The Savvy Dietitian - 24 Hour Live Stream

Tommy: The Daily Talk Show. It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 713. Georgie Boy here. He's back. The boys are still recovering, having a bit of time off. I have put together each interview from the 24-hour livestream and I'm going to be releasing them every day for the next week. So, this is number 2, is with The Savvy Dietitian, recorded at about 9:00 AM, so we're still feeling pretty fresh at this point. Hope you enjoy this one. This is The Savvy Dietitian.

Savina: Hey guys.

Tommy: Savina, welcome to the show.

Savina: Thanks for having me. I'm super excited. When you sent me the message, I was like, yes, I'm in.

Tommy: Well, we, um, I don't know how, I reckon it was Josh. You probably found Savina's page. It's, I was just saying, it's one of my favourite Instagram accounts and we've just seen it shoot up. It's one of those things that I can, um, feel, uh, you know, it points out my flaws a lot of the time, but I'm also like, yeah, that was so good, that was awesome.

Savina: Um, it's kind of triggering some people.

Josh: Oh yeah, that's Instagram.

Tommy: How'd you come up with the, the idea for the account, the account and the idea of the comparisons on the account?

Savina: Look, I, I used to see all this sort of nonsense on social media and I thought, hey, I can do a better job than this. So, maybe I should just start a page. And literally, that's why I started. I was like, I can do this better.

Josh: I mean, I feel like it's a bit of a shocker. One of the ones that sticks out to me is I was— we were in the US, we're in LA, and I had just bought like 10 of the Justin's peanut butter cups, which was the alternative to Reese's. And I was like, I'm a hero, you know, I'm doing like this is good for my health.

Tommy: I was used to the healthy.

Josh: Yeah, these are healthy. Yeah, yeah, I was eating organic. I ate about 10 of them and I'm feeling really good about myself. And then I saw the comparison and it turns out that there was more calories and all that sort of thing. Now what's your perspective on— you've got calories, a bunch of people say, oh, but what about all the other gunk and things? How much do we need to consider that stuff versus the calorie contents?

Savina: Look, calories is one aspect about nutrition. I mean, we need to also think about the broader picture, what makes up the calories. But when you're looking at chocolate bars, like, are you really eating a healthy organic— like, is it healthy, a chocolate bar, even if it's organic? So I'm sort of like, look, eat the junk you want to eat. Like, don't worry about it. Pick what you prefer in terms of taste. But of course, like, you can't compare— like, I'll see comparisons like people comparing nuts to chocolate and being like, they're the same calories, guys. It's like, but they're not the same. They might be the same calories, but they provide very different nutrients.

Josh: It's very confusing. Tommy and I have had a bunch of blowups 'cause I eat chocolate for breakfast sometimes. It's 85%. What sort of stuff, what's the classic thing that you deal with from people that just emotionally, have an emotional relationship with food?

Savina: One thing that I can't get past people is understanding that sweet potato is a carbohydrate. So they think potato is a carbohydrate, but sweet potato is this like magical unicorn on the side of potato. And when you're like, oh, actually, no, they're both kind of the same, people are like, but I thought it was good for you.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Savina: My partner eats coffee for breakfast too.

Josh: Oh, good.

Tommy: Ah, perfect. Is there anything in the sweet potato thing? Because I remember it's like in the bodybuilding sort of fitness arena, like muscle building, there's something people used to say, it's less starchy, it's a better carbohydrate. Is there any difference in a white potato to a sweet potato, the, you know, orange ones or the purple ones? Is there any difference in the actual calorie?

Savina: I mean, in terms of the carbohydrate content, sweet potato is actually higher carb. Sweet potato.

Tommy: Yeah, sure.

Savina: So— It's in the name.

Tommy: I didn't bury the lead here.

Savina: It's in the name. But in terms of the way it breaks down, so sweet potato will break down a bit slower than white potato, but we don't eat food in isolation, so you're not gonna have potato by itself. You're gonna have potato with—

Josh: I've been eating carbs in isolation, that's all I eat. I know.

Savina: You know, but most people will eat potato with steak or— some form of protein. So I'm normally like, look, pick the potato you like and enjoy it. In terms of nutrients, sweet potato does have like vitamin A, but we can get vitamin A from other things. So small things.

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, I've seen you sort of do a few call-outs, which I love. Someone's got the sort of, you know, chutzpah to call out someone. Imagine if you had an account around at the time that all the shit went down with the the food pyramid. Oh my God, you would have had a— how much is— how much has it changed? Because you are a, you know, by trade a dietitian, you know, doing it day to day. How much has changed since you started to now?

Savina: Oh, to be honest, they haven't put much research into like our national nutrition survey. We haven't had one since like 2011, but we don't, um We don't look at the pyramid anymore, we look at the plate. But nutrition's becoming very individualized, so like, you know, they say one size doesn't fit all, so it's very, very individual.

Josh: What do you think about all the, like there was the Game Changers doco, veganism, vegetarianism, all that sort of stuff, from a purely, from a dietary point of view, or like getting nutrition and stuff like that. What's your perspective on that, doco?

Savina: So the documentary is completely like— the lines of the research is cherry-picked. So if you actually go and look behind it, the, the guy behind the documentary has a pro— like a pea protein supplement company. He's got an agenda. Yeah, like it's as simple as that. And if you actually go and actually look at the research behind it, it's really It's not good, like it's flawed. But in saying that, you can live a very good healthy lifestyle eating, being a vegan. You can, you know, it just needs a bit more, um, uh, planning, and you need to see someone to make sure you actually meet your nutrient needs because you're relying solely on plant-based foods. So you need to plan it well. Um, but the documentary, the documentary also sort of confuses veganism but vegetarianism. They're not the same, but they sort of use it interchangeably. So they'll talk about veganism, but the research that they were using also had eggs in it.

Josh: So yeah, sure. Yeah. Have you ever gone— have you ever gone veggie or vegan?

Savina: No, I, um, I embrace Meat-Free Mondays, but okay, sure. But like, honestly, Netflix isn't— don't get your health information from Netflix.

Tommy: I love it. I feel like, uh, there's been, you know, waves of different— not even fads, but like, uh, veganism has been sort of strong on the forefront for some time. Vegetarianism back, you know, early days of the hippie, hippie conquests. And then there's, you know, 6 meals a day, high protein, all of these, right? And so I've done the 6 meals a day, um, thing, and it works for putting on muscle. And, and if anything, it just made me more aware of the choices I made because you have to think 6 times a day to do the thing, which is eating. And you're not going to end up eating doughnuts 6 times a day. You feel sick after 1 round of the doughnuts because you ate 12. Um, one of them though is fasting. And I mean, if people are just aren't eating, you're kind of out of a job at that point, Savannah. No one's eating.

Savina: You can't tell them to eat.

Josh: You're all dead as well.

Tommy: You've got no calories coming in. Yeah. I mean, for me, I want to get your take on fasting as a broad spectrum? I know you said it's individualized, but as a broad spectrum, what do you think about fasting?

Savina: There's good research behind it, but again, it depends on the person. So if someone can't go 12 hours without eating something long-term, what's the point of even starting doing it? There's research around it helping cancer and things like that. But again, we can't just, you know, do things just because for like small little aspects like that, when we can't actually stick to it long-term, some people do really well. It really depends on— it honestly really, really depends on the actual person. Um, but also people will fast and then they'll make up for it later. So it really, it's about how they actually understand what they're actually doing. Same thing with the 6 meals. Like, I've come across people that are having 6 huge meals rather than 6 meals.

Josh: Yeah, is it like on the, um, on that thing of eating after fasting, it reminds me of things like the cheat day, which, uh, is in that slow carb diet of Tim Ferriss's. What's, what's your perspective on picking a day and going a bit nuts?

Savina: People just, well, it depends. Like some people just go ham, right? But like, I mean, I don't mind. I'm happy to eat something not that great every day. Like it doesn't matter. It depends. Again, it depends on the person. Like most, I mean, if you actually look at the research, people are eating not so great every day. So like the research is saying that most of our caloric intake actually comes from discretionary foods, like 1/3 of our intake.

Josh: As a population, as a discretionary food. What would that—

Savina: like, anything doesn't— that doesn't fit into our core food group. So like donuts.

Josh: Yeah, sure.

Savina: Yeah, I mean, we're not doing well as a population.

Tommy: Yeah, I guess the fasting thing, if you're doing fasting properly, it, it works when you're doing the other thing, which is when the food intake time comes around, you're doing that properly. The 6-meal thing, like you said, not 6 big meals. The cheat day after 6 days of eating clean makes sense after doing 6 clean days. And that's where I think a lot of these things are missed because the fasting one is easy because if you haven't eaten and you're like, oh, fuck it, I'll just keep going. But I think it's discounted the other part of it. And so I think fasting has been an easy one. What I've found, and maybe you've seen it too or not, I've seen it, its uptake in popularity I think is because it's easy, right? Just don't eat, or like just, you know, starve yourself.

Josh: There's no grey area in that. Like, it's a lot easier to then start in some ways picking, okay, cancel out this food group or that food group.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

Savina: And which is what all diets do, right?

Josh: Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: And it's really the reset because the 6 meals a day, you're, um You're needing to work out what you're having for each one of those. That's what I remember hearing, like it's, it's not the 6 meals, it's the, it's the mindset it gets you in after having these meals. What have you found the best thing to sort of help people get conscious about what they're eating if their idea is to, you know, become healthier or lose weight?

Savina: Yeah, so actually being aware of what they're eating. People actually don't realise how often they actually eat. I mean, people are being more aware now that they're actually home. They're like, oh, I'm actually always going to the fridge and eating. And I'm like, yeah, it's really important to actually be aware about what you're doing. But again, like, so all these sort of like clean eating and, you know, having restricting food groups and stuff, it's actually becoming quite a problem. So we're seeing quite a huge increase in sort of like disordered eating. And I'm not sure whether it sort of clusters around like the social media sort of aspect, but It is dangerous for some people because they are more at risk of developing eating disorders from their disordered behaviours around food. Some people can cut out food groups and then be completely fine, whereas other people can spiral into quite a deadly sort of cycle.

Josh: So, Vena, what do you think about that, that sort of advice just to have a balanced diet? You just need balance.

Savina: But I mean, balance means different things to different people, right? So you need to be pretty specific. Same with clean eating. What is clean eating? No one actually knows. There's no, there's no set definition. Like, even if you looked it up, like, do hashtag clean eating, you'll see all sorts of things. At the moment, it's sort of going around like sort of that veganism, you know, plant-based sort of foods. But balance means different things to different people. So some people will say to me, I can't have chocolate in the house because I will just eat the whole block. Technically, that's not balanced, is it? But it works for that, that person. Um, it definitely needs context. Balance needs context.

Josh: Yeah, the, um, the intuitive eating movement— there was a, there's a book called Intuitive Eating. I've had friends do it with varying levels of success. Some of them just, you know, blow out but feel great. Others, um, you know, yeah, varying um, results. What's your— I feel like if I was to do it, I would completely blow out because I would just— I don't know how intuitive I find eating. Um, what's your take on it? Do you understand that sort of, that whole movement?

Savina: So that's a big movement at the moment. Um, I feel it's all well and good for people who actually understand nutrition to talk about intuitive eating, and it's definitely— I think it has its, um, positives to it as well. But I mean, If you don't actually understand nutrition, how do you actually know about food? You know, it's all well and good for me to sit here and be like, oh, eat intuitively. But some people actually don't understand nutrition.

Josh: Yeah.

Savina: So it's about actually educating. And then I think for me, intuitive eating is about knowing that food isn't like— there's no good and bad foods, letting your body tell you whether, you know, you can eat and not eat. Some people can't do that though. So I have a patient at the moment that has hyperphagia, which is basically excessive hunger. So they, they, it's actually intellectual disability. They cannot not feel hungry. So how would intuitive eating play into that? Yeah, again, one side, drop it all.

Josh: There's also that, um, is the book Mindless Eating, or, um, where it's looking at the psychology of, of eating. It's amazing. I'm always surprised at how much of the external factors play into how much we eat. So how much is on the plate, how much popcorn is in front of you. It's sort of like the Parkinson's law. Yeah, you feel the time that's allocated to it. It's like you sort of eat whatever's on, on your plate. Is that, um, is food in Australia— because obviously the US is a different case— a portion sizes that are getting sold to us, are they actually getting smaller or are they getting bigger?

Savina: Bigger. Yeah, bigger, way bigger. So if you actually You can even Google portion distortion and you'll see how the portions have changed from like 20 years ago to now. So there's a huge difference. And I think food marketing has a huge play on this. There's a really good campaign in the UK called Bite Back. And they did this video showing people how food advertising actually impacts our food decisions. It's really interesting. But yeah, food marketing has a huge role to play with our food decisions. 'Cause we see things, we want it. I'm like, I'm the same. If I see something.

Josh: Definitely. I think how much of it is the, what we learned as kids? Like when you're, the patients that you see, how many of the disordered eating comes from what they were eating when they were young?

Savina: I don't think, I mean, I feel like a lot of people said they ate quite well when they were young. I think what's really changed now is our activity. So like I'll often say to people, look, activity is not just about going to the gym. Activity is about general, like incidental activity. So going to the bank to pay a bill, like have you guys gone to the bank to pay a bill?

Josh: No, definitely not.

Savina: I haven't. So like all these things people did like back in the day, no one's doing anymore. So, Yet we're eating more. But one of the common themes that I hear from people is that they learn to eat everything on their plate. So that is now having an impact. So more people in their 50s, 60s, rather than say 20s and 30s.

Josh: I mean, I could just keep— I mean, TJ, have you got questions? Because I could just keep slamming with questions.

Tommy: I'm actually getting pretty hungry. Well, I mean, where do we actually You go, TJ. Now you go, baby. Okay, where are we— where do we get our education from around nutrition? Are there resources online or things? Because I, I mean, I listen to like, you know, podcasts, and so I've got like a vegetarian podcast or plant-based podcast, and then you're also listening to like people on Joe Rogan, and it's like you've got all this information overload. Yeah, and, and it's even like you're still like, government websites, some of them still have like food pyramids up and stuff, and it's like all this information, I don't know where to look to get, you know, the latest in terms of what I should be eating.

Savina: Yeah, it depends what you're actually looking for. So obviously the Eat for Health website is for Australians in terms of just general population-based information, but then of course disease-specific, there are other— so like Baker IDI, which is like the diabetes and I'm— I work mainly in diabetes, so Baker IDI is awesome and actually based in Melbourne, so they're awesome for resources. But everyone's coming to social media now, which is why I think social media is quite a dangerous platform because there is a lot of misinformation on social media. And just because someone calls themselves a doctor, it doesn't mean they are actually a medical doctor. It could mean that they're a doctor of like I don't know, like butterflies, or, you know, they're not like a PhD, like, you know what I mean? But people don't get that. People think that like doctor means like medical doctor.

Josh: What about even medical? I feel like a lot of the docos and stuff, um, talk about the fact that there is— and I guess using examples like the pyramid to say, hey, uh, medicine, all of these things are behind. You're gonna have to take control of your own. You're gonna have to read and research. Do you believe that to be the case?

Savina: Nutrition, like, in terms of nutrition, it's an evolving science. So we learn new things all the time. I mean, if you look back at what they did for diabetes 20 years ago, it's completely different. We've moved on with those sorts of trends, and that's because it's an evolving science. Medicine as well. So medicine's always changing. We have new technology, there's, you know, new medicines. Like, look, like, look, they're looking for COVID-19 vaccine. So it's evolving. So you have to sort of look at what the most recent research is saying and go, you know, but also at the same time, be aware that research, not all research is of high quality. So you can, there's lots of research out there, but it's about understanding what is good quality research. So like animal studies, we We're not petri dishes or mice. So when like people compare us to like animal studies, we have to think that's not actually that good research. Let's keep— let's watch the space, basically.

Tommy: Um, in terms of immune boosting dos and don'ts, it's very important this time around COVID-19. What are some dos and don'ts for immune boosting?

Savina: We don't want to boost our immune system. So boosting our immune system means that we're causing harm. We want to support our immune system. So I've been seeing the, you know, things to boost your immune system. That's actually not the right way to say it, but it's all over social media at the moment. So, um, so what would boosting—

Josh: so what does that mean if you would just look at that idea?

Savina: Like, so if you think about boosting, if you boosted your immune system, people develop autoimmune conditions like celiac disease and type 2, type 1 diabetes and stuff. I mean, that's extreme, but we don't want to boost it. We want to support our immune system.

Josh: So optimize, optimize, be an appropriate word.

Savina: Yeah. Yeah. Or yet support, probably support is what I'd go for. Um, and so, you know, boring message, eat your fruit and vegetables. So everyone was freaking out about how there wasn't anything in the shops, but like the stores were still full with fruit and vegetables.

Josh: Was it a worry though? Because I definitely bought, I bought a lot of, um, black beans. And because I feel like that's the, like, the concern is it's like, ah, I need something that's gonna, like, especially like going back 6 weeks or whatever where it was a little bit sort of, uh, you know, panic buying and things like that. I think that that's obviously a big part of it, which is the, you know, how long is this produce going to last? Is there a good diet? Like, what is if shit did hit the fan and all of a sudden we didn't have access to produce that was, that had a long shelf life, what are the long shelf life products that are good from a nutrition perspective?

Savina: Yep, so like all your canned legumes and lentils, dried legumes and lentils, potato, sweet potato, they're all good things to have in your pantry. What else do I have? I'm actually looking at my pantry right now. You know, things like even like rice and like whole grains are good. Um, you can also freeze things so you can freeze, you know, frozen veg, frozen fruit. All of those things are good. Um, we won't— I highly doubt people will be in that stage where they can't access food. Like everyone thought the shops were going to close, but didn't happen. And I think everyone has enough pasta to last them till 2025, probably.

Tommy: Yeah, or at least bought the pasta machine to see them through to 2040.

Savina: Do you know what, I actually bought the KitchenAid— I've got a KitchenAid— I bought the, um, attachment for my KitchenAid, couldn't get flour.

Josh: Oh no, surely that— where abouts are you based, Savina?

Savina: Perth.

Josh: Perth, oh great.

Savina: We're doing quite well, right?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, it's going very well. We've got a Grace in Perth who's saying that's absolutely freezing Where she is, is it cold right now for you? Have you turned the heater on?

Savina: Freezing.

Josh: Okay.

Savina: But we don't, it doesn't get that cold in Perth. So if it's like, you know, 19 degrees, but like it's freezing.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just on some of the frozen stuff, how much loss of nutrients, macronutrients do you get if you freeze, say, some kind of broccoli, you know, some kind of bean mix and then reheat it? How much do you lose?

Savina: So you'll lose some from the reheating stage, because obviously you will lose some from adding an element of heat to it. But actually, so if you were to buy frozen broccoli, it's actually snap frozen. So it's probably fresher than the fresh stuff. Because think about, especially stuff coming to WA, things take a while to get here. So if you're buying frozen stuff, it's actually snap frozen. So it's quite fresh. Yeah, but hey, just to see, sort of see, you're saying we're doing it, but just in saying that steaming is better than boiling because obviously if you boil you lose all the, um, micronutrients through the water.

Josh: Unless you make steaming like, um, salting and things like adding salt. Yeah, my question was going to be how do you make steaming taste good, but like I guess a broader question, adding salt to things, salt, pepper, like seasoning Yeah, how, how much of, of a problem is over-seasoning, do you think?

Savina: Look, I think I like, I like food that tastes good, so I like seasoning my food well. And my thing is, if you're not eating heaps and heaps of ultra-processed foods, you know, we're going to have a problem with salt. So you can season your food quite nicely. So like, some people will stay away from like, you know, like sauces, like you know, the Asian-style sauces. I don't because I don't eat that much ultra-processed foods unless I'm going out or like at a party or like, you know, like at the movies or something like that. So I'm not too fussed, but you can get good flavour from, you know, like garlic. And I love garlic, garlic, chili. For the people that can't have garlic, garlic-infused olive oil is also good. So good. Chili, all of those things. You can— you don't have to sit down and eat steamed vegetables, okay? I rarely do.

Tommy: Don't worry, vegetable Josh, we're edging close to our, um, 21-hour sting, um, which I think maybe on the other side we can start getting some tips on how— like, for today, because, Savannah, we're doing a 24-hour live stream. Yeah, no sleep. Um, I mean, have you had a cookie yet, Josh? You had one?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, I had a cookie. I'm feeling a little bit sick. I've got the cold sweats going on just managing all the just multitasking.

Savina: I think you're overthinking it. Like, you know when you go on a road trip and you have snacks back of the car? Like, I'm barely down the freeway, I'm like, oh, do you guys want a snack?

Josh: Definitely. I've, uh, well, we did a whole video where the boys stitched me up, where they— we got a bag of Natural Confectionery Company lollies, jumbo one, and they all pretended we were driving to Shepparton, which is Victoria, and they, um, the boys were all eating some or pretending to eat some. And so by the end of it, I finished the bag and I thought we'd all finished it as a group, but it turns out I'd eaten all of them on my own.

Tommy: 2,200 cals.

Josh: 2,200.

Tommy: But I mean, I think Seb's had some strawberries so far. I had some porridge to start with, like probably 6 AM. We're just trying to work out Uh, how do we do this and how do we sustain some level of energy? I know we'll still be tired, but how do we get through no sleep and avoiding those slumps? What do you think?

Savina: Have some coffee.

Josh: Oh great.

Savina: Yeah, you know what, some people don't metabolise coffee. So some people, you know how some people will feel like a buzz after coffee? Some people won't because they don't metabolise coffee.

Josh: Um, they don't have the enzymes that metabolise coffee Effectively, how's the, um, what about like genetic tests to, or like getting your bloods done to try and work out what's right for you? Is that a thing?

Savina: Don't waste your money on stuff like that. I mean, in saying that though, watch that, that's a big actually nutrition space. But at this point in time, most people can just do with actually eating some vegetables and having some fruit.

Josh: Will it give any insights though, like things like, um Yeah, there's all this like gluten, fruit intolerances and all that.

Savina: Yeah, like, so at the— so the best way to cheque for, um, gluten issues is actually a small bio— a small bowel biopsy, and that they cheque for celiac disease. Gluten intolerance is an issue, definitely, but we do have, um, certain diets that look at food intolerances. Rather than blood tests. There are, um, you can look at blood tests for, say, things like celiac disease and stuff like that, but there are specific diets.

Josh: Sorry, Selena, we've just hit the hour mark. It's probably obnoxious. I probably should warn you, but, um, it is a little bit obnoxious. Yeah, I quite like it.

Tommy: Very powerful. Yeah, for some reason that's doing more than coffee. I haven't had a coffee yet, but how are you feeling after that, Josh?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, good reset. So on the, um, so yeah, the blood test thing. So is it actually— so I guess there's a difference between the blood test diet.

Savina: Have you seen the Blood Test Diet book?

Josh: No.

Savina: There is a diet called the Blood Test Diet, so, or the Blood Type Diet. I think it's a blood type diet, so you eat according to your blood type.

Josh: Okay. And so is this—

Savina: so there's a diet for everything.

Josh: Yeah. And so like, I, I sort of— you can get tricked into believing these things because it's— it has some sort of like, oh, blood tests do things. Like, I can get a blood test and see if I'm like diabetic or whatever. And so it's like, oh, like maybe I can do that to see whether I can metabolize, um, whether I should eat Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I don't know, like workout, uh, all this sort of stuff. Is there any— so there's a difference, I guess, between don't waste your money, you're overthinking it, or whatever, you're trying to over-optimize What's the scale versus that sort of in that area where it's just like, um, it's unnecessary versus being completely bullshit? Is there, is there some validity to it?

Savina: Depends what you're looking at. Like, often what I say to people, if they, they feel like there's actually something wrong with them, instead of looking it up on the internet, go to your doctor. Like, that would be the best place to start. So if you actually feel like there's something not right with you, actually seek medical advice.

Josh: Yeah, it makes sense. And so when do you go to a dietitian— a doctor versus going to a dietitian? Um, like, I, uh, we did a, uh, what did we do, a testosterone test, uh, for our episode 500? Uh, Tommy won, I, I came last, but it's not a competition really, everyone's sort of individual. But the, um, I guess when you're competing, I was— because I was sort of— I thought I was balding, so I thought that maybe that gave that was all testosterone, but it's something else. But something else. So yeah, when we're getting all the blood stuff done, like you sort of, they looked at my cholesterol and they were like, oh, you know, they were sort of giving advice or whatever, like avoid, they were talking about like avoiding, I think like yolks or whatever. And I was like, hang on, isn't this, haven't we moved on?

Savina: The poor egg.

Josh: Yeah, haven't we moved beyond the, the idea that eating cholesterol will be negative to your cholesterol. Can you clear that one up? 'Cause I don't get it.

Savina: Yeah, so the first thing to understand is that we naturally produce cholesterol. So our liver actually makes cholesterol. So understanding that first is important. And also the idea that, so when we eat cholesterol, our liver will change its rate of production. So if you have something wrong with your liver, then maybe you'll have issues with that process. But no, cholesterol from food doesn't increase our cholesterol. It's actually more the saturated fat. And of course, research now is showing us that saturated fat, there are different types. But often we see saturated fat increasing that bad LDL lousy cholesterol. So LDL lousy, so it's our bad cholesterol. In our, um, in our blood.

Josh: Rather, so is that just bad advice from the doctor then? Like, are you empathetic to these doctors, or like, should they know better?

Savina: Look, doctors don't have a training in nutrition, so I'll often hear, um, you know, people being told certain things from their doctors, and I'll just— I just say, look, your doctor has a thousand other things to know, so the nutrition side should come from, um, either a university-qualified nutritionist or dietitian.

Josh: Do we need a referral to go to like a dietitian, or could we, can we just skip the middleman and just go straight?

Savina: You don't need a referral, but, um, in Australia we do have Medicare. So if you have a chronic condition, you are eligible, depending on your GP, to seek dietary support from a dietitian under like the Medicare scheme. So it's worthwhile, um, It's worthwhile going through that avenue if you would like to, but you don't need to see a dietitian, just by your GP. I mean, I do a lot of stuff in aged care as well, so I do a lot of malnutrition-related work. So a lot of people think I just work, you know, dietetics is all around like losing weight, but it's actually about gaining weight as well.

Josh: So yeah, what about the— how much of your go-to—

Tommy: how much of what you do ends up being about the human, you know, the, the mind.

Josh: It's, it's—

Tommy: you're basically a counselor. Yeah, one part diet— signed up for a dietitian, became a counselor.

Savina: Honestly, the amount of— often we get told a lot more information than, say, because I work in a multidisciplinary team, so I work with diabetes educators and exercise physiologists, endocrinologists, and for some reason patients love telling me about all their backstory, which is, um It's helpful because obviously you get a full picture about the person, and sometimes you don't really understand why something is happening, and then when you actually find out the little backstory, it makes a bit more sense. But yeah, it's very much counseling. Food is important. So food's so much more than just nutrients. So food is emotion. So we celebrate with food. We enjoy food. I enjoy food. I sort of got into dietetics probably a little bit of a different way than most people. So I didn't get into dietetics because I was interested in health. I wasn't really interested in health. I enjoyed chemistry and science and I like food. So that's how it sort of came together for me. I was actually gonna do chemical engineering, ended up doing nutrition and dietetics.

Josh: Yeah. And what was the change? What made you sort of, you know, change?

Savina: Sorry. So I did some work experience in chemical engineering and it was just so batshit boring. And I was like, I can't do this. I realised that I actually like talking to people and, you know, like interacting with people, whereas chemical engineering isn't really that. Like, you sort of work like shift work and, you know, you're away and whatever. So I like chemistry. So I, when I found out that I could use chemistry and food together, I thought bingo.

Josh: Do you know the first 20 elements of the periodic table? That's chemistry, isn't it? Do you know the first 20?

Savina: No, I'm rusty on that. Really? I'm rusty on that.

Josh: Helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon, sodium, magnesium, silicon, phosphorus. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what they all mean, and I think I pronounce some of them wrong, but, um, it's like a Katy Perry song, you know, get it in your head. You can never forget the— you didn't, you didn't like turn it into a song or anything? You didn't have to memorise it? Nothing?

Savina: So for all our exams, we actually had the periodic table with us.

Josh: You gotta be kidding me. That's beautiful.

Savina: Because we needed the values underneath the periodic table to do—

Josh: Do you have a favourite element?

Savina: Not really.

Tommy: I like, um, you don't have to. It's a pretty obscure sort of—

Josh: magnesium's great, helps my back.

Tommy: Oh yeah.

Savina: Oh yeah, never really thought so deeply about the periodic table.

Tommy: Um, vitamin C, uh, you think you should get it like having supplements, good or bad?

Savina: I mean, don't eat it. Um, expensive urine.

Josh: Expensive urine.

Tommy: Expensive urine.

Josh: There's a tagline.

Tommy: I mean, so is a bottle of, uh, you know, Maui or something. That's expensive urine as well.

Savina: Yeah.

Tommy: At least it makes you feel good.

Savina: Dehydrated.

Josh: Oh, actually, on the expensive urine, what about like supplements in general then?

Savina: I think so. Some people, so again, going back to like vegan diets, people following certain diets might need supplementation. But again, it's in consultation with your GP, your dietitian, looking at blood work. I'm not anti-supplements. I think supplements can be I mean, I take vitamin D. That's an important supplement for me to take since I'm brown. I can't absorb the sun very well. But yeah, it depends on the type of supplement. Vitamin C, you don't need vitamin C. If you eat, like if you ate an orange, you'd get what you need vitamin C-wise. There's some research behind, you know, having vitamin C or making sure you have adequate amounts of vitamin C to like prolong the, on like the duration of a cold. But again, like just eat fruit and vegetables, you get plenty. Yeah, I think I post on that.

Josh: Um, you are an influencer now. This is the thing, you've gone from dietitian to influencer. Is it, is it hard work being an influencer on Instagram?

Savina: I hate being called an influencer.

Josh: I know, that's why I've said it.

Savina: Too bad. Do you know what, honestly, I think everyone was like, oh, I, you know, you're so— you must just live and breathe nutrition. And I'm like, to be honest, probably since I started this Instagram page, I'm probably more into nutrition than I probably was before. Like, as I said, I did nutrition, you know, there's a backstory behind it, but definitely it is interesting to see, um, I actually get a lot of— I, I get all the trolls on my page as well. They're more fun.

Josh: It's good if you can have fun with the trolls. I think you're winning, right? Because if you couldn't do it otherwise, you don't have trolls.

Savina: Are you even winning?

Tommy: Like, you know, yeah, true. I mean, we have a, um, on our YouTube, uh, live stream right now, we somehow— there was hundreds of people just commenting Trump 2020.

Josh: It was a troll, the Russian bots.

Tommy: It was the Russian bots.

Josh: That was good.

Tommy: It was all happening.

Josh: Good little troll.

Savina: Um, what do these people do with their time? I'm just like, what are they doing?

Josh: Yeah, people have time, I guess. Like, that's the—

Savina: yeah, it's one thing I have noticed with my Instagram page is people really believe their opinions are fact. And I always like saying to people, no, science is fact. Your opinion is your opinion. It doesn't make it fat.

Tommy: I mean, there's, there's science deniers now, so it's like, at what, that point, what are you listening to at all? It's— so they're probably the ones on your page.

Savina: Lots of noise. I mean, nutrition is annoying anyways because everyone thinks they know everything about nutrition. Even people in nutrition don't know everything about nutrition because it's an evolving science. So if I sat here and said I know everything about nutrition, I don't. Um, it is an evolving science, but some people are really firm in their opinions and their beliefs, putting aside science.

Tommy: As, as a nutritionist, would you suggest—

Josh: or dietitian or nutritionist, and what's the difference, by the way? I'm just—

Savina: yeah, so every diet— so it's so in Australia, so every dietitian has done, um, a Bachelor of Science Nutrition. Um, nutritionist is an unregulated term, unfortunately. Um, so it's about understanding where the person has got their nutrition qualification from. So, um, if that makes sense. So people, anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, and that's unfortunate because there's nutritionists that have done like a 4-year degree. Yeah. So it's about understanding, um, the terminology behind it. I think a registered Nutritionist is the title for, um, university-qualified nutritionist. So I'm a dietitian and nutritionist, but I go by the dietitian title.

Tommy: Look, I'll just go as an influencer, what do you reckon we drink or we don't drink tonight?

Savina: Yes, it's Friday, right?

Josh: Yeah, exactly, it's Friday.

Tommy: Yeah, no, we've got the— we've got the, uh, the—

Josh: you suggested coffee, so the espresso martinis are looking good. I think that that's It sort of kills two birds with one stone.

Savina: No, I think you did great.

Josh: Thanks so much for coming on. It was so fun.

Savina: No, thanks.

Tommy: Thanks, Savvy Dietitian.