Recap: Make the most out of EVERY meal | Christopher Gardner & Sarah Berry

Summary

Podcast Summary: ZOE Science & Nutrition

Episode: Recap: Make the most out of EVERY meal
Date: September 2, 2025
Host: Jonathan Wolf (ZOE)
Guests: Professor Christopher Gardner & Professor Sarah Berry

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Episode Overview

In this recap episode, host Jonathan Wolf and leading nutrition experts Professors Christopher Gardner and Sarah Berry tackle the million-dollar question: "What should you eat?" The conversation aims to simplify often overwhelming dietary advice, offering accessible, practical guidance for making healthier food choices and demystifying the value of whole foods, plant-based diets, and smart food swaps.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "It Depends" Principle: Context Matters in Food Choices

• Key idea: There’s no single answer to “What should I eat?”; it’s crucial to consider what foods are being replaced, what they’re paired with, and individual context.

• Quote (Gardner, 00:51):

  “My first answer is, it depends absolutely. My next two follow ups are, please tell me, with what and instead of.”

• Examples:

  • Eggs vs. steel-cut oats: Decision depends on context (oats vs. eggs with sausage and bacon vs. veggie omelette vs. Pop-Tart).
  • Knowing what the swap is can often help answer the question yourself.

2. Practical Swaps Over Blanket Restrictions

• Key idea: Focus on real, sustainable swaps rather than simply avoiding certain foods. Personal preferences, traditions, and practicality play important roles.

• Quote (Berry, 01:55):

  “At Zoe, we often talk about swaps. So it’s a simple way of really explaining what you’ve just...putting into practice what you’ve just explained.”

• Takeaway: Making incremental, realistic changes is more effective than adopting restrictive diets that may not fit personal habits.

3. Shifting Dietary Guidelines: Telling People What To Eat

• Key insight: US dietary advice previously focused on what to avoid. The shift is now toward what to actually eat, to better guide people toward healthy choices.
• Quote (Gardner, 02:22):

  “Americans are incredibly clever. You know, they will find an unmeasurable number of alternative ways to eat poorly once you ask them to avoid this... It was easier to tell them to avoid that.”

4. Whole Food, Plant-Based Eating Explained

• Key idea:

  • “Whole food” = minimally processed (eat the wheat berry, not white flour; soybeans, not protein isolates, etc.)
  • “Plant-based” doesn’t require full veganism—just reducing animal products and embracing plant-based dishes.
  • Introduces the concept of the "protein flip": grains, beans, and veggies form the base, with smaller meat portions as a condiment.

• Quote (Gardner, 03:10):

  “Whole food, plant based. And whole food means just not the processed and refined things...Plant based means you don’t have to be vegan or vegetarian here. But boy, people are eating a lot...We eat more meat than any other country in the world. So you don’t have to give up all of that, but give up a lot of it and have a plant based meal.”

• Memorable moment (04:15):
  Emphasis on enjoying food through global flavors:

  “Spice them up. And then you can add smaller amounts of fish or poultry or pork...So the chefs that I work with do something called the protein flip...meat becomes a condiment or a side dish.”

5. Why Whole Foods Matter More Than Processed

• Key points discussed:

  • Whole foods provide higher satiety (fullness); processed foods tend to be energy-dense and rapidly consumed.
  • Processed foods strip away beneficial nutrients (fiber, polyphenols) and add less-desirable elements (salt, refined carbs, saturated fat).
  • Satiety is hard to measure scientifically, but whole foods generally help people feel full, eat less, and stay satisfied longer.

• Quote (Berry, 07:39):

  “We’re removing some of these great nutrients, you know, the fiber, some of these bioactives that we often talk about as nutritionists...We’re eating these foods more quickly...That’s another reason our fullness signals aren’t getting to our brain in time.”

• Memorable statistic (Berry & Gardner, 09:09):

  “A 50% difference in the rate at which they ate those calories between the ultra processed and the unprocessed foods... about 200 calorie difference I think over the day.”

6. Making Change: Finding Sustainable Replacements

• Key advice: Try out multiple alternatives for a food you want to replace. The right fit can become part of your lifestyle for the long-term.
• Quote (Gardner, 10:10):

  “If you’re going to replace it, replace it with something that is as good or better, as opposed to, there’s a thing I want to get rid of. I tried an alternative, and it wasn’t as good. So I didn’t do it. And I went back. It takes some time, but once you’ve put in that time and you’ve replaced that thing with something as good or better, you have a change for the rest of your life that you made.”

7. What “Plant-Based” & “Fiber” Really Mean

• Plant-based: More simply, plant foods have fiber; animal foods don’t. Plants are usually low in saturated fat.

• Fiber:

  • Good for gut microbiome (“party food for the microbiome”).
  • Slows digestion, stabilizes blood sugar, increases satiety.

• Quote (Berry, 12:51):

  “We know that fiber is like the party food for the microbiome as well. And that’s where we see the strongest signal...fiber is one of the single nutrients...associated with improved health.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• What should you eat? It depends. - [00:42]–[01:55]
• Food swaps & practicality - [01:55]–[02:22]
• Guideline shift to "eat this" not just "avoid that" - [02:22]–[03:09]
• Whole food, plant-based overview & "protein flip" - [03:10]–[05:03]
• Whole vs. processed foods: Satiety & nutrients - [05:26]–[09:19]
• How to make swaps stick; journey not overnight - [10:10]–[11:23]
• Plant-based, Mediterranean diet, and the role of fiber in health - [11:47]–[13:22]

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Notable Quotes

• Christopher Gardner (00:51):

  “My first answer is, it depends absolutely. My next two follow ups are, please tell me, with what and instead of.”

• Sarah Berry (01:55):

  “At Zoe, we often talk about swaps. So it’s a simple way of really explaining what you’ve just...or putting into practice what you’ve just explained.”

• Christopher Gardner (03:10):

  “Whole food means just not the processed and refined things...Plant based means you don’t have to be vegan or vegetarian here.”

• Sarah Berry (07:39):

  “We’re removing some of these great nutrients...We’re eating these foods more quickly...That’s another reason our fullness signals aren’t getting to our brain in time.”

• Christopher Gardner (10:10):

  “Pick this thing that you think is not so good in your diet that you’d like to replace and try at least five things to replace it...you have a change for the rest of your life.”

• Sarah Berry (12:51):

  “Fiber is like the party food for the microbiome as well...association between fiber and a healthy microbiome is incredibly strong.”

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Engaging Moments & Takeaways

• Vivid illustration of how contextual swaps matter (eggs with bacon ≠ eggs in veggie omelette).
• Emphasis on the practicality and enjoyment of food choices; use of global cuisine for variety and taste.
• The science behind why whole foods and fiber-rich diets are better for health and satiety.
• Encouragement to approach nutrition as an ongoing journey, not a quick fix.

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In sum:
This episode distills the latest research and expert consensus into actionable steps: focus on whole, plant-based foods; make realistic swaps; pay attention to what you’re replacing and pairing; and remember that sustainable change is a journey, not an overnight switch. Fiber and plant diversity are key for gut and overall health. And above all, enjoy the food you eat.

Transcript

[Host]

Hello and welcome to Zoe Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to.

[Sarah Berry]

Help you improve your health.

[Host]

Today we're asking, what should you eat? This is the million dollar question, one that we at Zoe have spent countless hours of podcast episodes trying to answer. However, all of this information can be overwhelming, turning breakfast, lunch and dinner into a daily dilemma. So are there any simple tips we can keep in mind to reduce the stress around mealtimes? I'm joined by nutrition experts Professor Christopher Gardner and Professor Sarah Berry, who will share their approach to this complex question and offer practical advice on how to make the most of every meal.

[Sarah Berry]

Christopher, you said to me, you know, before this recording, like, the number one thing people say to you is, doc, what should I eat? What's the starting point for answering that question?

[Christopher Gardner]

Okay, and I think Sarah's gonna be with me on this one. My first answer is, it depends absolutely. My next two follow ups are please tell me with what and instead of.

[Sarah Berry]

What and yeah, where are you now?

[Christopher Gardner]

So, you know, if somebody says, I'm really thinking whether I should eat eggs or not. And I say, well, what were you gonna have otherwise? And they said, well, I was gonna have steel cut oats or eggs. I said, well, I don't know, what were you going to have the eggs with? I said, well, I was going to have sausage and bacon. I said, ah, okay. So I really think you ought to have the steel cut oats instead of that. They said, oh, I didn't mean that. I meant a veggie omelette. I said, oh, veggie omelette, steel cut oats. Yeah, not too bad, Pretty equal. I'm fine with that. Or they said, I was going to have a pop tart. I said, oh my God, have the eggs. God forbid you eat that pop Tart. Right? And so if you put it in the context of with what and instead of what, they could often answer their own question for you knowing that part.

[Sarah Berry]

Yeah. And at Zoe, we often talk about swaps. So it's a simple way of really explaining what you've just, or putting into practice what you've just explained. So we say, okay, this is what you're currently eating that isn't so healthy. This is a healthier swap, so it can be used in the same way. Cause we have to be practical. There's no point recommending either food that people don't like, like we've already said, but also that isn't used in that kind of traditional breakfast setting or snack setting.

[Christopher Gardner]

This really Ties into. There's been a shift in American dietary guidelines. So every five years, they update the dietary guidelines for Americans. And two or three cycles ago, they made sure to talk about shifts. So for many years, American nutrition was about penalizing. Don't eat added sugar, don't eat saturated f fat, don't eat salt. But they didn't tell them what to eat. And a colleague of mine, David Katz, loves to phrase this. Americans are incredibly clever. You know, they will find an unmeasurable number of alternative ways to eat poorly once you ask them to avoid this. Oh, I found another way. That's poor too. Oh, I found another way. Well, that's poor too, because we didn't tell them what to eat. It was easier to tell them to avoid that.

[Sarah Berry]

What is a good way to eat?

[Christopher Gardner]

Yeah. And, you know, there's different names and different approaches. If I had to ask, you know, in the three seconds, I would say whole food, plant based. And whole food means just not the processed and refined things. So you take the wheat berry and you've turned it into flour for bread. No, eat the wheat berry. You've taken the brown rice and turned it into white rice. You've taken the soybean and turned it into soy protein isolate and added it to a protein bar. No, no, you should eat the whole soybean. So that's what I mean by whole food. And plant based means you don't have to be vegan or vegetarian here. But boy, people are eating a lot. In the US in particular, we eat more meat than any other country in the world. So you don't have to give up all of that, but give up a lot of it and have a plant based meal. This is where the Mediterranean sort of grain and bean based dish, which is globally, have been staples for many, many years in many cultures, partly because they store easily and they're economically feasible. Grains and beans are pretty simple food bases to start with, and that's why spices are so important. So get Moroccan spices, Mediterranean, Latin American, Middle Eastern, Asian, spice them up. And then you can add smaller amounts of fish or poultry or pork, something in smaller amounts of meat. So the chefs that I work with for this unapologetic deliciousness, do something called the protein flip, where the base of the meal is grains and beans and veggies, and then meat becomes a condiment or a side dish or just a small portion on top of that. So to me, that's very Mediterranean and has lots of flexibility for enjoying what you're eating.

[Sarah Berry]

And in a way that sounds very Simple. But I think for a lot of people listening to this, also quite unclear in comparison to diets were based on this idea. You have to remove this thing because it's sort of killing you or causing problems or. Basically everything is about calories. You're measuring your calories. So obviously you're not going to get better unless you reduce your calories, because that's what it's about.

[Host]

So maybe if we could take those.

[Sarah Berry]

Two parts one after the other. Like, why is whole food better than processed food? After all, I chew it all up and it goes in my stomach. I remember discussing this with my children at various points when it's all messed up. They're like, oh, it's okay. It's gonna be messed up in your stomach anyway, so you might as well eat it that way. So why is it that we can't have it all nicely sort of processed and prepared by the food manufacturers? We're busy people and we have to have this sort of whole food thing that you just mentioned.

[Christopher Gardner]

Okay, so I'm going to ask Sarah to help me fill in on this, because satiety and satiation are huge factors in all this that are harder to study than we think.

[Sarah Berry]

Yeah. And Christopher means how full you feel, because I know you would want us to give a simple term for that.

[Christopher Gardner]

And so this comes up for me all the time thinking. So one of my favorite authors is Barbara Rules, who wrote a book called Volumetrics years ago. And it was the volume of the food that was filling people up. And the volume tends to be much higher if it's veggies and beans and grains than if it is cheese or meat or dairy. And so eating this very satiating meal so that you get full quicker and stop eating and that it's longer till your next meal really helps here. As scientists, this is very hard to study. So I've done a number of studies where I've got diet A and diet biology. And what I'd really like to know is, after three months in the study, how hungry were you in March? How hungry were you in April? We don't have any metrics like that. All the metrics for this concept of satiety are I gave you a standardized breakfast at 8am it had 600 calories. And two hours later, I had a line from starving to very full. And I marked on the line where I was in between. Okay, how does that work for April? I can't tell you. For April, I can only tell you two hours after the standardized 600 calorie breakfast and so it's actually a harder concept to measure than you would think. I mean you can just qualitatively say, so how hungry were you? And people give quite a varied response.

[Sarah Berry]

Well, I have some good news for you.

[Christopher Gardner]

I'm ready.

[Sarah Berry]

In our Zoe app, every week we ask people weekly, not just after each meal, how hungry have you felt this week? So we will be able to look at people's diets, but we have also collected data in that old fashioned way. But where they do on a scale, say after meal, how hungry they feel. I often think about the health effects of processing also around the idea that you've talked about like the instead of what. So what's happening is we're removing some of these great nutrients, you know, the fiber, some of these bioactives that we often talk about as nutritionists. So polyphenols, we, we're adding in the bad nutrients, the salt, the sugar, you know, the refined carbohydrates, the saturated fat. We're eating these foods more quickly. So not only are they more energy dense, like you say, filling up our tummy, but we're eating them so quickly that that's another reason our fullness signals aren't getting to our brain in time. And you know, all of this means that we're over consuming the wrong nutrients. Dare I use the term nutrients? Cause I know you like me, are very food based rather than nutrient based. Eating less of the good nutrients and eating in the wrong way as well.

[Christopher Gardner]

Yep, Kevin Hall's done a nice study like that. Again, they were people who were confined and a lot of control was over this, but had an ultra processed versus a minimally processed and timed how fast they were getting the calories. And much to your point, when they're eating the more heavily processed food, they're eating more calories faster.

[Sarah Berry]

A 50% difference in the rate at which they ate those calories between the ultra processed and the unprocessed foods, which led to about 200 calorie difference I think over the day.

[Christopher Gardner]

And it was hard for that message to get to the brain in time to stop you.

[Sarah Berry]

So I think you're saying there's like two effects here. One is that the more processed food, I'm just basically going to eat it faster. It may even be designed so that I can, you know, don't want to stop eating it, so I'm just going to end up consuming more calories. But there's the second part which is you're saying the food is just worse for me when it's Been really processed, that you are losing a lot of things that now scientists understand are really important to us. And I think, Sarah, you mentioned, you know, like, the thousands of chemicals in our food, right? Because most people listening to this are like, aren't there, like, seven vitamins? Isn't that basically what there is in food? Because you see them, you know, on the great big labels on breakfast cereal, like, hey, this vitamin and this other one has been added.

[Christopher Gardner]

I've got a colleague named Mikayla Kiernan who approached this in a wonderful way, said, okay, pick this thing that you think is not so good in your diet that you'd like to replace and try at least five things to replace it. And if you're going to replace it, replace it with something that is as good or better, as opposed to, there's a thing I want to get rid of. I tried an alternative, and it wasn't as good. So I didn't do it. And I went back. It takes some time, but once you've put in that time and you've replaced that thing with something as good or better, you have a change for the rest of your life that you made. And that's, again, now it's part of your lifestyle. You know where to shop for it. You know how long it takes to make it. You know what you need ahead of time. And for me, that's why it's important that this is a journey and not an overnight thing. I tried five things. It took me weeks to look for other options. But now that I've got it, I mean, think of everyone who really, regardless of what their diet is, if they were pushed, there's three or four things that they know they like that they could get quickly. And so to tell them, don't do that anymore, have this other thing. Oh, the other thing isn't gonna be nearly as quick as a convenient. Of course not. Not until you get accustomed to it. And then it will replace that and it'll work just as well.

[Sarah Berry]

Now, you touched on sort of, I think, the first part there for what you described, sort of whole food not processed, and how if this food ends up being really processed like one, we just digest it really fast, and you get these great big blood sugar spikes. And we've talked about some of the negatives on that, I think, over the last few days. And then I think, Sarah, you're also talking about how you lose a lot of things that are stripped out.

[Host]

Can we talk a bit about the other part?

[Sarah Berry]

So plant based, which I think, you know, for some people Listening, like, what does that mean? Like, plants are things in the garden? And why is that a good thing? And how does that tie in with the Mediterranean diet you talked about before?

[Christopher Gardner]

Sure, because some of the key things that we came up with from the reductionist days was high saturated fat versus low saturated fat or fiber being good for you. So plants have fiber, animal foods don't have fiber. Very few plant foods have saturated fat. All the animal foods have saturated fat. So if you just wanted to start overly simplistically, that's a place to start to include more plants in your diet.

[Sarah Berry]

And why is the fiber good?

[Christopher Gardner]

Fiber's good for the microbiome. It's the food matrix. It slows the digestion so that the carbohydrates that you are eating that are gonna turn into blood glucose appear slowly over time. Satiating. It'll help you feel full sooner, it'll last with you longer.

[Sarah Berry]

This is something we are really interested in as well, because we know that fiber is like the party food for the microbiome as well. And that's where we see the strongest signal. So we see that the association between fiber and a healthy microbiome is incredibly strong. We know that fiber is one of the single nutrients. And I know, again, we hate to talk about nutrients that is associated with improved health. And I think that one of the strongest reasons is because of the impact it has on our microbiome as well as these other mechanisms.

[Host]

I'll leave you with one final thought. What if there was one simple habit that when repeated, could change how you feel for the better? I'd like to tell you about something that I do daily for my own health. It's called Daily 30, the gut supplement developed by our scientists here at Zoe. Daily 30 is made of over 30 hand picked plants, including seaweed, fungi and different types of fiber. It's a source of plant protein, omega 3 and vital minerals. You simply add a scoop to any meal once a day to support your health and increase the plant diversity in your diet. And unlike synthetic supplements, Daily 30 actually tastes great. It's designed to be enjoyed, because when a habit brings you joy, you're far more likely to stick with it. So next time you feel like your plate is missing extra plants, do yourself a favor, try Daily 30. It's a delicious and healthy habit that you'll feel good about, and one that your gut will definitely thank you for. By the way, whenever we talk about Daily 30 as a good source of fiber, we're required to say that it contains 4 grams of total fat per serving. Obviously, that's all amazing. Healthy fats from plants. So order yours [e-mail] daily 30. See you next time.