An intuitive approach to nutrition - Guest blog with NutriCoachMumma (Pt 2)
Welcome to the second of our blog series in collaboration with qualified nutritionist and chef Lizzi Owiredu aka NutriCoachMumma.
In part one Lizzi helped us bust some myths around cooking oils and explained some of the science behind why rapeseed oil is great choice for you and your family. Lizzi is a trained chef and qualified Nutritionist with a BSc in Nutrition and MSc in Nutrition, Health & Obesity. She practices and promotes an intuitive eating approach to nutrition which focuses on learning about your hunger and eating real foods that you want to eat with no fad diets or cutting out foods.
Tell us a little more about intuitive eating
In super simple terms it is eating what you want when you're hungry and stopping when you're full. This is a skill we're born with but there's loads of noise and influence from diet culture of restrictive diets that may yield results but cause long-term damage to food attitudes and body image. Intuitive eating involves learning to listen to our body’s biological hunger needs whilst honouring health, by eating the range of foods needed to consume a nutritionally balanced diet.
It can achieve results for the body as it helps you develop healthy habits and food freedom. Intuitive eating is a tool that you can use for life rather than a diet that you might stop, start and feel guilty about. Unless you're on a fad diet for the rest of your life, it is actually detrimental for your long term health and fat loss ability too.
You can read more about the fundamentals of intuitive eating on my website.
You work with clients who seek the advice of a nutritionist for a variety of different reasons. Do you recommend they use cooking oils?
I work with a wide variety of different clients. My clients include people with possible digestive disorders or chronic illnesses, babies who are weaning, and pre- or postnatal families to discuss eating behaviours too. I help people get free from diet-cycles too.
I also work with businesses and brands that align with my values on health and wellbeing on a consultancy level, offering expert advice and content such as nutritional information, videos and workshops.
For all clients I recommend that they use cooking oils that contain useful fats, to fuel the body and help heart health. I explain that the cooking method is also fundamental in how the foods absorb the oils and how the nutrients can then be used in the body. With Rapeseed oil you can use and access the nutrients from it at all temperatures (very low and very high). This is why it’s such a versatile ingredient to use for all cooking methods; it can also be used uncooked to make sauces, dressings and even sweet foods like my no-bake granola cups too - sign-up to the NutriCoachMumma website to get the recipe for these.
What cooking oils do you use at home?
I use rapeseed oil and sunflower oil due to the health benefits mentioned in part one of this blog and also the cost and availability where I shop. I really like that they are both neutral and versatile oils that I can easily use in sweet and savory recipes day-to-day.
Reference links:
https://www.intuitiveeating.org/resources/studies/
Romano, K. A., Swanbrow Becker, M. A., Colgary, C. D., & Magnuson, A. (2018). Helpful or harmful? The comparative value of self-weighing and calorie counting versus intuitive eating on the eating disorder symptomology of college students. Eating and Weight Disorders – Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity. doi:10.1007/s40519-018-0562-6: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30155857/
Bégin C, Carbonneau E, Gagnon-Girouard MP, Mongeau L, Paquette MC, Turcotte M, Provencher V (2018.). Eating-Related and Psychological Outcomes of Health at Every Size Intervention in Health and Social Services Centers Across the Province of Québec. Am J Health Promot. 2018 Jan 1:890117118786326. doi: 10.1177/0890117118786326: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29986603/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4837738/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128181881000074
https://ojafr.ir/main/attachments/article/150/OJAFR%2010(6)%20297-301,%202020.pdf
https://lipidworld.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12944-020-01330-7
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0023643820300669
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13197-019-04193-8
https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/no-need-to-avoid-healthy-omega-6-fats