"Everything you need to thrive you can get on a plant based diet"
Join me and my guest plant-based nutritionist and the proud owner of Yumfu, Callum Weir. His vegan journey began out of ethical considerations, but it quickly evolved as he witnessed firsthand the numerous health benefits of a plant-based diet. This revelation sparked a new passion for nutrition and highlighted the connection between our diet and overall well-being.
Callum gives us his unique perspective on nutrition as he is from England, but now lives in Australia. Together, we have a great conversation dispelling common myths like our favorite, "you can't get enough protein eating nothing but plants". Welcome Callum!
If you want to connect with Callum, visit the following:
Instagram: @yumfu.life
Website: www.yumfu.life
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WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Have a question, suggestion or comment for the podcast? Fill out form here
Plant Centered Nutrition Essential Resources:
"Everything you need to thrive you can get on a plant based diet"
Join me and my guest plant-based nutritionist and the proud owner of Yumfu, Callum Weir. His vegan journey began out of ethical considerations, but it quickly evolved as he witnessed firsthand the numerous health benefits of a plant-based diet. This revelation sparked a new passion for nutrition and highlighted the connection between our diet and overall well-being.
Callum gives us his unique perspective on nutrition as he is from England, but now lives in Australia. Together, we have a great conversation dispelling common myths like our favorite, "you can't get enough protein eating nothing but plants". Welcome Callum!
If you want to connect with Callum, visit the following:
Instagram: @yumfu.life
Website: www.yumfu.life
_____________________________________________________________________
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Have a question, suggestion or comment for the podcast? Fill out form here
Plant Centered Nutrition Essential Resources:
Welcome to the Plant-Centered and Thriving Podcast. I'm your host, ashley Kitchens. I'm a plant-based registered dietitian and virtual nutrition mentor. I was raised on an Angus Cattle Farm, grew up with a lot of GI issues and used the power of plant-based eating to promote healing. Here you'll find inspiration, ideas and encouragement for your own plant-based journey. I'm so thrilled you're here today. Let's get started.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the show Plant-Centered Listener. My name is Ashley and I am your host today, and I am so excited that you're here for another story of how someone went plant-based and he also happens to be a plant-based nutritionist. So you bet that we get into those common questions when it comes to going plant-based, like how to even respond to where do you get your protein, whether or not you should worry about it. We also talk about soy and if soy is safe to eat and, if so, how much. What does it actually mean to be plant-based and what's the difference between going plant-based and being vegan? I really enjoyed our conversation there. We also talk about does plant-based contain all the nutrients you need? So we go through these things at the end, but first we talk about Callum's story, and before we dive into that, I do want to introduce Callum, who is a plant-based nutritionist and the proud owner of Yumfoo, and he's also a journalist contributing to various vegan magazines, probably some that you've seen or even read yourself.
Speaker 1:His vegan journey began out of ethical considerations, which we talked about, and it quickly evolved as he witnessed firsthand the numerous health benefits of a plant-based diet. This revelation sparked his passion for nutrition further than it was already, highlighting the intricate connection between the foods that we're eating and our overall well-being. Now Callum helps others achieve their health and fitness goals by navigating the empowering world of plant-based nutrition. Callum goes through his story. He talks about a wild incident that happened in Budapest that just further pushed him towards going plant-based. So please join me in welcoming Callum to the show. Callum, welcome to the show. I am so excited that you're here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I'm actually really excited.
Speaker 1:Yay, well, I was so excited, so we know each other from Instagram basically, which, I feel like, is how we're a lot of our plant-based friends hang out not necessarily in real life but online, but you're based in. You're currently in Australia right now, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm currently in Sydney.
Speaker 1:I know obviously a little bit about you, what you do, but I would love for you to kind of just explain more what you like, a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I own Yumfoo, which is a plant-based nutrition company. I am a plant-based nutritionist, however, never intended to be a plant-based nutritionist. I was never on the cards. I don't even know how I got here myself, to be fair.
Speaker 2:However, growing up, I grew up with my mum as a vegetarian and I grew up with my dad as a meat eater. However, my mum slowly as I can't remember the age I was maybe 10, 11, went back to eating me. So I knew what vegetarians were, because I know from a very young age people aren't too sure what a vegetarian is or a vegan. That didn't exist. I had no idea and basically from there. So I knew what it was and I just carried on eating meat as you do. But you grow up with it and you're kind of like I was having issues and I didn't have that cognitive dissonance. It was there because at some points I knew what was happening and at some points I just kind of ignored it and I was like you know, here's what it is and you just don't really do anything about it. And then there was a few kind of standout moments that I remember along the way of going out and meeting other people that are like my teenagers, and somebody was wearing like a peter t-shirt Is it Peter, peter, one of the two, I don't know how you pronounce it. It was like a little cartoon chicken saying I don't want to be a nugget and I was like that's really cool, I love that. And asked a few questions and this girl was a vegetarian and I was like, okay, and I was very open to eating a more vegetarian lifestyle and I always wanted to go along that way, but never did anything about it. I think it was just in my mind and skip forward a few years. I then kind of opened up to the idea of it again and started eating more vegetarian foods and I was like you know what? I'm going to go vegetarian. But vegetarian in my mind was pescetarian. At that time, however, I was like you know what? I'm actually going to cut out all animals now, so going to cut out the fish. And then I was like vegetarian, that's fine, I'll be fine.
Speaker 2:And then I was in Budapest with my friends and all of a sudden, I ate this like veggie burger with a lot of cheese on it and I feel sorry for my friends that were there at that time, because that is when I realized I became lactose intolerant, and severely. I was probably lactose intolerant beforehand, but there's something on a cheese that just ruined me and I was like, okay, like I need to run, and this is in a public place, so it was very embarrassing. So I went to my mates are you okay? I'm like I am not okay, like I don't know how I'm feeling. This is horrible. And at this time I didn't realize this was the cheese. I was like maybe it's just the burger, but I was like it's harder to get food poisoning from a burger made out of beans.
Speaker 1:Yes, and usually it doesn't like happen for like hours and hours and hours.
Speaker 2:It sounds like this was like fairly soon after it was maybe like 10, 20 minutes later. So I hadn't even had time to digest the food and I was like I am in pain. So that settled down after a while. Like there was like a lot of pain. I took some tablets and I was like you know, we're good to go and I just carried on. My day. Next day did exactly the same thing and I was like, oh my God, what's going on. So I then kind of got home, I went to a doctor and they were like you're probably lactose intolerant.
Speaker 1:Like it's very likely that you're lactose intolerant.
Speaker 2:And I was like, okay, that's given me that push to then cut out trees. And I was then herring around my friends that were still more in a vegan lifestyle and I was like, just cut out the eggs, just don't have that idea. I wasn't a massive fandom in the first place and that's how that happened. That's how I kind of became a vegan. And then I was then getting all those questions. So I was like you know, you know where do you get your protein, things like that. And from that I was like you know what? I'm going to delve into nutrition, because I was always also a yo-yo diet.
Speaker 2:When I was younger, I wasn't in the best shape or anything like that. I would just go from like trend to trend to trend and see what works, and nothing ever worked. Either way, it's a loose bit, you know. Gain it back. So I started to delve into nutrition, studied that and then all of a sudden after I was like I'm not going to do anything with this, this is for myself. And next thing I know I've got a business. That's amazing, that's how that happened.
Speaker 1:So this, like it changes, sounds like it started with the pita shirt. I mean, obviously your mom was vegetarian for a little while. Then that pita shirt, like kind of you know, triggered something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think as well with a from that age as well, I did see, I saw that pita shirt and then I saw the. I saw a few animal videos online, like you know, the slaughterhouse videos and stuff. They don't particularly want to see, but they stay in your mind. So I was also very aware of what was going on and it was just that shit, that shift that needed to happen and unfortunately it did take a few more years after that, but it does for some, it does for a lot of people. You have to keep keep like things need to happen for that to happen, and so that worked out for me. So, yeah, it was the pita shirt and then it was the slaughterhouse videos back then and they kind of stayed in my mind and I was always very open to foods. I didn't want to eat meat in the first place and I thought I had to eat meat, because I had to eat meat is how I was going to.
Speaker 1:Of course yeah.
Speaker 2:Literally the only reason I was still eating it at this point was, at this point there wasn't the alternatives that there is now, and I wasn't. I wasn't aware of the beans and lagoons and that protein, because that's also not given to you as general knowledge as the young person. So I'm like, oh, if I don't eat anything, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, and so, yeah, that's how that's how it started.
Speaker 2:So it was really from an ethical standpoint. But then I think the the then when the electrocintolera came in, it became more of a health standpoint as well, and then later on down the line the nutrition came along as well for that. So that was very much on health. But the ethical side was the side that I went with first, as much as I didn't really know it at the time.
Speaker 1:Right, right, yeah, absolutely. I want to go back to the beans thing really quickly, because I feel like, growing up, the only thing that we're taught as a kid with beans is that they just make you gassy and that's it so, and then there's no desire to eat them. So, like, well, I don't want to, you know, be passing gas in class.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there's. So a very English tradition is beans on toast as well, so we grew up with this constantly, but we're only told that, like it doesn't give you gas, it doesn't really. There's not much else to it as bread butter, you know, cheese and beans. That is what it is, and it sounds very bland and boring to the rest of the world, but it is like a superior food is incredible it's. It's made me have to do it, right, however.
Speaker 2:So I was eating that and just kind of, you don't, you don't know that there's protein in it, but it doesn't say. It says on the back of a can, but no one's reading the back of a can of beans off the time. So, yeah, I just I was like, oh, this is there's nothing. There's nothing in these. These are just kind of like you know, your, as you would your your salad or anything else that you'd kind of have as a side. You just think of them as a side dish. Yeah, yep, and that was, yeah, it didn't really think anything of it, and then later in that line of like, oh, these things are keeping me alive.
Speaker 1:Heck, yes, oh, my goodness, and I feel like we need to take Callum's advice and maybe go try some like really good beans on toast when we go to a restaurant or, you know, find an English restaurant or make them ourselves and do it right.
Speaker 2:I've seen a few videos where people I assume they're doing it right and I think there's ways to really annoy an English person. And that's making tea wrong, and that's making beans and toast wrong.
Speaker 1:How was that? Because you were in the UK at the time when you went vegetarian and then vegan, like how was that transition? Because I know, yeah, the options weren't great back then. But how did you kind of find things as you went along?
Speaker 2:So going along like. Luckily, I knew people that were vegetarian and we had two kind of like alternative brands here and that was corn and that was linen carton as well, and that really the only two things that existed. You could get like a bean and chickpea burger and things like that, which most people turn nose upon, but I actually really like those things. They I sometimes I don't want an alternative or didn't want an alternative. I wanted something that was kind of a fail, healthier. So back then it was very much. There wasn't cheeses. All these things were start starting to kind of like gradually grow, but there wasn't really anything around us like yet as veggie burgers, maybe veggie nuggets and then your kind of whole foods. So I really kind of stuck to the whole foods. I had a lot of love for tofu that appeared. I was like, well, this is going to be awful. And now my favorite food. And then Tempeh started existing in the UK and I was eating a lot of that.
Speaker 2:I still would have had the alternatives at that point when they started gradually coming in, but then I realized I wasn't too overly keen on the taste of them. Like, I eat them once in a while, but if I want a. If I wanted a burger, I didn't want a burger. The taste it like something that I was trying to move away from at that point. So then, yeah, there wasn't really. So when those things came in I didn't really I try them, but most of the time I kind of leave them. But I was quite happy. I'm quite a simplistic eater as well. So like for me, tofu, beans, rice and think like just the other bits like UK on stuff on the side which sounds like some people would not know, but to me I'm so happy with that. Like I'm very simple when it comes to my food and that's fine, whereas the others I'm not. I'm not overly worried about if I could just have like a bowl of rice and stuff, I'd be happy, but I'm not writing to give me why it needs that's true.
Speaker 1:Rice is fantastic, but, yeah, we can't just live on off of rice, unfortunately, yeah. So I'm actually curious too, because you've lived in both the UK and Australia what kind of differences like have you noticed with like being plant based?
Speaker 2:Oh, such a huge difference. So England is like the capital of like vegan veganism. London's like, I think, number one in the world for your vegan food. You got vegan Burger King. You got vegan McDonald's. You got vegan literally everything you think of. Your KFC has like vegan options, which is mind blowing. I don't think, however, many years ago, that I'd ever see those yeah, those kind of places.
Speaker 1:Isn't there like a whole McDonald's that has a whole like vegan menu or something in London? Yeah, that's the.
Speaker 2:Burger King yeah, they got a whole.
Speaker 2:So in I know in Leicester Square they changed that their main Burger King to completely vegan one to what in green? Everything inside went green and they had like like their burgers and their whoppers and whatever else and the nuggets and stuff like that, everything weren't vegan in there. So I think England's very progressive in that way where I think you can go to anywhere and there'd be vegan, vegan options or you'd have like rows and rows of like vegan shops and vegan eateries and, like you know, your groceries, the supermarkets and stuff like that, and even in supermarkets you got a lot of things. Australian. Not so much there's in your main cities like Sydney and Melbourne. You've got a lot, you've got a huge amount, but I don't know if that's because purely down to tourism or it's because it is growing here slowly and I know Melbourne is very good for it. I think they were ready to like fall in the world for like being a vegan city. I think they came off of like California. However, sydney is still catching up. So there we have quite a few vegan restaurants, but in your shops there's not so much going on. Like you can get like rows and rows of tofu, but that's because the Asian influence we have here is very close. And then you got like rows of tempeh and other things, but a lot of the time it's like your whole foods that we're looking for.
Speaker 2:And then you go into, like your northern areas of like Australia where it's very outback and they never heard the word vegan. Yeah, they did not, and it was going on. A lot of them are like cattle ranchers out there or others, literally like a town of like you know, 10 houses and a shop and they're like, but they would waddle enough. Everywhere I've ever been, and even in the middle of the outback, they have alternative milks. So I don't understand. They're like oh, I never heard of like a vegan or these things that exist here, but everywhere you have an alternative milk and I've never been to a place where they haven't had one and they normally have four on offer. They normally have soy, almond and macca.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. You know it's funny. You say that because I was at a show a few weeks ago and someone we were like it was like a vegan booth basically, and we had like vegan snacks and different things and someone was like, oh, I don't eat vegan, and I'm like in my head I'm like but you don't like bread or bananas, like you know, just like, come on, it's like the same thing. It's just yeah, no animal products involved.
Speaker 2:So when people say that I've never eaten it, like I would never eat vegan, I'm like the majority of foods probably is probably vegan, unless you're eating like.
Speaker 2:unless you're eating meat or you're on a carnivore diet, then you're very much eating like your fries or like your, your bread or your like your vegetables or your sides are normally very much plant based. They may have like butter on them and stuff like that, but the majority of food that you're eating is plant based. It's just you have that meaty option and that's what you imagine. The main bit of the meal is because you want to leave everything else. But everything else around there that you are reading is very much vegan friendly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because you're a plant based nutritionist, I'm sure you get asked these from clients or even just people on the street, or if you're wearing like a vegan shirt, you know, like the pita shirt that you saw. So I would love to go through just some of these common questions and kind of just get your your feedback on them, one being I'm actually curious to see how, or hear how, you respond to when someone asks you where do you get your protein?
Speaker 2:Of course it's the it's the common question. I think it's it's. Most people are asking it from a curious point of view and, like I know, when I first went over it used to be annoying because I'd be like, why don't you know? But a lot of the time it's very, very annoying because you are growing up thinking you know me, and I'd like to point out to them that obviously what you're eating is amino acid buildups, and then we'll explain those of how our body needs them. We need these nine essentials and every plant on this planet has them in varying different amounts. So they may be like you know. They may have, let's say, 80% in one and 100% in the other, and that would count as an incomplete protein. It's not incomplete, it's just varying. But it may be higher in calcium and I'm like but you're not just eating isolated food on its own, you're mixing and matching and these things you're building and building, and building and building.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, there's gonna be some foods that have very low protein content, like your kale, for instance. Some of the leaves that you're spinaching aren't gonna have a huge amount. They got them in there, but not a huge amount. They're not gonna live on spinach. No one's just eating spinach. So once you mix and match your food over time, you're building them. Like we have a few complete proteins, that's fine. If you're gonna eat soy every day, if you want to say that, that's fine, you can and you will hit your markers with that.
Speaker 2:But the rest of your time, like when I first realized about, like, when I started like going into nutrition and just wrote down what I was eating and then put it into like chronometer, I actually realized I was actually eating a lot more than I actually actually needed as well. So all these things have it in there and you're slowly building and building and building and I was having double the amount that I needed, just by accident, and that's without even measuring. So when you are actually like, let's say you have a goal, like you want, like you know, want to be a bodybuilder, or you kind of want to like, just build some muscle and you do actually put that in, you are creating so much more than you probably actually need. So it's yeah, from like a curious mind of people. I'm just like you know what this is the stimulus, the stimulus structure. This is how it works.
Speaker 2:All these foods have it in there and it's mixing and matching and you just need to kind of be mindful of what you're eating. If you're going to eat a salad every like you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner or something along the lines of that, then yeah, you're going to have a very low protein marker. People do ask me that as well Like, don't you live on protein powders? I'm like, no, no, I'm like. But also, protein powders aren't exclusive to vegans. Protein powders have been so used constantly throughout time by, like athletes, bodybuilders, people generally just going into fitness. They use every day and like the bigger market of it like plant-based proteins is probably about 1% of the protein powders.
Speaker 1:Probably yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm like yeah, like feel free to add in a protein powder if you still think you need more. But protein is not as much of an issue as people think it is. Yeah, I think it's been marketed to be an issue.
Speaker 1:Oh, I kind of like that. I agree with you that it's been hyped up to be a bigger issue than what it is, and I think it's just because there's so so much misinformation on social media, online things that we're still believing that were told to us in the 70s and 80s that we need to like, combine our proteins and all these things, when those myths have been busted for decades, but people are still talking about them because they haven't been caught up to what the science is actually saying now, which is we don't have to worry about our protein, and the variety piece that you're speaking to is what's really important. You don't want to just live off of a salad every single day or your only source of protein coming from beans. You want to make sure you get variety in your diet and you'll be fine. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's. So. It was like until, like I'd say, seven or eight years ago, I'd never really heard of the word protein Like it's become more prevalent in this day and age. When I started going to the gym, no one asked about protein not a single person and when I was younger, I'd never heard the word. I didn't even know what protein was. And as soon as you like, and I was being very much alive without nutritional knowledge, when I wasn't eating, like when it started not eating me and I didn't have anything, I had no nutritional knowledge whatsoever. And all of a sudden, now I've got it, I'm like, oh, like it's great, like I know where to get these things from. But nobody asked, nobody was asking the questions back then. It just seems like in the last kind of like yeah, seven or eight years, that people are now kind of very much this, this where you get any protein. Why is this? What is this? Where do you get it from? Whereas before no one get.
Speaker 1:No, no, you know what it's interesting. You say that because if you zoom out and look at like the last several decades, you know we were obsessed with fat for a long, a long while, like being low fat. That was, you know, maybe before your time. But then we were obsessed with carbohydrates, being low carb, and now we're obsessed with being very high protein. And it's just interesting to kind of zoom out and just look at this like wave that we've been riding in our diet culture.
Speaker 2:I suppose I think people overestimate how much you need as well, and everybody's like high protein now, which is like great, yeah, that's great. But why are you having this much Like? What's your reasoning behind it? Like, are you looking to build muscle? If you're not, and you live in a very sedentary lifestyle, why are you having 140 grams Like there's no need?
Speaker 1:No, absolutely not, Absolutely not. I cannot agree more. Okay, I love that we touched on that. So you had mentioned soy and a question I was going to ask you. A common question that we hear is well, is soy safe to eat? Can I have it every day? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Once again. I think it's a lot of misinformation. People will assume that all soy is GMO soy, when it's like genetically modified, and the large majority of it is, but that's not normally given to humans, so that's normally given to animal feed to kind of make them to grow bigger. Soy is absolutely safe to eat From anything any study that I've read. You could be eating it three times a day and I don't think there's going to be any any issues there. I've never seen anything where the only study I've seen that says those issues was done on catfish, and that study is the one that says that soy decreases testosterone and gives you estrogen.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 2:That was done in catfish. If we were catfish, yeah, but we're not, however human. Try like human studies. I haven't really shown, however, that you're going to be high in estrogen or you're going to lose testosterone. That's never been shown, that's never been proven.
Speaker 2:And also, soy has been prevalent in the Asian diet for like a lot, however many thousand years, and most of them are absolutely fine. They're very much, very soy based where it is, like you know, tofu, soy sauce, you know tempes and other bits and pieces that have soy, soy curls and like you know your TVP bits and pieces. But I think people get once again they have, they hear estrogen and they hear phytoestrogen and think that the same thing. They're not. And I think, like estrogen, yes, and I'd be more worried if I was drinking dairy which is full of estrogen, right when it's eating, eating a soybean. It has phytoestrogens that block estrogen receptors. But apart from that, soy, soy is a very healthy, nutritious. It's being shown to, you know, reduce certain types of cancers and diseases and stuff like that. It's a very healthy food to be eating. And there's no from what I've seen, there's no upper dangerous limit from anything I've seen. So that could change in the future, and if that does change in the future, that's great, we'll talk about it.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, and going off of that like the only reason we don't recommend, like, eating 20 servings of soy a day is not necessarily because there's going to be harmful effects to you, but because if you're eating 20 servings of anything a day, then you're not getting variety into your diet, and variety, we know, is very important, like we said, to get all those amino acids and different micronutrients. So that is really the most important thing there. Yeah, I eat multiple servings of soy a day and it's amazing.
Speaker 2:I will have like a breakfast, hopefully scramble, and in the evening maybe I'll have like some sort of junk, and then on Saturday I'll look at beef too. I'm fine, I'm still alive and I haven't turned into a woman yeah, which I've been told that's going to happen to me many times by random trolls on Instagram and they're like oh, you're going to grow boobs, and that's another thing that you get as well is that you're going to grow man boobs, and I'm still yet to see them. I've been doing it for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and we've talked. I remember I've talked with you about this or somebody else, but it's like if that was truly the case, if people were going to grow boobs from eating soy, there would be a market for that and people would be making billions of dollars.
Speaker 2:Exactly why There'd be no need for plastic surgery.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:No Boob cups, literally a few portions of soy. You got those.
Speaker 1:So for you and I know this is going to be defined many different ways but what does plant-based eating mean to you? Or when someone asks you what does plant-based even mean, like what do you say?
Speaker 2:So plant-based eating. When people mention that, I will be like veganism and plant-based eating, two very different things. Yes, plant-based is many different takes on it. My version of plant-based is eating 100% plants, like I avoid all animal products at all costs, as much as I know possible that there's nothing in. So I will majority a whole foods plant-based diet. So that's what plant-based means to me.
Speaker 2:I know in some countries plant-based means, you know, had a bit of dairy or something else to it and it's still plant-based. It doesn't involve a first piece of animal product, like an animal product has, like a secondary beast, like cheese or butter, but for me it is. Everything is a plant, so everything is 100% made from plants, or as much as I know possible. Whereas people stick plant-based and veganism in the same. I am both, but veganism is an ethical lifestyle, whereas people can, you know, eat a plant-based diet and not have the ethics to water, or they can be vegan and not have a whole foods plant-based lifestyle that eaten a very much vegan diet. So it's like, you know, oreos and things like that, which is, which is also great if that's what you want to do, that's what you want to do, but for me, those two things can go hand in hand. Some people they don't, but my plant-based, completely whole foods, plant-based diet, as far as possible, that's what plant-based, I would say, means to me.
Speaker 1:Yep, I like that you made that distinction. I also call myself a plant-based vegan, just because I've learned so much about the animal agriculture and the environmental impacts of our food choices, and so it's so much more than just for me what started as health reasons. But I think it's really good to know kind of what the difference is, because when I started going plant-based, it's like, oh yeah, I'm also vegan, but it really it took a few years to kind of figure out oh, that's what vegan is, like it is. It's, it's just a different way of living. So, okay, we touched on this just a little bit. But does eating plant-based give you all the nutrients except I know we need to talk about one but does it give you all the nutrients that you need?
Speaker 2:Every essential nutrient that you need. Yes, so, apart from B12, if you're eating enough nutritional yeast, which I don't think anyone is yeah, those B12, four to five foods, I assume that you may you may be able to get enough B12. However, all the other essential nutrients that you need you can get from a plant-based diet, whether that be like a whole foods plant-based diet, maybe that be like, you know, a vegan diet, full of, like alternatives and stuff. They will be four to five, like four to five different foods in different foods, but everything that you every vitamin, every mineral, every macro, micronutrient you can get, whether that be from your you know, your proteins, your fats, your amigas, you know, going down to your ions and the ones that nobody knows of, like your copper, your like like Kohl-ion, things like that, because most people aren't aware that some of these tiny ones exist, but majority of those you are getting from your daily diet anyway, like copper is. I don't think copper deficiency is a thing, because I think most people, most people, get that on a daily basis, just on their natural foods, no matter what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some foods, some nutrients, that may need to be slightly wary of, but that's also depending on what the person's eating. So that would be I don't think that's so much your protein, but that's more your iron and that's more your calcium and things like that. If you're not eating soy or you're not eating your dark leafy greens or you're not having any like plant milks, that may be like fortified or like beans, legumes, you may be lacking in calcium, but if you do have a well rounded diet, you're going to be. You're going to have those iron. I feel like I know more people with an iron deficiency that eat me than I do that he plants.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's me.
Speaker 2:Which really says something. But I also think those people are eating a well rounded diet as well, where they are eating, like you know, the legumes, they're like iron rich foods and their pair of number of things like vitamin C, or they're avoiding caffeine before and after meals. Caffeine inhibits it. So I think out like, if you're, if you're not following guidelines, then yeah, you're like iron can be slightly lower. But if you're eating relatively healthy and you are eating your vitamin C and eating a lot of iron foods with your food would be in each meal, and avoiding caffeine, like how, four hour after, you should be getting all the iron in it as well. The small ones that people forget about, which is like iodine.
Speaker 2:Iodine is a great one and it's hard to get on any diet. It's not, it's not prevalent on any diet. So that's not just a vegan issue. That's why iodine salt was created and it's put into like bread and things like that. However, if you're eating a lot of like seaweed or like sushi roll paper stuff like that, you're getting a substantial amount of iodine from oh, omega freeze that's. That's another one. Yeah, there's various types of Omega, but if you're eating once again like seaweed or howky, you're getting a lot.
Speaker 2:If you're eating your things, like your chia seeds and your ground, your flax seeds and your various other seeds as long as they're ground up, you're still getting those, as far as, obviously, how they don't, you don't absorb the enough to having all those. They're getting converted into the immediate you need and obviously it does vary from person to person how much you you absorb. But if you're eating a once again, well rounded diet with, like these bits and pieces in amongst every day, you're not going to see issues. I had people ask me the other day like but where do you get your creativity in from? I'm like it's not an essential nutrient. Yeah, yeah, we create it. So, yes, you're essentials. Everything that you essentially need to thrive, you can get on a plant based diet. Anything that's not essential that you don't need to thrive, you sometimes you can't get a plant based diet, but that, once again, they're not essential.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And again this goes back. I get to like the variety being so important. I mean you can do any way of eating quote wrong and so that's why it is important, like Callum was saying, to have a well rounded plant based diet and also being mindful of your vitamin B12 intake as well, which you can very, very purposefully and intentionally get from food. But we always say that supplementation is the most reliable source just because it's so easy and it's really affordable.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, supplementation is going to be the best source for it, because you can be sprinkling nutritional yeast on every, every meal as much as you want, which is great. However, I don't know how much you physically need to actually get the amount of B12 that's suitable for you, so I'm never going to recommend to anyone to see how. Just to just a nutritional yeast. Yeah, take it, just take a supplement. People assume that B12 does come from like animals. It doesn't. It's not. It's not. It's not a, it's not even a vegan issue. It's a worldwide issue because it's supplemented to animals as well, or, if they are getting it, it's from the bacteria in the soil, if they've got a rich land to be eating off, which, for the majority of the time, what we've done to the world it's not. So it's very much supplementation is done to cows, animals, us, so that it's not a vegan issue when the small percentage of a population is vegan and the rest are there just of knocking them out. They need as well.
Speaker 1:Well, it goes to show that a lot of these issues aren't actually just vegan or plant-based issues. Like iron, you're no more likely to have an iron deficiency if you're plant-based or vegan. So again it just goes back to the importance of eating a well-rounded, plant-based diet to get everything that you need. So do you actually do supplement with anything in particular?
Speaker 2:So I supplement B12. If I'm having a week where I'm not eating as much like Omega-3 sources as possible, I will throw in a Omega-3 supplement. But that's only if that's one of those weeks where I literally haven't had the time or anything in there or anything that's going to be in there that's going to give me those sources. But when I'm training I will throw in a magnesium powder once in a while, just to replenish.
Speaker 2:But that's not essential or needed, it's just to help your body. Oh, a protein powder once in a while as well, apart from those, oh, when I was in England, d3.
Speaker 1:Wait when you.
Speaker 2:I feel like D3 is. That's the one that we should probably also be supplementing is D3 for everyone? Because even in Australia, even though we're like one of the hottest places here in the world, if you're sitting inside an office all day and not really seeing much sun, you can still have a D3 deficiency or a vitamin D deficiency. So yeah, vitamin D. I don't take as much here, but I will take. However, if you are living in a country like England, then vitamin D3 is essential.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. If you're in the States and you're north of that Mason-Dixon line, then you want to get your vitamin. I mean, everyone should be getting their vitamin D check, but it's probably good to take a vitamin D really for most people in the winter, especially because we're just not getting that sun exposure like we usually do.
Speaker 2:I think that I think that's the only essential one, apart from B12, that I would recommend people taking If they're not eating. A variety of foods would be vitamin D and B12. The others you can get from your diet. However, if you want to supplement them, go for it. There's no issue in supplementation. I think it's demonized a lot to supplement. However, people are supplementing on a day-to-day basis. Literally the majority of the population like supplementing in some way, shape or form, whether they know it or not. So don't be demonized by supplementation. If you need it, or it's something that's going to help you thrive, or it's going to add to your diet. If you can't get everything in, then absolutely supplement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. It's a supplement to your well-rounded plant-based diet and there's no shame in taking supplements. I am very pro-supplements. I think they can be very beneficial and, if you're an athlete or not, there's so many benefits to taking supplements and I agree, there's absolutely no shame in taking one. So I appreciate that. Ok, callan, if someone wants to connect with you or work with you because you are taking on clients, is that right?
Speaker 2:I am taking on clients, yeah.
Speaker 1:OK, all right. Where is the best place for them to do that?
Speaker 2:So the best place to do that would be mainly the Instagram, which is yumfoodlife. Also the website as well, which is wwwyumfoodlife.
Speaker 1:OK, perfect, awesome. We'll put those links in the show notes. That way, someone can easily access you, your website, connect with you on social media. Yeah, callan puts up some fun stuff on social media some evidence-based, plant-based information For those of you who like that kind of stuff, and some other videos, so you can follow along there. But, callan, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I really, really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Perfect. All right, we will catch you on the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Plant-Centered and Thriving podcast today. If you found this episode inspiring, please share it with a friend or post it on social media and tag me so I can personally say thank you. Until next time, keep thriving.