’t know, less than a year at least. And so then I got to a point, which happens, that there seems to be a weight point where I’m feel disgusted with myself enough I’m going to change something.
(21:35): And I realized while I was injured and I couldn’t exercise the way I wanted, and I still can’t right now, the one thing I can do is start creating more discipline with what I’m eating. And that’s where I started comparing things like, “Well, this 100 calories of a particular food is not the same as 100 of this whole food, this healthier food.” And I noticed, I mean I’ve lost a good 12 to 14 pounds, depending on the day and when weighing, I’m simply from making that switch, even though I have not run my exercise level back up to where I would like it to be.
So I think that’s really key is that a lot of times when we think about calories, the first step I think is, well, if you want to lose weight, and I’m not suggesting that’s what this all needs to be about, but for me, that’s what it is, if I want to lose weight, well, I need to burn more than I take in. And then what I’m taking in has a tremendous impact.
Anna Heinauer (22:28): Yeah, yeah. And I think this diet culture that so many of us were raised with was around calories and calorie restrictions and this idea of 2000 calories a day. But no one was concerned with what those calories were coming from. And to your point around whole foods, regardless of if you’re vegan, if you prefer keto, it doesn’t matter as long as you’re actually thinking about incorporating foods that are nutrient dense, which typically means they’re not processed, it doesn’t have a giant ingredient list of things you don’t understand or can’t pronounce.
And obviously there’s a convenience factor to packaged foods and processed foods, but even if you’re in that phase of life or that really is a convenience that you need, reading the ingredients and understanding, okay, there’s an option with five ingredients or there’s an option with 15 ingredients, the one with five ingredients is probably going to be a lot more whole food based and something that’s going to probably provide you more nutritional value.
Adam Williams (23:30): When we use whole foods, let’s say cauliflower or broccoli, but then it’s how we treat it as, for example, not to out my wife if this ends up being a bad thing, but a way that she likes to prepare cauliflower is she’ll pour oil on it, she’ll bake it, or we’ll boil broccoli, which is a common way of doing it I think. Do we lose nutritional value when we take these whole foods, these vegetables in particular and cook them and do things to them that… I don’t know, is that a good way to go?
Anna Heinauer (24:03): Yeah, there’s not a straight answer because if you think about it, a lot of vegetables actually are better absorbed, like vitamin K and vitamin D and whatnot, and our leafy greens, once you add some fats to it, you actually absorb it better. But it depends on what type of fats you’re using. So if you’re using a more processed oil, like canola oil or vegetable oil-
Adam Williams (24:26): I’m going to say olive oil because that’s what my wife uses.
Anna Heinauer (24:29): Great. We love olive oil.
Adam Williams (24:30): Oh, she’s doing great then.
Anna Heinauer (24:31): Olive oil is awesome.
Adam Williams (24:31): I didn’t out her.
Anna Heinauer (24:31): Yeah, your wife’s doing great.
Adam Williams (24:32): I celebrated her.
Anna Heinauer (24:33): Exactly. Omega-3’s, so there’s really good fats in olive oil. I’ll out my son, he likes to just squirt olive oil in his mouth and I’m like, “Great, go for it.” It is a great healthy fat. And I think we got very scared of fats. I think it was kind of a ’90s, 2000s thing of the fat-free phase. Fats are good, they’re great for your brain health, but it really depends on what types of fat you’re using.
So we got into that margarine and vegetable oil and things like that, and those are not healthy fats. Obviously if they’re in your diet, I would recommend going small amounts, but olive oil is incredible. And actually if you’re making a leafy green salad, once you add that dressing, you’re going to better absorb the vitamins and minerals that are in the salad.
So when you do cook certain things, sometimes you are losing some of the nutritional value, but I wouldn’t say, “Go eat a raw diet because you’re going to roast some of the nutritional value of your cauliflower.” That just doesn’t sound fun. You should also enjoy your food. And so my thought is any way that you are willing to consume it is great.
Adam Williams (25:43): You mentioned diet, a raw diet, and so that makes me think of things that we might call as fads or things that have a label on the type of diet, as opposed to using the word diet simply meaning our dietary choices and what we put into our bodies. How do you feel about, this is totally going to be a generalization, broadly speaking then, the diets that have those names and fads and-
Anna Heinauer (26:09): Or the diet culture?
Adam Williams (26:09): Yeah.
Anna Heinauer (26:10): Yeah, the fad diets. I think people need to find what works for them. And in terms of when we think about nutrition health coaching, we are so much about meeting people where they are. And so some people are really motivated by those strict structures. I am personally not. And I think what we typically find as health coaches is that incremental change and small changes to your diet… Your diet, not your diet, right?
Adam Williams (26:42): Yeah, yeah.
Anna Heinauer (26:44): That is so much more approachable and so much more meaningful and more likely to stick than saying, “Okay, I’m going to go keto, I’m going to do a juice cleanse,: whatever it might be. And so for some people, that’s what they need to really give themselves that kickstart to make healthy changes. But I would say the likelihood of you sticking and changing your habits is more likely with incremental small change.
Because everybody is different. Everyone absorbs nutrients differently. Everyone has a different lifestyle, different priorities. So it’s really about meeting people where they are and saying, “Hey, maybe you don’t feel like you could home cook three meals a week. That’s fine. Let’s look at your breakfast. Could you just have some whole fat Greek yogurt with some nuts and seeds and berries? Done. You don’t have to cook anything.”
(27:40): And so it’s really just meeting people where they are. And I like this term of “crowding in” is something that we use in integrative nutrition, where the idea is that you’re crowding in the good stuff. So you’re making yourself a sandwich that layers of deli meat and cheese, and you’re like, “Yeah,” and you’re like, “Wait a minute, let’s put on some greens,” put on a big pile of leafy greens, get yourself some fiber, some antioxidants. And so how can you add in the little things that really provide a lot of nutrition?
Adam Williams (28:14): I like to talk about habits with my sons. I tell them that so much of human existence, our day-to-day lives seem to revolve around habits. Now that can be good habits or they can be bad. So what habits do we want to set up in our lives? And with food, this is a big one for all of us because it’s so much a part of every day of existence. How do you talk with people, to add on to what you already said here about let’s meet where you are, how do you talk with people who are struggling to stick to what it is?
And I wonder if you’ve noticed in your coaching patterns of behavior of when people are able to stick with it and keep it going and then have that momentum that they can carry on maybe beyond their interactions with you and people who are just like, “I just keep falling off the wagon here and I’m eating that bucket of ice cream.”
Anna Heinauer (29:03): Absolutely, yeah. And I think obviously the foundation of meeting people where they are is huge, but we really encourage our clients and for anyone to really set goals themselves. So I’m not going to tell you, “Hey, Adam, this is your goal for the week.” I would encourage you and help you kind of form your own goals, but at the end of the day, you know what is accessible and you know what is actually manageable in your lifestyle with your family, with your schedule.
And so once you have those incremental goals, we start super small, so if it’s three goals, like, “Hey, we’re going to meal prep one meal this week. We’re going to make sure we go to the farmer’s market and just check out the local produce one day this week.” Very small incremental goals that you can achieve.
(29:55): But I would say the one thing that really, I think, people struggle with is this idea of not achieving perfection right away. It’s like, “So what you ate the ice cream? I don’t care. Good for you. I am sure it tasted great.” And I think people think that once they kind of fall off the wagon, they can’t come back on. And again, it comes back to the idea of crowding in, it’s like, I don’t want you to restrict yourself.
I’m more worried about you putting in the good nutritional nutrient dense foods that make you feel good, and then that other stuff is going to happen more naturally. And the other piece that I think is really accessible for anyone is that even before you have to change any of your behaviors, just understand what you are consuming. So you’re buying packaged foods, read the ingredient list. Have you ever read it before? Google what you don’t know. It’s remarkable what is put in some of this processed food.
(30:50): One thing that I think is really helpful to look at, which I was looking at my coconut water as I came in, it has 14 grams of sugar in it. And so there’s four grams of sugar equals one teaspoon. So that’s almost four teaspoons of sugar just in my coconut water. And if I visualize that, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I wouldn’t eat four teaspoons of sugar,” right? So I think there’s just an awareness aspect that even before changing any behavior, just knowing what you’re eating and being a little bit more mindful can go a long way.
Adam Williams (31:24): You just reminded me that when I was a kid, I loved to go to our local bank where I grew up because they would have coffee out and they would have boxes with the cubed–
Anna Heinauer (31:32): Yeah, the sugar cubes.
Adam Williams (31:33): The cubes of sugar. And I loved that. It was the only place in the world that I ever got it.
Anna Heinauer (31:38): My cousin’s house had them. I would just go to the cabinet and eat the sugar cubes, yeah.
Adam Williams (31:42): We bought those not long ago for a visit from some family. And I thought of that and I couldn’t take one, because now I’m in a different mindset and my body responds differently to it all. And so I couldn’t just start eating it, even though from a nostalgic place, I’m like I want to start just chucking these things in.
(32:00): Let’s talk about costs a bit more because there are different kinds of costs, which we’ve already hinted at. But of course we have the price of things at the checkout counter. We also have the cost of healthcare, which you mentioned earlier that if we don’t take care of ourselves in a preventive way, something is going to come down the line. Now I am no expert on what all those possibilities might be.
For example, I think heart disease is one that can be connected to if we’re eating too much of, I’m going to say, red meat. I don’t know what’s connected potentially to cancers, to other things, maybe to mental health. Can you enlighten me a little bit on what we think the costs might be? I don’t even know if that’s something that research can very clearly nail down. But how do you persuade people that choosing to invest a little bit more right now in the cost at the cash register is going to help you against the cost of your healthcare down the line?
Anna Heinauer (32:56): Yeah, and I agree. In looking at studies, I don’t think they’re able to really quantify probably a financial impact. But in terms of chronic disease, absolutely. Even the USDA has done studies around if you don’t have access to whole, nutritious foods, your rates of chronic disease are going to be higher. So when we think about chronic disease, that being heart disease, like you mentioned, diabetes, chronic diseases are things that are lifestyle diseases for the most part. So when you think about your diet, we think about inflammation.
So inflammatory foods could be sources of red meat, for some part, with everything you want to have moderation. Not to say all red meat is bad. But everything should be kind of moderated and diversified within your diet. But inflammatory foods are really sugars, refined grains, refined sugars. So basically the more processed foods, the more chemicals, those types of things are really what affects both your immune system as well as your gut health where your immune system is 70%… Or your gut is mostly your immune system.
(34:11): So there’s so much interconnection, and how you incorporate whole foods into your diet can absolutely help you prevent lifestyle diseases. Obviously there’s other factors, genetics, exercise, your environmental toxins, exposure, there’s so many other elements, but the beauty is food is one of those few things that you can control, unlike your genetics. And once you think about your healthcare costs and whatnot, the cost of your food feels kind of small because you know what’s really expensive? Healthcare.
And we talked a little bit about eating out, and even just like frozen meals and prepared foods are a lot more expensive because a lot more work has gone into creating them than taking whole foods home and cooking them. So it’s definitely for those folks that home cooking doesn’t feel that accessible or reachable right now, being able to make your own foods from straight whole foods is infinitely less expensive than buying a bunch of prepared foods.
Adam Williams (35:14): You mentioned genetics, and I had talked about earlier how I put on 30 plus pounds in I think a short time because of my habits were out of whack with I was totally basing it on exercise, “But who cares what I eat? I’m burning so many calories, I can afford to eat whatever I want and whatever calories I want.”
But I know from people in my family, I could very easily, if I was not trying to be as conscientious right now with food, and also if I was not so active for my whole life, I could easily throw on another 50, 75, 100 pounds. And then there are other family members non-genetically linked who I see eat all of that. And only that. There aren’t fruits and vegetables going in there and there’s not exercise and they stay thin.
(36:01): And we have this perception in our society, our culture, if you’re thin, you must be, quote, “fit,” you’re healthy. And if you are not as thin, well then you must not be healthy. I feel like there’s something there to dispel. I don’t think those are the true stories. So can you speak to that and maybe the role of genetics and for anybody out there who might be in my boat? Or maybe, on that other side, what happens when you’re eating so unhealthily but because you’re on the thinner side due to genetics, you’re thinking, “Hey, I’m good”?
Anna Heinauer (36:36): Absolutely. And it is infuriating, right? Those people that have the fastest metabolisms and eat whatever they want. Genetics does play a huge role in terms of our metabolism, but there is just this idea of individuality. So even people in your family, even though you might have the same genetics, you just might individually process foods completely different than your brother or your sister or your parents or whoever. And so when you think about how to approach your own health and wellness, I definitely encourage you to just look at yourself because it is going to be completely different.
(37:10): Even when we think about on a cellular level how you absorb magnesium or vitamin D or some of these really important essential minerals and vitamins, you might need more vitamin D than your brother or whoever. So all this is so granular. And so for those people that have a really fast metabolism and can assumingly eat whatever they want without putting on weight gain, I would still encourage them to go get their labs tested.
So that would be going to get a comprehensive lab panel where you actually can see your levels and see how they compare for optimum levels of your vitamin B, your vitamin D, your magnesium, some of those important factors. Because maybe right now you feel great, it doesn’t matter, but in the long run, those are the types of things that can cause inflammation in the body, that can cause chronic disease, chronic fatigue, mental health issues.
(38:06): If you aren’t really eating any sources of magnesium and you’re not supplementing in any way, you might have really bad chronic fatigue or depression or there’s so many other factors besides weight within there. And I think obviously we are so stuck on weight in so many ways, but I encourage people to think about, again, what are you putting in your body?
And labs are a really nice way to actually check and have some concrete evidence to say, “Oh, wow, I really am low in B,” or, “Wow, I really do need to make sure I’m getting more omega-3’s fats to help with my brain health. I’m having memory loss or just brain fog,” things like that. So there’s so many other just health factors that you might be feeling that you don’t realize are tied to your diet.
Adam Williams (38:57): The individualization of everything, which I’m coming more and more to recognize as the case, is also frustrating. I think it’s freeing in a way because it means I don’t have to feel like if I’m not adhering to this or that information or I can’t sort it out, actually is more of the issue probably, right?
With the internet, you can access everything, and that means you can also access the 180 degree view of that thing even when it comes to our health or medical advice. And so that can be really confusing to have everything be so individualized and as an individual out in the world and you’re just online and you’re trying to figure out, “What do I do for me?” Or even if you go to a doctor, “Are they giving me information that is so particular to me?”
(39:38): The labs you’re talking about I get are very specific, but generic advice versus, “What do I need to learn through experience with myself? What does exercise do for me? What do my food choices do for me?” For myself at least I’m coming to this position that life is more of an experiment. And a long-term one at that, than I ever realized. When as a kid, you’re just given a bunch of answers and you trust them. And we come into adulthood thinking that too, I think.
Anna Heinauer (40:05): Oh, absolutely. I mean, it is just remarkable. And I think just recognizing that so many things are out of our control. You could have a perfect diet, perfect exercise, and still have cancer. No one has all the answers. Doctors don’t have the answers. We don’t have the answers.
So it’s using intuition, being mindful about what’s going in your body and at the end of the day, what makes you feel good. Food is such a source of joy for me. It’s how I express love to my family. It’s how I feel connected with my community. My friends and I have a cookbook club where we all pick out a recipe and we all come together as a group. And it’s just such an incredible way of connection that it doesn’t just need to be protein and fats and minerals. It’s a beautiful, beautiful way to feel connected.
Adam Williams (40:57): It’s not either/or. Either I’m hyper-disciplined and I’m never going to have that grain of sugar or I get to enjoy life.
Anna Heinauer (41:04): Right? And I love ice cream. Ice cream is great. I don’t want anyone to stop eating ice cream. I just want you to get in some good stuff too.
Adam Williams (41:11): I think that’s been really big for me in the last few years along with much more attention to how and what I eat is, it is okay that I have that slice of pizza. It is okay that I have the ice cream, I have cake for my birthday and whenever. The moderation thing I think is huge. And so that’s probably almost a mantra for me is I’m going to do better over the long term if I am not being so severe with myself right now that all I can think about is, “I can’t have this, I can’t have this, I can’t have this,” for whatever reason. What does that mean if I have it? “Oh, I’m actually okay. I still get to be human and enjoy things.”
Anna Heinauer (41:47): Right. And I think if you do eat whatever it is, the secret special treat that really you’re craving, how does it make you feel afterward? And just paying attention to how foods make you feel. But not beating yourself up because that doesn’t solve anything. It’s not going to get you to a better place. I like the idea of incorporating the good stuff and then just feeling okay with exactly where you are.
Adam Williams (42:14): Let’s talk about the Food Pyramid. You told me the other day that the Food Pyramid is bogus. And I’m going to say that I felt like a piece of my childhood was ripped out from under me.
Anna Heinauer (42:14): I know.
Adam Williams (42:26): And it’s not because it was something I held dear. I didn’t have a poster of the food chart on my wall-
Anna Heinauer (42:31): But you can visualize it, right? The loaves of bread in the bottom and the big bowl of pasta?
Adam Williams (42:36): Yeah, it’s what we were taught. And because of that, what I did was a quick Google search on it to be like, how long has this thing been around? Because to me, it had been around my whole life. Now, in actuality, I guess based on my research, it was developed in Sweden in the ’70s. And as far as the US government, it was ’92 to 2011.
In my mind, until you told me just the other day, this thing was still thriving and it had been around since the beginning of time. It turns out it was only a few decade long thing. And as far as the US government officially endorsing, it wasn’t even 20 years. So I feel like I’m out of the loop on that. It feels weird to care. But you said it’s been replaced by MyPlate and I know nothing of that.
Anna Heinauer (43:23):
Yeah, it definitely makes a lot more sense. So essentially the USDA came out with a much more helpful visualization. So the Food Pyramid, I mean, you can go down deep rabbit holes and see how the dairy and the meat industry affected the Food Pyramid and whatnot, but at the end of the day, it’s not approachable. You don’t eat in a pyramid. Your meals are on a plate. And so they’re like, “Hey, let’s actually create something that would help you plan your meal.” And so the MyPlate, I think it’s four sections, and it’s essentially trying to visualize for you to say, “Hey, you should have a diversity of food on your plate, mostly plants, fruits and vegetables, some whole grains, dairy if you’re not lactose intolerant.”
(44:09): And it’s really to encourage diversity of food. And that is a huge thing is that I would love everyone to eat fruits and vegetables. I would even love it even more if people ate a variety of fruits and vegetables. So if you weren’t just eating broccoli and apples, right? Because nectarines and peaches and grapes and mangoes, they all are going to have slightly different antioxidants in them and vitamins and minerals. So the more variety you can put on your plate, the more variety of nutrients you’re providing for your body.
(44:44): And so the MyPlate definitely is a nice way to think about your meals. And I think when we talk about red meat consumption, for example, I think so many of us visualize this eight ounce big steak on our plate, and it’s like maybe like three ounces or four, something pretty approachable that you still can have your meat, but just make sure you’re eating other stuff too.
So then MyPlate is a lot more ambiguous and room for interpretation than the Food Pyramid, but it should be. Because you might have a bunch of allergies and you can’t have gluten or you can’t have dairy, or you’re a vegan and you don’t eat meat. So it just makes it a little bit easier to be like, “Hey, you should have some protein, some vegetables, some sources of fiber, some sources of fat, great.” And call it a day.
Adam Williams (45:29): I’ll admit that if I was going to only have three ounces of steak, I would rather go without.
Anna Heinauer (45:30): It’s not enough.
Adam Williams (45:34): Yeah, it’s like I’m either going to have the steak or I’m not. And I know that that’s just a matter of discipline and saying, “Oh, I need this balanced plate.” But for me, that’s where my mind went was like, “I’m going to skip it.”
Anna Heinauer (45:46): Yeah, yeah. Well, and if you are going to eat a giant piece of meat, cool, see if you can balance it with some other things. I think when it comes to carbohydrates, similar to fats, people kind of got scared of carbs. And similar to fats, not all carbs are created equal. So it’s how can you incorporate more whole grains into your diet? And that is a great source of carbs. It is a great source of fiber.
And so I think it’s not being scared of just foundational food groups and just knowing that there is so much nuance in what a food group is and that when you think about bread, don’t eat the White Wonder Bread we grew up on, have some sourdough. It’s going to give you not only the good carbohydrates and fiber that you want, but it’s also going to give you good bacteria for your gut health and things like that. So everything is nuanced, right?
Adam Williams (46:43): Yeah, it is. I want to ask you about tricky foods, and by that what I mean is foods that we might think are healthy. It’s like if you go to McDonald’s and you think, “Okay, I’m going to get this salad versus the Big Mac,” relatively, maybe it is. But I think that’s one of those cases that there’s a lot more calories going on in here because of whatever they put in it. And maybe that’s not the best example. I’ve not gotten a salad at McDonald’s. But just as an example of something, I mean.
(47:07): Or here’s another one. I was raised with iceberg lettuce, but at some point found out it has no nutritional value, at least what’s said. But then I’m thinking, “Well, farmers still farm it. It still is sold. It still is consumed, so why do we eat it?” And I’m going to give you another one that’s totally disconnected from those.
If I want yogurt as an option versus something else that might seem relatively healthy, yet if I look at the sugar content for the flavoring and whatever fruit sugar stuff that gets added in, well, maybe that’s not as healthy as if I choose another option. So from that smattering of ideas I just gave you, the idea of tricky foods and things that we might think are healthy when really not quite what we think they are.
Anna Heinauer (47:54): Sure. And they, all three of those have slightly different answers. So with yogurt, dairy is interesting. Again, it comes back to that fat-free fad that we had, that we got scared of fats. And what you should be looking for when you’re buying yogurt is full fat, so not 2%, not skim, full fat yogurt. And once you add in all those flavors, what’s going to really add to the sugar and then processing. So if you can get as straight to the source as possible, full fat yogurt, just plain kefir’s great, you have probiotics in both, so it’s going to help your gut health as well.
(48:37): But like anything, everything’s about diversity and variety and moderation. I don’t think anyone should be eating yogurt three times a day for every meal. It’s still, even if you do have the full fat plain yogurt, it does have a decent amount of sugar in it and whatnot. And incorporating other breakfast foods or snack foods or whatever it is into your diet is definitely encouraged so that you do have a bit more variety of what’s coming into your diet. But when it comes to yogurt, I would certainly look for the plainest real whole food source of yogurt.
(49:14): Iceberg lettuce is interesting in that I wouldn’t dissuade people from eating it, especially so Headwater Farms, our friends, they grow incredible iceberg lettuce. It is so good. And a lot of what we’re getting from big farms and that are not only is the soil not as nutrient dense as those that are growing organically and really fueling regenerative farming and folks that are really being mindful about the mineral and what not content of the soil, but iceberg is largely water, so it’s still going to provide you fiber.
It’s still going to provide you some vitamins and minerals, but I wouldn’t choose iceberg lettuce for every salad that I’m making or use that as my green. So if we’re having iceberg lettuce, then I would also try to incorporate romaine another day or a leafy salad green or whatnot. So I wouldn’t tell anyone to not eat iceberg lettuce. I would just say, “Don’t just have that as your only vegetable.”
Adam Williams (50:14): Is corn another one?
Anna Heinauer (50:15): Corn, it’s funny, we had this debate the other night when we were making dinner and Adams like, “Well, let’s have some corn and then a potato.” And I was like, “No, corn’s a starch. It doesn’t count as a veggie in my mind.” So it is technically a vegetable, right? It’s a plant. We eat corn, it’s great. But it’s much more starchy. So I put it more in the potato category where if I’m planning a meal, I still want some sort of leafy green, either a leafy green or cruciferous vegetable like broccoli or cauliflower or something, because corn is more starchy, like a root vegetable, like a potato.
(50:53): And I think corn is also one of those things we got kind of scared of because it is very much used in processed foods. It’s used to feed a lot of livestock and things like that. So corn’s definitely gotten a bad name. But if you’re eating a whole food source of like it’s corn season, go put some corn on the grill, my hot tip is to put miso butter on it, do a little 50-50 of miso and butter on your corn, so good.
But corn, I wouldn’t put it in the highest tier of nutrient-dense vegetables. And then your McDonald’s salad question, I always think that’s so funny that why would you go to McDonald’s for a salad? That one I would come to more of the ingredient list. What are they putting in there? It’s probably a lot of processed. In there, I bet their dressing has a lot of sugar. It probably has an unhealthy fat of some sort-
Adam Williams (51:42): I’m thinking things maybe that have, and maybe it’s unfair to put this on McDonald’s, but whoever in this way, even if you go to any other restaurant, you’re like, “I’m going to choose a salad over a steak or a burger,” or whatever, but it has the cheese and it has whatever meat on it and things like that where you end up with a thousand and something calorie salad, are we actually getting the healthy option we think we are, that we’re telling ourselves we are?
Anna Heinauer (52:05): Yeah, yeah. Well, again, I would argue where are those calories coming from? So I wouldn’t worry about how many calories something is, but more so what the actual ingredients are. So if it is a blue cheese dressing with a bunch of unhealthy fats and whatnot but you are still getting the vegetables that maybe you wouldn’t get on your meat and potatoes plate. So yeah, it’s not a straight answer, but I always encourage actually look at the ingredients rather than the caloric content.
Adam Williams (52:35): I’m going to ask you one last thing, and that is that I think you’ve written a children’s book related to nutrition, is that right?
Anna Heinauer (52:41): I did. I did. Yeah. So I don’t know if you’re, are you familiar with Alice Waters?
Adam Williams (52:46): Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Heinauer (52:47): So she is my icon, but she really started the slow food movement in the US back in the ’70s. She opened up a farm to table restaurant in Berkeley, and then she started doing these edible schoolyards and really trying to help people feel connected with their local farms to what’s on their plate, and really move from that style of convenience to a slow food movement. And a lot of that was around helping children and adults see where their food coming from.
(53:25): And so after seeing just how children are very picky eaters in general, but just they’re eating a lot of processed foods, they’re eating a lot of just plain carby chicken nuggets and mac and cheese and pretzels and graham crackers and whatnot, and this is actually before I had any children, but I was just thinking about how do you kind of reach that younger generation and help them feel connected to cooking, to eating things that are coming from the ground?
And so it’s called Alice and the Garden, named after Alice Waters, and it’s about a little girl who doesn’t want to eat her vegetables and so her family sends her over to her next door neighbor who has these beautiful gardens to learn about how to grow vegetables, what it takes, the effort that goes into growing vegetables, and then ultimately she eats some veggies out of the garden. So really big ending, to spoil it for people.
Adam Williams (54:28): Is that book available at the Lettucehead?
Anna Heinauer (54:30): It is. It is. Yeah. My dog is also in it, Ash. So if you really need some extra motivation to see our dog in illustration form. And it definitely was a fun project. It was my only kind of fun claim to fame. It was on Gwyneth Paltrow’s… Her wellness site, Goop has a holiday gift guide every year, and it was on their holiday gift guide in 2020.
Adam Williams (54:55): Wow.
Anna Heinauer (54:56): So it was kind of cool.
Adam Williams (54:57): That’s a big deal, isn’t it?
Anna Heinauer (54:58): It felt cool at the time. I kind of forgot about it until we’re talking about it now. But it was cool. It was cool.
Adam Williams (55:04): Well, thank you for talking with me, Anna. This has been great. And so much learning and food for thought, no pun intended, I guess, to dive in and learn more on my own and for the listeners as well. So thank you.
Anna Heinauer (55:16): Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was great.
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Adam Williams (55:31): Thanks for listening to, We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast. I hope that our conversation here today sparked curiosity for you. And if so, you can learn more in this episode’s show notes at wearechaffeepod.com.
If you have comments or know someone in Chaffee County, Colorado who I should consider talking with on the podcast, you can email me directly at adam@wearechaffeepod.com.
I also invite you to rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever platform you use that has that functionality. I also welcome your telling others about the Looking Upstream podcast. Help us to keep growing community and connection through conversation.
(56:08): Once again, I’m Adam Williams, host, producer and photographer. Jon Pray is engineer and producer. Thank you to KHEN 106.9 FM, our community radio partner in Salida, Colorado. And to Andrea Carlstrom, director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment, and to Lisa Martin, community advocacy Coordinator for the We Are Chaffee Storytelling Initiative.
The Looking Upstream podcast is a collaboration with the Chaffee County Department of Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority, and it’s supported by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Office of Health Equity. You can learn more about the Looking Upstream podcast at wearechaffeepod.com and on Instagram @wearechaffeepod.
You also can learn more about the overall We Are Chaffee Storytelling Initiative at wearechaffee.org. Until the next episode, as we say it, We Are Chaffee, share stories, make change.
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