Julie (00:00.541)
Okay.
Kim (00:00.942)
That's life, that's life. All right, welcome to this week's episode. I am joined by Julie Daniluk. Julie, I have followed you for many, many years. I'm a big fan of your work and really excited and honored to have you here on the podcast to share all the knowledge that you have with regards to food and nutrition and wellness and longevity, which we were just talking about offline. So welcome, thank you so much for being here.
Julie (00:13.08)
My goodness.
Julie (00:24.908)
Thank you. Kim, I'm super stoked because I know you've built the most amazing sandbox for us all to play in and I'm just honored to be on your podcast because I know we're going to reach some people who just are super switched on and there's so many people out there who have just so much great creativity to share with the world and if we can see our health as the vehicle in order to share your best self.
That's why I'm so stoked that we're doing this today. Thank you.
Kim (00:59.134)
I love that, I love it. So maybe can you start out by telling us what brought you to the world of nutrition? Why do you share this continued with so much passion?
Julie (01:10.324)
Well, I actually will go back to when I was seven because I was having profound ADHD. At the time it was just called hyperactivity. It was the 70s. And I couldn't sleep through the night. I was hysterical. I was doing horrendous in school, straight Ds. And my parents were really scared for me. And the teachers were really advocating Ritalin. And my mother instead found the work of Dr. Feingold and put me on the very first version.
of an ADHD menu and I cannot believe how it changed my life. Within two weeks I could sleep through the night. Within two, three weeks my grades started to improve and by the following year I was a straight A student. Completely changed. The tears dried up, the extreme tantrums were gone and I was able to totally love up life. And what's interesting is to this day, as long as I stay off my personal trigger foods, my ADHD is in check.
my moods are better. And the big thing that people don't realize is how the self-effacing, unbelievable kick to your self-esteem that these food triggers can really cause. I just wish everyone who's dealing with depression, anxiety, any sort of life change where they're feeling really poorly, if we could give them an anti-inflammatory menu to truly help the neuroinflammation go down.
what would be possible for them? So that's what got me passionate. I actually was studying acting in my schooling and I realized I was reading more nutrition books than Shakespeare and that I was in the wrong job. So I changed from theater school, actually over to nutrition school and became a nutritionist and never looked back. Yeah.
Kim (02:50.853)
I'm sorry.
Kim (03:00.642)
That's amazing, I love that. So as you're speaking and thinking about being post-menopause, having aging parents, seeing my brother-in-law's parents aging and having Alzheimer's, all the conversation around the brain. So my head, no pun intended, is going there with regards to the inflammation. So you mentioned trigger foods, and is that something that you being well-versed in nutrition, you were...
I would assume maybe you've gone through various different types of diets and elimination protocols and figured out your trigger foods, but are there a list of maybe common trigger foods that people could look out for that could be contributing to this inflammation or inflammation as people like to say it now? And how would they best then determine what their personal trigger foods would be?
Julie (03:53.356)
Yeah, there's really a list of foods that are pretty much profoundly inflammatory to everyone. I'm going to pick on fried foods first, because there's a brand new study out that if you eat a lot of deep fried foods, you just have more anxiety, like you're just the status quo of your anxiety goes up. It really impacts your microbiome eating that many highly refined omega six seed oils. But there's also this really trippy thing that happens that people don't really realize
potato chip for example a slice of potato okay and you drop it into frying oil at high temperatures you create this toxin called acrylamide which is incredibly inflammatory and then you also have the damaging omega-6 fats that are now oxidizing which is giving you an oil change on a cellular level every cell of your body is made of a phospholipid layer and that is what's
Julie (04:53.25)
are actually filling up the spaces on those cells, creating that inflammation. And then you have obviously, for a lot of people, they're actually sensitive to what's in a potato. So potatoes seem to be very high in anti-nutrients. So we have high oxalate food, we have a high lectin food, and then we have a solanine rich food, which is an alkaloid that one in 10 people are very inflamed by. So definitely not a big fan,
love their potato chips and they really have a hard time giving them up. So I'm always like could we move to the healthiest oils as a first step? Like whenever I talk to a client it's sort of like good, better, best. So the good thing to do is to move away from those really negative seed oils. The second thing to do is could we move to dehydrated crispy salty snacks so that you're like oh I love this but it's not deep-fried at all and then could we as an ultimate thing
go to a lower carb food that doesn't have the anti nutrients so like I now reach for say flax crackers that are super salty like I promise you my recipes pretty tasty and I won't say identical to chips but has that same like crunch and deep satisfaction with a dip so that's how we move up the chain of health is we just take you where we are and go up one level so that you're not
Julie (06:23.211)
super enthusiastic about this topic.
Kim (06:27.151)
I know I go off on tangents when I get passionate too, so I'm following you. But so we're so the highly processed food. So that was going to be kind of number one in your list of five that you were going to pick on that are common triggers. So what would your what would your next one be?
Julie (06:29.674)
Yeah.
Julie (06:39.783)
Yes, absolutely.
So we've got our deep fried foods, and then moving on to foods that you're personally allergic to, can be very inflammatory. So that triggers a histamine response in the gut lining. And that's where we're gonna have a lot of the redness, the heat, the swelling happening for people, and also the brain fog, the anxiety, that can all come up when we're having an allergic reaction, because those histamines also trigger quite a response of adrenaline. So what's funny is that we often
become addicted to the very foods that we're allergic to because of the automatic feeling we get when we eat them. So people will lean into allergic foods like have you noticed if you've ever done any food analysis of what you're allergic to, what will flag in your blood work is the very foods that you're like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna give that up? How am I gonna give that up?
There's actually case of more phones for people who are addicted to cheese, for example, cheese can be a big trigger for some people. And there's actually these case of more phones, which is triggering the opiate receptors in your brain and having you want it more and more and more even if you're terribly allergic to dairy, because the issue with dairy is that 75% of people in certain genetic carotid
For example, Asian people, black people, often will have a predisposition to lactose intolerance. You're just not able to break the lactose apart. And if it's left there to create disharmony in the gut lining, that's when we often end up with a greater level of inflammation. So.
Julie (08:26.048)
Food you're alerted to, big one. Dairy being a big one. Now I'm gonna pick on gluten because gluten unfortunately is a huge issue. About one in 10 people are self-proclaimed as trying to reduce gluten out of their life because it's causing the bloating, the gas, the thyroid imbalances, because unfortunately, if you do have autoimmune thyroid issues, the gluten is gonna just hammer your thyroid.
So yeah, I really try to provide amazing grain free options so people can move away from having the standard gluten but people are really freaked out by gluten free bread. It can cost up 12. I've seen $15 a loaf so just making bread that's as easy to make as a muffin that's where I really find success or buying some you know there's often times certain breads if you're like I'm
Julie (09:25.358)
Then there is some really great brands out there that are grain free that do have a spongy aspect to them that have the chewy mouth feel that everyone needs when they go for glutinous things they're really going for the glue they're going they're going for that chewy mouth feel that they really want to have so that's why just know that you I truly believe you can have your cake and eat it too I believe that for sure so we're getting in there
Kim (09:53.278)
Yeah.
Julie (09:54.458)
I think another one would be ice cream. I would pick on ice cream.
Julie (10:01.436)
like to explain ice cream. No, but we're not we're just directly replacing.
Kim (10:02.452)
Alright, you've lifted and taken everything away.
Julie (10:09.168)
So it would be a matter of the world's healthiest version of that food. Right. So we do have versions, for example, if you're intolerant to lactose, can you actually enjoy the aged cheese that has no lactose at all? So I'm not saying everyone has to go off cheese, but could we find the version that fits you that good, better, best. So ideally, we would go to older cheese. Then the next step up, it's can we go to an animal you're not allergic to?
Kim (10:10.463)
Yes.
Julie (10:39.002)
totally okay with sheep cheese, right? And then the best would we be able to find you another source of cheese that doesn't have any cassine or lactose in it, which would be like a nut or seed-based cheese that people really enjoy that tastes that umami flavor. Yeah.
Kim (10:55.31)
which some of them can be really good. One of my favorite pizza places here in Vancouver, they have gluten-free options for their crust and they also have, it's all vegan cheese, which my kids even who are very anti-vegan would eat and enjoy it. It has a great mouthfeel and a great taste, so it is possible, it is possible.
Julie (11:15.636)
Yeah, and have you tried Caveman? Is that one of the places you're talking about? Caveman in Vancouver? Yeah, Caveman is an extremely popular and very affordable paleo restaurant in Vancouver. I love it. I always hit it there when I'm in van. I'm like, woohoo, sign me up. So go check it out. It's like really affordable budget. Yeah, it's like a budget place for sure. Yeah, there's always somewhere. I think that's one of my.
Kim (11:19.467)
No, no.
Kim (11:36.563)
Okay.
Kim (11:41.278)
Okay, good to know, good to know. All right.
Julie (11:43.596)
big tips is head to a Google map and like find the health food. I do that a lot when I travel.
Kim (11:51.414)
Right, yeah, yeah. So as you're talking then, we were kind of going down this path of trigger foods that were contributing in your situation, contributing to inflammation, the ADHD, and you were talking about anxiety and what have you, and then you mentioned some gut, and that's obviously something that, in my world, that's something that a lot of people struggle with is constipation and gut issues, which...
trigger foods or that's gonna be the first place if we talk about optimizing gut health. Now, I don't know, is that the first place we start? When we talk about how to optimize our gut, would we go through the process of eliminating trigger foods first as our best first step?
Julie (12:30.74)
Yeah, sure. As a nutritionist, of course, we're going to talk about trigger foods. But one thing that I'd like to do is just start people really slow with just notice what you notice just write down what you're eating. A lot of people are very confronted when they do a food journal. We eat a lot more than we think we do.
and we often, if we're being honest, like I've sat down in the early days. So know that I kind of have a funny past because I did go through nutrition school but I was still really struggling with emotional eating so that was one of the last things that I could give up. So on my binges I would sit down and like polish off half a box of cookies and then come out of a almost like a
Julie (13:18.55)
have to get conscious about what we're eating. And that's why the food journal is so helpful, is then we start to sort of register where we go unconscious, because food is the closest thing to our mother's love that we first had. It's the first nourishment.
was food. So of course, the first soothing that we get right, like our mom puts us on the breast. So I find it so interesting that ice cream is the closest thing to human breast milk.
And therefore, no wonder we have these cravings that are coming from such a deep and old place that we don't want to beat ourselves up about it. So that's a big piece that people will be surprised. A lot of people might assume that I'm like the food police and I'm absolutely not because I have eaten the most ridiculous combinations. I've like gone through a massive Cinnabon with all the icing and an entire container of caramel corn in one sitting.
like I've totally done it. So it's important just to remember that we're just doing the best we can. That food is just another coping tool. Some people use cocaine, some people use gambling. A lot of us use food, because it's safe and it doesn't harm other people. So with that, I try to...
because I have an eating psychology background now. So I graduated as an eating psychology coach. So I try to really help people get to the underpinnings of why we eat what we eat so that we can unpack it and heal it. Because eventually you can let go of anything. It's a miracle, but your body is able to find healthier and healthier ways to cope. And then the food addiction drops away without forcing it.
Kim (15:10.314)
Yeah. So what would you say are, when we think of constipation, what would you say are some of the reasons why somebody may develop constipation and what steps would you recommend as a how to overcome it?
Julie (15:16.802)
Mmm.
Julie (15:26.988)
Well constipation really happens as our thyroid slows down because it's such a big part of our digestion. And another one that really happens is as our sexual hormones go in the toilet.
I notice a lot of women's digestion slows down. Also, medications really cause constipation. And many of us, if we're on a painkiller, if we're on a prescription drug, don't be surprised. The first thing it says is constipation. Also, food allergies. If you're terribly allergic to gluten, it's like glue to the colon. It just like can stop you in your tracks. Also, casein can be terribly constipating and gas forming. So between all those reasons, yeah.
constipation is amongst the most difficult digestive woes but the good news is we can get things moving again so we would definitely find what your food triggers are. If you are
Julie (16:25.164)
not laxatives. So the problem with laxatives, they're very habit forming, especially Senna, which is a lot of people lean into a product called Senna caught just to get through the day, where we can work on stimulating digestion using digestive bitters. So I really like gentian, yellow dock, burdock, dandelion, these are all really safe plants, that when we take them
Julie (16:55.118)
bile flow. Bile flow is kind of like the water slide of the bowel so as we have more bile we're able to have the food and eventually the stool slip out of our body more easily and it's also going to reduce the bloating in the gas so I absolutely love that. And I really encourage people to find out what their food allergies are and as you find the direct substitution so that you can have your fun but also poop. Very important.
Kim (17:22.23)
Yeah, pooping is like, it's number one on my list every day. I have to poop. What do you think about digestive enzymes? So you've talked about digestive bitters and foods that can come in and play a role in helping stimulate that digestion and the bile flow, the water slide. I like that analogy. What about people who, like there was a, I've read about low stomach acid with some people. So if they do the stomach acid test, they, it's sodium, it's a...
Julie (17:27.257)
Mm-hmm.
Kim (17:50.518)
Baking soda in water, see how long it takes you to burp, might be an indication of low stomach acid. If so, there's digestive enzymes and hydrochloric acid. So this is something that I've seen through many different health circles. What are your thoughts on the use of digestive enzymes and potentially low stomach acid and how we overcome that, but also what could cause that?
Julie (18:10.68)
So the low hydrochloric acid is so prevalent. And a lot of it just comes down to, as we age, often the strength of our digestive enzymes and juices go down. But also, there's a lot of habits that, unfortunately, stop our digestive juices from naturally happening. Are you using antacids? Are you using a proton pump inhibitor? Unfortunately, do you have a microbe in your gut? Do you have H. pylori? Do you have any of these things that
pH of your stomach to be off? Are you eating a lot of refined food? A lot of carbohydrates unfortunately can change the pH of the stomach and therefore by the time the food gets to the small intestine it's not able to be broken down and utilized correctly. So yes it's a great band-aid, a great band-aid and you might need that band-aid similar to you know walking assistance
Julie (19:10.714)
digestive enzymes. I'm not gonna lie because I want Olympic digestion I do take plant digestive enzymes because they're non-habit forming and if I'm about to tackle a big protein meal yeah having a little bit of hydrochloric acid will tear that steak apart and make it easier to absorb and you're just going to get more nutrients out of that food. I almost don't want to take heavy mineral
Julie (19:40.614)
undigested is constipating. Iron that's undigested is constipating. So it's just great to add in that little support if you in fact need it and betaine hydrochloride is cheap and cheerful and a fantastic way. And what's interesting is a lot of people think that their indigestion or heartburn is caused by their stomach acid being too high. It's almost always the other way around. You have the
Julie (20:10.654)
Because the pH is not set low enough to tear your food apart because in an acid bath Everything gets torn apart and then the small intestines able to receive the food where if you've got that really neutral or basic
unfortunate pH going on, then your stomach is just not working out as optimum. And then you're going to have the burping and the problem. So don't be scared of adding apple cider vinegar before meals, or just really using lots of lemon juice on your food or taking digestive support. Because really, it's not it's not what we eat is what we digest. In the end.
Kim (20:52.042)
Yeah, that's a great point. So what are some of the reasons why somebody would have, like what would lead us down the path of having low stomach acid? Is it from foods that we eat? Is it lifestyle? Is it autoimmune conditions? What are the reasons why somebody's stomach acid might be low?
Julie (21:08.932)
Infections is big, but I'm also going to really pick on lifestyle here. A lot of people are too stressed to make hydrochloric acid because what's interesting, I believe wholeheartedly that most of us are living in fight or flight because when you think about how we evolved, so we evolved for 200,000 years not knowing what was happening on the other side of the planet. And now
every minute of every day, we're inundated with 8 billion problems. Everybody else's problems are our problems. And I think we live in a constantly between the caffeine we're drinking and the work we're expected to do. And as women, especially we're able, we're supposed to have great emotional laboring.
And I just wanna bring up this is so huge. So at 50, you typically have the next generation you're taking care of plus aging parents, plus you're at the height of your career. So you're often in a power position. So you need to constantly being holding this emotional labor where you're not allowed to freak out. The younger generation that can have their meltdowns, the older generation, they're having dementia symptoms. So they're not remembering, they're being irritable with you.
but you have to hold it together and I'm only speaking from love and experience here okay. So with that state of mind my god how in the world are you supposed to have good digestion? How would you what? Because you don't you are in fight or flight you're not allowed to make digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes are made in rest and digest parasympathetic and the second parasympathetic switches over to fight or flight.
Kim (22:31.598)
I'm going to go to bed.
Julie (22:55.284)
your digestion goes out the window because it's not supposed to be there when you're running away from a bear. And unfortunately, the bear is now the last generation, the old generation, the new generation and work and just even driving through traffic or facing anybody, there's just this constant on feeling.
and digestion just is not happening in that state. So I really teach my clients so much about getting back into a parasympathetic was the 10 things you could do to knock yourself out of fight or flight manually. And that is the one thing that changed my life because I actually did develop an autonomic nervous system disorder, which shocked me because I never saw it coming. But menopause throws you some curve balls.
Kim (23:18.347)
Yes.
Kim (23:21.739)
Yeah.
Julie (23:42.568)
And so I want people to really believe that investing in getting back to your rest and digest state is one of the best things you can do.
Kim (23:52.158)
Yeah. And when you when you I'm reflecting back to when you're talking about thyroid and how important that is from a digestion perspective and such a big contributor to constipation when it's not working optimally. And then now you're talking about stress and knowing that high stress states is going to increase our reverse T3, which is now we're not we don't have as much of the active thyroid hormone. So it's this you know, what's the chicken in the egg? So which one is coming first? But everything's all coming back to we need to reduce.
the stress in our life. Really.
Julie (24:23.392)
We do and what's interesting is, you know, I've had like a crazy year. My Facebook, Instagram was hacked for like over a month. I've had like family members have heart attacks. I've had just my dog like just had a torn ACL like just stuff that just you're so stressed and you're like, okay, well, I've got two ways I can cope with this. Like we at a certain point, you have to say.
The buck stops here, I might as well learn how to cope with these stressors.
as well become bulletproof no matter what because what's the alternative for me to fall apart? I mean, it's just not a possibility. And I don't want that for myself. So I've been trying to train myself, you know, I've been listening to a little bit of, do you know, David Goggins, the whole like, you can't hurt me philosophy of like, we have to, we have to strengthen our nervous system a little bit, so that we can
handle things like be because we're often the emergency department of our lives. So I find finding those serious lifestyle things have has just made all the difference so that I'm able to really still show up and be loving where it would be easy to be irritable.
Kim (25:39.927)
Yeah.
Kim (25:47.754)
Yeah, well said. I heard you on a recent podcast and coming back to this, I know I talk a lot about constipation, but it is such an integral part of the world that I work in and the things that people are struggling with. And chia seeds is historically always been one of those go tos. Put chia seeds on everything and you're magically going to poop. And there was even TikTok and social media was going around with this.
Julie (25:56.629)
Oh yeah.
Kim (26:17.378)
people were dumping chia seeds into water, making sort of their own poop drink. I forget what they were actually calling it, but it was, they were touting it as, you're gonna poop like champ for the rest of your life if you just drink this. And in this episode that I was listening to, I'm sorry, I don't remember which podcast it was, but you said you're not a fan of chia seeds. So can you explain why you're not necessarily promoting chia seeds as a, say, a fiber source or a good option for people anymore?
Julie (26:44.18)
will know that I used to be on the chia train. Absolutely. I have so many chia puddings. Oh my goodness. So many recipes with chia, muffins, you name it. I've made it with chia. But just the amount of work, the amounting evidence about antinutrients. And what I find interesting is that flaxseed, which is virtually identical in the amount of mucilage, the amount of soluble fiber coming off of it.
Kim (26:51.746)
Hahahaha
Julie (27:14.614)
flaxseed is extremely low in the antinutrient known as oxalate where unfortunately chia has ridiculously high like over 600 milligrams for a serving it's so high that if you're sensitive to oxalate which unfortunately if you are sensitive to oxalates you can have skin disorders you can have anxiety you can have insomnia there's a lot of unfortunate fallout from it and you know I was
don't want to jump on the whole anti-nutrient bandwagon. I'm just going to research it really well first. Well, then I had one family member who had to go on a low-oxalate menu for kidney health, and everything improved. It was mind-boggling. We're talking about a person who had chronic insomnia and horrible like,
eczema that was so bad it was actually on their face and they were really very sensitive about it and 100% of their issues disappeared within two weeks of going on a lower oxalate menu. So that's when I'm like I can't ignore this anymore. So my new book which is Meals That Heal 2.0 which is the upgrade to my very much bestseller
will be with recipes that are lower oxalate with a large chart of foods that are high and low so people can decide for themselves. So similar to potatoes being high in the toxin solanine, if you're sensitive to it then solanine is kryptonite and it causes joint pain, it causes a lot of issues but not everyone has a problem.
So that's where I really say there's seven, well now there's eight billion diets for eight billion people. And I'm not here to judge what you choose to eat. I'm here to just present the data as I see it and say, just try on a food journal.
Julie (29:10.056)
and take things out and put them back in and see for yourself whether it makes a difference because for some it is literally the missing piece of their health. They've tried forever to eat healthy, super clean, but this is the thing that made the difference so I had to stop ignoring it even though I'm not gonna lie it was so painful. I mean we're talking about parking over 100 of my best recipes.
It was and I had to do it in the 11th hour as we were going to press my editor was like freaking out going You are past deadline. What are you doing? And i'm like, I have to do this. It's like for my family, you know There you go. I'm so Oh, yeah
Kim (29:40.182)
Hehehe
Kim (29:45.057)
Wow. So what are oxalates? What are oxalates or why would they not be good and what would be considered a low oxalate diet?
Julie (29:53.592)
Mm-hmm. Sure, so oxalates are oxalic acid, as it's known, is a crystal that forms within certain plants and it's there to protect the plant. So similar to other anti-nutrients, so we've got like our phytic acid, we have lectins, we have these different plant constituents that are great for the plant, not so good for humans. And the highest foods are shocking. So oxalate foods,
including spinach, rhubarb, don't kill me but chocolate, some nuts like almonds and chia seeds are amongst the highest foods of oxalates. So I'm not saying you have to go on an oxalate free menu because all nuts and seeds have oxalates, most plants have oxalates, it's just talking about like
Just making sure you don't go into the thousands of milligrams per day. Because that's one thing is like if you're having a chia smoothie and then you're having a spinach salad and then you're having a big piece of chocolate in the afternoon. I mean these are all super foods we've been told to eat our whole lives. If we add them all up some people can blow over 4 000 milligrams of oxalate a day and that's when it's hard on your kidneys. That's when it can accumulate and affect your skin or your joints.
So that's why I've started to just be honest that not everyone can handle it, but some people can. Like my husband, oh my goodness, he's got great kidneys and amazing skin and he has no issue whatsoever. But other people just are super sensitive. So it's just a new area that we're uncovering. Just like the gluten discussion, right? Like it's old hat now, but a decade and a half ago it was so new.
Kim (31:37.014)
Right.
Julie (31:41.144)
And as we got into it, we realized that, wow, how many people have been helped now that they realized that they were celiac and needed to be off of this food.
Kim (31:51.554)
So interesting. And when we come back to the fiber piece, like chia seed was a form of soluble fiber. It's absorbing water. So we have soluble and insoluble. What is there an optimal ratio between soluble and insoluble? But now as you're saying, like low oxalate foods that we would want to aim for in a day. So I think fiber recommendations, I think it's 25 grams. I don't think it's changed right now, but 25 grams for women.
Julie (32:01.484)
Yes.
Kim (32:20.534)
but a blend between soluble and insoluble. So is there a beneficial ratio that we should be targeting for soluble versus insoluble?
Julie (32:26.688)
I think it depends on your personal gut.
Julie (32:34.512)
Let me rephrase that. I want to say that everyone has a different ratio that would work for them purely because some people have more irritation in their bowel already. And if you have say colitis, you're not able to withstand insoluble fiber, it can actually cause blockages. So that's why it's so personalized that I would say soluble helps to stabilize blood sugar.
Kim (32:38.158)
I'm gonna go take a break.
Julie (33:04.066)
as a wonderful broom for the bowel. So my focus is definitely getting enough soluble, but the insoluble works as a bulking agent and feeds good microbes at times. So I really love things like cellulose. I love enjoying more salads and things that help to add bulk to the stool so things are easier to pass. And my favorite out of all the seeds is flaxseed because there's so many beneficial qualities and surprisingly it's extremely low
nutrients. So it's a great one. Ground flax. Just keep it in your freezer. I like to buy flax seeds and grind them myself in a coffee grinder or you can get an attachment for your blender and that way the omega-3s stay really clean and without oxidation. We want to avoid those kind of big bags of ground flax that are already tasting like terrible when you consume them. If flax tastes bad, it's oxidized, throw it out. Yeah.
Kim (34:03.314)
And if we think about the menopause, you know, perimenopause, menopause transition, flax is often touted as something that can help with, with even some people find that it may help with their hot flashes or, you know, all the other symptoms that we might be dealing with. So it's extra beneficial. Is that something that you recommend for that population?
Julie (34:22.9)
Absolutely, and it's something that I've personally noticed. So two tablespoons of ground flax per day.
can significantly reduce hot flashes. In the latest study, I saw some great data that flaxseed is a weak phytoestrogen. So unlike soy, which can be problematic for some women, I like the fact that this is a weak phytoestrogen. So it does bind to receptor sites, preventing the negative xenoestrogens from plastics and gasoline and other negative like hair dyes and things. This actually helps to make sure
are filled with something very positive. So I really like leaning into it and we don't have any data to suggest that it's problematic for say breast cancer risk. So that's why Flax wins the day for me.
Kim (35:13.366)
Yeah, yeah. And before we started chatting, before we started recording, I had asked you sort of what is your main passion right now with regards to your work, and you talked about longevity. So what does longevity and what does eating for longevity look like, or how would you guide somebody to start thinking about how nutrition can help us not just live longer, but live with more wellness, live with more health?
Julie (35:41.184)
Yeah, the health span. We're expanding that health span versus lifespan. So health span is how many years you're on the planet without a chronic disease. And that's really the golden ticket, because that's when we have the positivity to live the full life, right? Like, so many people are scared of the last decade of their life. And what I find really interesting is I often will ask a crowd, because I love doing longevity lectures, and I'll say, who wants to live to 100? Almost no one puts their hand up.
And then I just rephrased the question. If you were assured that you would not be in chronic pain and that you would have your marbles, how many people would love to live to 100? And virtually everyone puts their hand up.
So if we could take the fears out of longevity and say that we wanna have a long health span, then climb on board, because it's truly possible. And that's why I really look at all the longest living human beings on this planet, and they all have certain practices in common. And I like to call them the five pillars of longevity. And I teach that inside, I just wanna say, I run an anti-inflammatory longevity support group,
members strong and it is so fun because each and every month we have a different mission that we go on together and we have just an amazing time tackling all these big topics but being in tight community together. So we talk about what are the five pillars, the nutrition piece and we will totally I will happily run down the major things that I think make the difference there and then movement.
actually, it's probably more important for living a long life than nutrition. And I can't believe I'm saying that as a nutritionist, but movement is the most important thing for living a long time. And then our other one that's critical is stillness. So to balance that and to learn how to stop, learn how to get out of stress. So we have a yogi in our program, and then we have a movement teacher, we have a nutritionist and an herbalist. And then we get into life coaching with our life
Kim (37:24.534)
Hahaha
Julie (37:48.026)
who's going to be teaching purpose and connection. So when you have all five of those, that's when your longevity goes through the roof. And within the nutrition piece, we really have a couple levers that we can pull. So we can pull on the caloric restriction piece because if we eat too many calories that more than we need in a day, we are contributing to metabolic disease, we're contributing to fat storage on our pancreas.
I can't believe that we've just discovered, oh my goodness, not just a fatty liver, but a fatty pancreas. And we need to really remove that fat band from around the midriff. So we work hard on that. And then the other major lever to pull past just caloric restriction is can we pull on dietary restrictions of the food you're allergic to?
So we're always looking for substitutions and helping people with that piece. Then the last one is time restriction. Are you willing to embrace a little bit of intermittent fasting? And for women, we are very gentle. We do not overdo it. We need to eat in the morning so we don't make our thyroid angry. But we do need to stop eating deep in the night because when we eat calories deep in the night,
Unfortunately, melatonin trumps insulin sensitivity. We just learned that melatonin stops your ability for you to have insulin receptors work correctly. So every carb gram you eat after six or seven o'clock at night is gonna go straight into creating this terrible metabolic problem, causing that fat band around your middle. And that's why so many menopausal women think they can't lose weight. They can, it's just all in the timing
that we work on together and now I'm able to get back to my high school weight after battling a lot of problems at the beginning of menopause. I was like just like so many women you're like you wake up and you're like I swear I didn't eat anything else how can I possibly be three pounds heavier like what it just literally comes on like a freight train so you can get back to an amazing place and get stronger as you age I truly believe that.
Kim (39:48.118)
Yeah
Kim (40:01.514)
Yeah, and a lot of what you're saying, I have not watched yet the episode, the, um, the documentary on the blue zones, but I think that's sort of similar to what a lot of the people in the blue zones where people live the longest, a lot of what they adopt in their, in their practices as well.
Julie (40:18.42)
Yes, yes, absolutely. It's all those beautiful places, whether you're in Sardinia, in Italy, which is island of sardine people. So the Omega-3 plays a huge role. And the Okinawans, again, more fish. The Omega-3 is probably the number one fat, I would suggest, for longevity, for sure. It's so critical. Yeah, love that.
Kim (40:41.558)
Yeah, so interesting. And just before we wrap up, what would you say from a gut health, like really I think if we're optimizing our gut health, we're going to have better brain function. We're going to have, everything's gonna be working better and it would support our longevity. So what would you say within maybe those pillars that you were talking about, but are there specific reducing stress? I know you're gonna say.
Are there other things we can be doing to support our gut health for better digestion, for better elimination, better hormone support? What are some things that we haven't covered yet that you would recommend?
Julie (41:23.06)
Well, I would love people to focus on healing their microbiome because another question I ask in my lectures are, is there anybody out in the audience who has managed to avoid taking antibiotics in their life and no one puts their hand up? We've all been exposed to antibiotics and antibiotics kill the good bacteria off and really preferentially allow yeast to overgrow. And yeast has a big agenda.
so that I can multiply. And that's why, you know, a lot of people are there's so many people who are against carbohydrates. And then there's a whole camp of people who love carbohydrates. I'm very much in the middle, what works for you what you need. But there's plants that are technically carbohydrates, like let's face it, broccoli does not feed any negative microbes, but yet it is filled with carbs because fiber is a carb.
So we can have a ton of good beneficial carbs that will change over the microbiome and allow the good guys to regrow. And that's what reduces anxiety. That's what improves sleep. Because we now understand that when we have a good micro-
a biome growing, that's when we don't have that unbelievable nervousness and anxiety that setting in. So I just say, Hey, let's work on the stress part. But let's really look at the foods that are your big triggers and focus in on foods that help to reduce that candida and let the good guys thrive. And I love sauerkraut. I mean, I know I'm Ukrainian, but we just love fermenting things and having them be bacteria that grow on veggies.
because kombucha is grown on white sugar and that's why I'm not a big fan of it. So we do wanna focus on ferments that actually thrive on produce. So that's where the pickles come in, the sauerkraut, the kimchi, those sort of really good condiments. And my mouth's watering, because I love them so much. Just putting a ton of them, like a quarter of a cup onto a meal, unless you're histamine-
Julie (43:40.942)
intolerant. I really feel that that's a big thing you can do for yourself and have a lot of fun doing it because it's so delicious.
Kim (43:49.994)
Yeah, I love that. So where can people find out more about you and also this book, the one that we had to change at the 11th hour, when is that coming out and where can people learn more?
Julie (43:59.876)
So Meals That Heal Inflammation, second edition will be out not for another year. So we're still it's now going to the printing. So it's 2025. But for now, I'm at Julie Danlick on all my social media handles except Facebook is Julie Danlick nutrition. And I just really encourage people to check out ThriveHive, which is our anti inflammatory
Kim (44:07.872)
Oh wow.
Julie (44:29.05)
instructors. And it's just such a fun way to engage your health and to feel so supported. So yeah, with that, I'm thrive with Julie calm or Julie Danluck calm will definitely get you there. Thanks again for having me on.
Kim (44:44.262)
Amazing, amazing. Thank you for sharing your time and your wisdom and I will share all the links to everything in the show notes below and yeah I did not know that about kombucha that it that it's the white sugar that it's fermenting on. That's that's shocking actually. I knew they were high in sugar but I didn't necessarily put it together like that so that's really interesting information. Thank you so much.
Julie (45:12.184)
Thanks, I'm so glad we did this. Great.
