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Eat for Life: Preconception through Perimenopause with Torie Borelli Hall
•Dr. Susan Fox
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We talk about nutrition quite a bit on Health Youniversity, because what we eat influences so many aspects of our health, including fertility, pregnancy, postpartum recovery and the hormonal changes that come later in life. But knowing that nutrition matters and knowing what to put on your plate every day are two different things. I wanted to get into the specifics of which foods provide the nutrients we need and how to make those foods part of everyday family meals.
My guest, Torie Borrelli Hall, is a functional nutritionist, founder of The Vida Well and author of Eating for Life: A Holistic Cookbook for Pregnancy and a Thriving Family. She has worked in nutrition for nearly 20 years, helping women with fertility, pregnancy, postpartum health, hormonal concerns and autoimmune conditions. Her interest in reproductive health became especially personal through her own experience with pregnancy loss and trying to conceive again.
Torie was 15 weeks pregnant when she went to an ultrasound appointment, without her husband, and learned that her baby no longer had a heartbeat. After her miscarriage, it took another year to conceive. On the very day she became pregnant again, although she didn't know it yet, she attended an IVF consultation where she was told that her AMH was 0.003 and that she had only a 3% chance of conceiving naturally. The following day, she had a positive pregnancy test.
Having experienced a loss, Torie found herself approaching her next pregnancy with considerable anxiety, checking her progesterone and hCG levels weekly. During that time, she began looking closely at prenatal vitamins and thinking about how many of those nutrients could also come from food. That curiosity eventually grew into her cookbook, which contains 120 recipes organized around nutrients and nutrient-dense ingredients, including bone broth, egg yolks, organ meats and other traditional foods that have largely disappeared from many American kitchens.
We spent time discussing how these foods can support women through different stages of reproductive life and why the nutritional needs of pregnancy deserve more attention than simply taking a prenatal vitamin. Torie wrote the book over two pregnancies with her co-author, chef and food photographer Eric Wolfinger, who was also doing much of the cooking at home while his wife was expecting.
Another part of our conversation focused on environmental exposures, something I address regularly with my fertility patients. We looked at everyday products, including laundry detergent, bedding, toothpaste and canned beverages, and talked about making informed choices without becoming overwhelmed by everything we encounter in our homes. We also discussed functional testing, when additional investigation may be useful, and the importance of considering sperm health as part of preconception preparation.
One of the more personal moments in our conversation came when Torie recalled asking her midwife what she had done wrong after her miscarriage. Her midwife reassured her that she hadn't caused the loss. I think that's particularly important for women to hear, because it's so common to look back at everything you ate, did or didn't do and wonder whether something could have changed the outcome. We can take meaningful steps to support our health before pregnancy while recognizing that many pregnancy losses occur for reasons outside anyone's control.
I especially enjoyed the practical part of our conversation. Torie shared how she prepares proteins in batches, turns a roast chicken into several meals and introduces her children to foods such as pâté and clams. Her four-year-old even makes the family salad each evening. We talked about how to involve children in preparing food, how to make nutrient-dense meals manageable when you're pregnant or caring for young children, and ways to work with picky eaters without making every meal a struggle.
These are the kinds of habits that can continue serving a family long after pregnancy. The principles we discussed, including adequate protein, nutrient-rich foods, blood sugar balance and reducing unnecessary environmental exposures, remain relevant as women move through perimenopause and beyond. Nutritional needs change with age and life circumstances, but learning to prepare and enjoy nourishing food is something we can carry through every stage.
This episode may be especially helpful if you are:
Trying to conceive naturally or preparing for IVF or embryo transfer and want more specific guidance about nutrition
Pregnant after a loss and looking for practical ways to support your health
In your first trimester and finding it difficult to eat well
Pregnant or postpartum while also feeding young children and managing a busy household
Concerned about blood sugar balance or gestational diabetes
Looking for ways to introduce more nutrient-dense foods to picky eaters
Interested in how nutrition supports hormonal and metabolic health through perimenopause and beyond
My hope is that this conversation gives you some new ideas for meals you can actually make and enjoy. You may find that preparing an extra portion of protein for tomorrow's lunch, adding a nutrient-rich ingredient to a familiar recipe or involving your children in making dinner is a useful place to begin.
Listen to my conversation with Torie Borrelli Hall on Health Youniversity and learn how food can support your health from preconception through perimenopause.
Hello and welcome to today's episode of Health University, where we talk all things fertility, pregnancy, and perimenopause. And today we're going to talk about something we talk about a lot, and that is nutrition, but we tend to do the 30,000-foot conversation about yes, it's important, yes, get some protein, yes, eat organic and things like that. But today we have with us a functional nutritionist who's going to really take a deeper dive with us into what are specifically the things that we need to do. She's a functional nutritionist, an author, and the founder of the Vida Well, the good life. She specializes in fertility, preconception, pregnancy, postpartum, hormone health, and autoimmune conditions, which are always often tied together, right? Struggles with any of these, helping women use nutrition and functional medicine to better understand and support their bodies. After navigating her own journey with infertility and miscarriage, I'm sorry, Tori became especially passionate about helping women prepare their bodies for pregnancy and feel more empowered around fertility and reproductive health. She's the author of the Mexican Keto Cookbook and her newest book, Eating for Life, a Holistic Cookbook for Pregnancy and a Thriving Family, which begins before pregnancy, which she wrote through two pregnancies and some postpartum exercises. The book combines evidence-based nutrition education with 120 nutrient-dense recipes. And that is such a godsend because half the time we're like, okay, I know I should, but what do I do? Designed to support women from preconception through pregnancy, postpartum, and feeding a growing family. She's also a mom of two and brings together her clinical experience, her personal fertility journey, and her real life experience of motherhood to make nutrition feel practical, nourishing, and sustainable. So welcome, Tori. Thank you so much for being here with us today. And I really look forward to diving into the book. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Really delighted to have you here. As I said in the preface, you know, we we talk about the importance of nutrition and hydration almost daily, but we tend not to give the give the receipts, give the goods. Like this is what you should do and why. So we're gonna let let's start with your own origin story. You know, so you you mentioned that you had struggled with infertility. You know, what happened and how did your discovery of nutrition and the importance of nutrition change the move the needle for you?
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, I I have been in the nutrition world for almost 20 years working alongside doctors. Um, and then I decided to open up my own practice because um alongside the doctors, you know, it I worked with a cardiologist and um we we did a lot of lab work, and I just saw I saw a lot of the same patterns, and I really wanted to kind of really have a more focus on female health and some of the things that I struggled with through my whole health journey through my whole life. And um when I got married, I you know, I just thought you spend so much of your life trying not to get pregnant that it's this really easy thing to just get pregnant. And I know so many people listening or women listening have thought the same thing, and then when you go to do it, um, it's not that easy. And you know, so I guess you just have this misconception that like you just try and it happens, and so um I got pregnant after six months of trying, which is pretty, I would say, on the average to time. And um my husband is actually away on a hunt, and I went to get my full first ultrasound at 15 weeks, and they very rudely told me there was no heartbeat, and it was just a very eye-opening experience. I feel like it was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to like hear. Of course. Um, and I remember I come from a Mexican-Italian family, and my mom like was like, I didn't never knew anybody that had a miscarriage, and it was just like it, I just felt very, very alone.
SPEAKER_03
I I I'm gonna suggest that she never knew that her people have had miscarriages because it was such a quiet and and and uh and almost shame-filled thing. Of course, it's so regrettable that you know, we really should know how frequent this is. We really should know how common fertility struggles are, especially now in our more toxic environment than our grandparents lived in. So I'm sorry, that must that must have doubled down on the hurt.
SPEAKER_00
It was really, it was really painful. And you know, I've always been, I've always struggled with my health since I was a little girl, but never, I like never looked like at like I was fine from the outside, but just like little things like thyroid issues and and you know, IBS and gut issues and things like that. But I always was doing my own research and learning on like, okay, how do we heal this through food? I come from a really foodie family. Um, my dad owned restaurants, we never ate out everything we cooked at home, and and so I remember being, you know, in this time of like you're losing all this blood. And I actually have thalassemia, which is a genetic, you know, anemia type pattern to put it really simply. Um, very common in Italian heritage. And um so I was like, you know, I was bleeding a lot. I knew I needed to support myself. I had midwives, uh, friends that were helping me. And so during this process, um, I just learned so much, right? And um sometimes I have to like remind myself that when things happen to me, like I'm able to help more people, but when you're in it, it's really hard, you know.
SPEAKER_03
And so um you want someone to help you. Yeah, yes, you can take you can take that uh Chiron wounded healer and turn it into healing for others, but first we need to heal ourselves.
SPEAKER_00
So from that, um I actually it took me a year to the day to get pregnant. That day that I got pregnant, I um I decided, well, because I still hadn't been, I still didn't know I was pregnant, so I had decided that I was gonna do an IVF consult because my girlfriend was like, just do it. And I was pretty in my head, I was pretty against it. I don't know why, but I just felt like I didn't need it, right? And I had done all my labs, I'd worked with all these practitioners, like so. Anyway, I did this consult not knowing I was pregnant, and and the IVF doctor had looked at everything and she said, You have an AMH of 0.003, you have the eggs of a 60-year-old, and you have a 3% chance of ever getting pregnant on your own. You should have started, you should start, you know, doing therapies now, basically. And I remember being just like, you know, so heartbroken. And I know that like they talk to people all day long, and it wasn't personal, but it was a really hard thing to do.
SPEAKER_03
But it is personal. I I want to interject, please, to say that each time any of us is speaking to another human being, it's personal. And whether or not we've had 10 patients prior presenting with enough enough, you know, similar evidence that we feel we can really roll that off. And I'm saying this to hear myself say it as well. I know I've been guilty in the past of the same, and I really regret not having taken the breath and taken the moment and and realize, oh no, this is a different human being in front of me that I that I re who I really need to care about. Um, and so since that realization, since that sort of wake-up call on my own, where I really felt terrible about noticing that I had um just kind of tried to plow through, power through the initial appointment, um, I can tell you with assurance that that won't happen again.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was a really it was a hard thing to stomach, and I remember like just crying all day with my husband, and like then I was like, I got an alert on my phone, like, you're four days late. And I was like, no, that's weird, but you know, I've never had a consistent cycle my whole life. I've struggled with hormone issues since a little girl, and I was like, I really wasn't phased by it, and then the next the next day I took a pregnancy test and I was pregnant, and it was like the most like you know, your your heart strings are being pulled in every way because you just were told that you can't get pregnant on your own, and then I'm pregnant, and you know, there was I was really scared that first though that first pregnancy, I should say, the whole time. Um, because you like once you've had a loss, like every little feeling, every little thing, like is there gonna be blood in your underwear? You know, that feeling. I because I I run a lot of lab work in my practice, this was probably not a benefit to me, but I was like running my progesterone and my HCG every single week and like being crazy. Um but uh it was just uh so during this process, um, something that I thought was really interesting is like okay, one thing that's like across the nation that everybody does is they take a prenatal, right? So, what is inside of the prenatal? It's the it's made up of these nutrients and vitamins and minerals, and what foods contain those? And so that became kind of like the thesis behind my book and behind these core principles that I think are really important. Like, what foods do these like are these these nutrients contain and where do they come from? And why aren't we just eating them?
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
SPEAKER_00
And then when you look at sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_03
I was gonna say, but and that being said, I always feel um that I need to be mindful of sort of um standard, you know, medical recommendations. This is not to say eat and don't take your prenatal, right? This is to say eat well and take your prenatal so that you can really reinforce the nutrients that you need to sustain a healthy pregnancy.
SPEAKER_00
Right. And I think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the reason, because if you talk to like, you know, my mom's era, like they never took a prenatal. And I think if you really look at what happened in this time, is that you know, our our food doesn't contain the same nutrients, we've moved away from whole animal eating and eating the organs and eating, you know, the bone-rich soups with the skins on and all the things because of convenience. People are eating a chicken breast, you know, and not the the liver and and the innards, you know, cartilage, right? Cartilage and all the things. And so um we've had to supplement with supplements. And so going back to that ancestral way of eating and eating, you know, and some of these foods are told we're told by the CDC that they're not safe. Um, and we have a lot of food rules. That's why one of the one of the chapters is called food rules because it's kind of a play on word, but you know, really looking at okay, why can't we have a runny egg and where does that come? Like, why does that rule take place? Okay, well, salmonella and the egg, wait, where does salmonella come from? Oh, it actually comes from like the outside of the egg. So make sure you're handling eggs properly. If you're gonna have a raw egg yolk, and you know, I'm not telling you to go against the CDC, I'm telling you to be smart about your food choices. And if something smells off, don't eat it when you're pregnant. But like if you um, you know, are wanting to really increase these nutrient-dense foods, if your body's craving sushi, there's a reason. You know, if your body's craving oyster, there's a reason. You know, I really believe that like intuitively our bodies know. And like there's really common cravings uh across pregnancy that are linked with these nutrients, right? Um, and so I built my chapters around these nutrients. So we have like a bone, bones chapter, we have an egg yolk chapter, we have an organ chapter, and then you know, really going back to just like the principles that I teach in my practice and that I know you understand are, you know, eating protein to balance your blood sugar, no matter if you're pregnant or not. If you have a toddler at home, or if you're a grandma, or maybe you have an autoimmune and you're not you have low energy, like these principles are for everyone eating enough fiber, so getting a rainbow of vegetables and um hydration with minerals and making sure your water's clean, and you know, something that I did on myself during this process is like looking at my toxic load. Um, I run a lot of the vibrant total tox panels, and it's sometimes crazy what I see on there, and like I'm like, oh, this makes so much sense. Like I can read lab work, but I can't. Sometimes I don't know, you know, maybe you were exposed to something when you were younger, or maybe you had amalgam fillings and you never told me during our console because you just forgot.
SPEAKER_01
Right.
SPEAKER_00
Um, my husband actually had 16 amalgam fillings taken out after my miscarriage because I was like, I I mean, I don't know, like it could be contributing because both both people contribute, even though people forget about that.
SPEAKER_03
Exactly. You know, it is sperm health is equally as important as egg health. And so therefore the gents, the male partners, the the donors, uh, even if it's a donor, we need to make sure that that we have healthy sperm and that we're not having DNA fragmentation due to poor nutrient support and reactive oxidative species in the sperm itself. So, yes, I think that was actually a very wise choice for for getting pregnant and for his whole health.
SPEAKER_00
Yes, absolutely. And I just think it's missed a lot um looking at toxic load, you know, everybody's aware that you know plastic's bad, but they might not realize that some of these things that they're putting on their body is a hormone disruptor. And it's just it, I do a lot of digging in my practice. Um I it was really hard for me because I've already done all of these things for my whole life. Like, I I feel like unfortunately I'm extreme because I know a lot, right? I uh and so when I was having my infertility and when I had my miscarriage, I just like I was like, but what did I do wrong? I remember asking my midwife who she's been a midwife for a very long time and she's a good friend, and she was just like, You didn't do anything wrong. Like your body is so smart that like something wasn't right, and that's why that happened, but you can't blame yourself, like it wasn't the egg yolk you ate, you know, or something like that.
SPEAKER_03
And so so that being said, however, no, it it it it is true, one has not done anything wrong if the embryo is not going to develop properly, and if a miscarriage or or or you know cessation is the natural consequence. That being said, there's much we can do right in order to better prepare. Um, because absolutely we have the same conversation in my private practice and in my online course about the importance of doing an audit of your of your of your kitchen, of your water, of your personal care products, of your household cleaning products, of you know, so many things. And we we I I often have women saying, Well, I'm drinking plenty of water, and here's the can of my sparkling water that is lined with BPA. And I think, well, there you go. And you know, it again, no one's doing anything wrong, but it's that it's that dilemma of we don't know what we don't know. And so that's why you and I are having this conversation today. What don't people know that you want them to know about things to avoid and things to really double down on?
SPEAKER_00
So as far as like, and I think you nailed it on the head with like start with your home, start with the things that you're exposed to the most, like your bed, right? You spend a third of your life in your bed. You know, maybe you can't afford a non-toxic mattress right now, get it on your list, but but your sheets, your what you're washing your clothes with. I had a woman who had cancer that was bleaching her underwear, and I was just like, she just didn't even think about it. She was like, I don't know, my mom just did that, that's how we were raised. And and yeah, just just things that lotions and things that you're putting on your hair because it's touching your body, just all these things, toothpaste like right into your bloodstream. Mm-hmm. And yeah, the lining of food. So I we I used to do this thing. I don't have the time anymore, but like a pantry, a pantry edit, and I would go through, you know, everything with them. And now I have more of like a little, like how you were saying, like in their intake form, I just ask, like, you know, do you eat canned foods? Do you eat, you know, a lot of packaged foods? Because these things do add up. Um, and it is really overwhelming for someone that, you know, let's say I most of the people that come to me are already very aware of things. And I would say 90 of the 90% of the people that the the clients that come to me have been told by their doctors that lab work looks fine.
unknown
Right.
SPEAKER_00
And they haven't looked at it functionally, and they haven't done a GI map, and they haven't done an oat test, and they haven't done a total tox. And so we add these in.
SPEAKER_03
I want to interrupt one second so the listening and viewing audience knows what that is. A GI map is a stool test that will test, you know, healthy bacteria, bad bacteria. Are there any antibodies that they see like a celiac kind of presentation? And I'll let you continue. An oat test is oh, sorry.
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so the GI test is a stool test. Um, we're real we're really looking at, you know, bacteria and candida and fungal and E. coli, staph, those kinds of things. Um, I would say that's one of the most common things that I look at special for because gut health and thyroid health and hormone health are all connected.
SPEAKER_03
And absolutely hormones begin in our in our gut. Our our our microbiome is part of our estroblome. So, you know, that it's part it's what's helping to create our estrogens as as well. I was gonna say as females, but even if they're even for males, right?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and and I actually do a do a lot of kids' tests, and that's an easy test because you just collect their stool and it tells us so much. Um oat. What is oat? So the organic acid test. Uh uh test, yeah. So um the oat test is a urine test. Another one I do a lot more on kids, but it tells us so much about like metabolic pathways and things like that. Uh the total tox is also a urine test. And that looks at heavy metals, plastics, phthalates, uh, mold. It's one of the easiest ways that I can. I mean, I already kind of know through their labs, but I'm like, let's just do this because something's missing. Um, what else? Um, glyphosate, TFAs. Yep. All of these things that are hormone disruptors and then we kind of dig in to be like, where is this coming from? You know, okay, this is where it could be found. Are you eating tons of grains? You know, if there's no mold in your house, like this is this could be another source. Or did you do you work in a moldy building? Is your kid going to school in a moldy um school? So this kind of allows us to like put the puzzle pieces together and dig and and find these root causes. Um, and you know, it's it's it I have I think now 12 women, and I'm so proud of this, that were going to do IVF. They had it scheduled and they worked with me for preconception, and they all are pregnant before they did their IVF. And a lot of it is because unfortunately, sometimes they're not even testing the right things. They don't have a full thyroid panel. You know, they're are they even ovulating? They're never even checked, you know, like just little things that seem so standard, but a lot of it is stress and toxins, I would say, that with the women that I work for. We live in a really toxic world and people women are really stressed out. Yes.
SPEAKER_03
I've had similar, you know, um, experiences where women were told donor egg is your only way to grow a family. And so I'll just say let's work concurrently because I will never tell someone don't go to IVF. Of course. There are many reasons why people would go to IVF and many reasons why it might be appropriate. If they want to have three or four children and they're 38 years old, then then having some banked embryos is a good idea. That being said, back to our other conversation, the egg and the sperm are only going to be as healthy as the people offering egg and sperm. And so the the importance of preconception care is critical before either a pregnancy or an embryo transfer or and through pregnancy, yeah. So I've put together a free 28-day detox masterclass that you can access by clicking on the link below. Let's talk about your book. So, I mean, it's it's a beautiful book. I mean, truly, the the the the the it's just replete with with recipes and and photos, and it just makes you want to really just you know clean out your kitchen and start afresh because it's all fresh. So tell me about the process, because I think you've got a co-author on this book. How did that collaboration come about?
SPEAKER_00
So Eric is my co-author, he's a James Beard Award uh photographer, food photographer, and um also a trained chef. Um, you're in the the Bay Area, so he's done a lot of books up there with a lot of the restaurants and chefs like tartine and things like that. Um, Eric is actually from we're both from San Diego. His younger brother was one of my really good friends growing up. And when I moved to San Francisco to go to nutrition school at Bowman, um I had worked with a doctor who specialized in diabetes. And um, we were able to do like this pro bono case where it was the worst case of diabetes this doctor had ever seen. I worked, uh, it was a Mexican woman, and I'm I speak Spanish, I'm half Mexican, and so I was able to like take her food and basically make it keto and anti-inflammatory, and we were able to quote unquote cure her diabetes with low dose metformin and eating this way in three months. And um I think I want to repeat that in three months. Three months, yes, and and she one of the things that was so was amazing because she was like, I was never hungry, I gotta enjoy these foods. I never felt like I was on a diet, and I've never felt better. I can't even believe this. Like everybody should eat this way, and so I, you know, we worked with hundreds of people and did the same thing, right? And so I left there and I was like, I want to share this with the world. Like, I want to share that these recipes being Mexican, I have so many family members with diabetes and obesity. And long story short, I reached out to Eric about like, you know, if you're gonna reach out to somebody, you're gonna reach out to Eric who about, hey, could you help me? And he was able to help me do a proposal and get my book in front of a big publisher. I mean, not my book, my proposal. And then he helped me um write the not write the book, he just did the photos for Mexican keto. And then now that was 2019. I this was like, you know, all the recipes I Created while I was trying to get pregnant while I had my first baby, my first uh son, and then um just through working through just kind of how my brain works, okay. Like I do like my first trimester, I did not want to eat a vegetable, like I couldn't even look at a vegetable. Did I want to eat an egg? No, and so I knew the benefits of choline, and you need to have the browny egg. So I would, I I figured out a recipe to put it in, you know, in all these different ways, whether it's in your marinade, your in your pasta or in your latte or um in your salad dressing or whatever. So anyway, I went, I came to Eric to be like, okay, do you want to shoot this book? What do you think? And he was like, I cooked for my wife for both her pregnancies. I'm the cook in the house, and I wish I had a book like this. So let's let's see if one exists. And so we sat, I had already, you know, 20 books from Lily Nichols' amazing book, but you know, the back has text recipes that are this big that aren't, you know, they're not beautiful and they're not inspiring because you need you people, you know, cook with their eyes and eat with their eyes, and absolutely we need all of our senses.
SPEAKER_03
And I before we continue because I back to your patient who you reversed diabetes in three months, what pinged my mind was gestational diabetes. So eating this way can really help avoid the deep, you know, the the rabbit hole, if you will, of gestational diabetes when you know blood sugar metabolism goes sideways anyway, right? It just does. Yes. So the onus is upon mom to really dial in her nutrients so that she's not having spiking blood sugar and spiking insulin. And this book helps accomplish that as well, correct?
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
SPEAKER_03
Both of them, both of them, I both of them, exactly.
SPEAKER_00
So so um, you don't have to be keto to eat my first book. It's really more like ancestral eating, but keto was really hot, and my publisher shows I see, you know, and and now ancestral eating is really hot, so I know, right? I could change the name.
SPEAKER_03
You can kind of put up out a second edition and and rename it.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so this book we actually self-published, so we were able to have a lot more control. Um, but this book is like during my, you know, when you don't have a kid yet and you're just pregnant, you feel like you have all the time in the world, right? And then you don't realize when you have a toddler and you're pregnant, things are way different. Like the Instapop became my best friend. And instead of you know, doing these slow cooked bone broths, I figured out okay, I can make that same nutrient-dense bone broth in the Instapot in a quarter of the time, maybe even less. Instapot, air fryer, all of these things. All the things these tools are definitely great if you're a busy mom, you're working, and you want to get food on the table. So all of the recipes have some type of variation. We also really believe in um, you know, having a plan. And that doesn't mean like a meal plan, but like maybe your day is Saturday or Sunday or Tuesday, whatever, whatever your day is to make that plan. I always recommend like planning out your protein. So I always, you know, make a batch of of soft-boiled eggs. I make um, you know, a batch of some shredded meat or um a roast chicken or you know, these things, uh a fish salad or a sardine salad. And so I have these proteins built for the for the week, and then you could easily assemble a soup, you could easily assemble tacos or or whatever you need, or have a quick lunch, or the kids have lunch boxes packed. Um, it takes away that that after work, uh, you know, after school, just sure.
SPEAKER_03
When you're hungry, there that is not the time because there literally isn't time to first think about what you want to have and then prepare what you want to have. And so therefore you're grabbing something, you know, of not even fast food in the t in the way we define fast food now, but even at, you know, at the at the deli counter of your local, you know, fine market, you're still not getting the full benefit of the foods that you would have otherwise prepared and that are in the fridge almost like a salad bar in your fridge.
SPEAKER_00
Exactly. Yeah, and just like prepping your vegetables, cutting up the cucumber and the carrots, and washing your fruit and having just these simple things. I tell people if you spend two hours twice a week, you have set your family up for success. And we we give you those principles. So one of the uh examples would be like, you know, if you have a family of four, or if you have a family of more, you would do two roast chickens, but so you roast your chicken, and then that night, you know, we have you roasting it with vegetables, you could do a side salad, but your dinner's ready. Then you take the rest of the meat off and you and you put the bones in some water with some aromatics, and and now you have this beautiful, nutrient-tense bone broth. So now you have shredded chicken and bone broth. You can do uh our chicken tortilla soup, you could do our immunity soup, you can make enchiladas, you could do lettuce wraps with this really yummy um sauce that Eric makes with like nut butter. It's like a little Asian-y, it's so good. And then um, you know, you really have all these all these different recipes that you could make with that thing. Because I I'm not one to like eat the same thing every day. I have clients that are like Tori, just tell me what to eat, but that's not what Eric and I are.
SPEAKER_03
I actually kind of take issue a little bit with that because it's almost impossible to get the the variety of vegetables that you need, for instance, to really feed your good flora in your microbiome if you're having you know chicken and broccoli and rice every day. Yeah, I totally that's you're you're feeding whatever will take the chicken, broccoli, and rice, and then all of this this other good bacteria is starving because it needs something else.
SPEAKER_00
Right. And I do a lot with kids that have eating issues, um, from from young ones to to older ones that their moms are like, they won't eat anything. And I really believe this begins in the womb, what you eat. I mean, if you saw how Eric and I's kids eat, you would people like when we were just in Spain, people would stop us and be like, I cannot believe your kids are eating clams. Like my son's favorite food is clams. He would want to eat clams every night. But I'm like, I think that's because that's how I ate, and that's also like what we what we cook. Like we we don't make special meals, they eat what we eat. And I promise you that like if they're gonna go to bed hungry, that like the kids are super intuitive. They're gonna eat, and they they also there's a study that shows they have to to you have to show a food to them, whether it's on the table or they're a part of it and cutting it 12 to 14 times before they put that food in their mouth.
SPEAKER_03
Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_00
And so that's and that's hard for a mom. Imagine 12 times being shut down by that bell pepper or whatever it is. And I always make this example. I have this pate, the the recipe is in both books, and I tell people, make it like a dip, like make it like how you would put out hummus, put a bunch of stuff on the sides, like maybe some cut up carrots and bell peppers and whatever, broccoli, and then maybe do like one cracker and then put it out for the kids and just tell them it's hummus, and I guarantee they're gonna eat that pate. And so many of my friends are like, I can't believe my kid is eating this pate with bell peppers, but you know, there's also just maybe big cousins eating it or or the friends eating it, and they watch them do that.
SPEAKER_03
So it and even if if it's mom and dad eating it, right? You know, like that we we we mimic when when we're littles that we we we and we want to have what someone else has. And it's only it's only when we when the parent, and again, this is not this is not criticizing anyone because we we always want to try to accommodate, but when that parent, and I've been guilty of the same, is putting out the same thing that we know the child will eat, right? Their palate does not get to expand. And so therefore, then that next taste feels and either the texture and the taste is is odd to them. And so they determine they don't like it. Whereas if from the get-go they had all of these things on their on their table or on their high chair tray, um, they they're going to experiment.
SPEAKER_00
Uh yeah, I I I see it very often. And I think also like it's hard as the mom. Like, I'm not gonna, it is hard to like give a food and and it'd be thrown on the floor, or you know, they don't want to eat it. But I promise you, like little trying little things. I mean, my my the first foods, you know, give them a bone marrow, give them some pate, like give them these things, and I promise you you'll be surprised. Every kid that I've ever had try clams or oysters have loved them.
SPEAKER_03
So that's so interesting. I remember my daughter when she was really, really little, would love tuna, like an ahi, you know, and sashimi. Well, they get not quite sashimi, it's kind of seared, but it had all of the flavors to it, and I was kind of stunned that she wouldn't want to eat it. That change over time, because again, the change of our palettes will change as we as we grow. Um, but you know, that of course, then eventually she circled back to to loving it again. But the point being that we have this presumption that that children, the littles, only want to eat something bland and more sweet forward when truly they they are interested. And if we feed that interest, literally feed that interest, we're expanding their palate and and they're more inclined to go for something savory or something bitter even the next time.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and getting them involved. I I people are always commenting on my social media, like, I can't believe you're letting your kid use a knife, or I can't believe that like your son wants to help you, like that's so awesome. And I'm like, Yeah, but I've always like had him be a part of it. Like he makes the salad every single night. He makes the dressing, he makes his own scrambled eggs, and he's he's four.
SPEAKER_03
I love that.
SPEAKER_00
And my daughter wants to, she's two, she wants to too, but you know, the eggs are half the eggs on the floor, and you kind of have to get over that you're gonna have a messy kitchen because you have to just remember that these are developmental gifts that they're gonna take on, you know, to be able to cook when they're older. How many young like I know so many friends that don't know how to cook, right? And they're like, I wish I would have learned, or I wish my mom would have let me, or my grandma would have taught me, or I wasn't interested. So, and you know, the if they're cutting something, they're gonna put it in their mouth, right? So if you're having them, you know, I last day my daughter was like ate the whole avocado before she put it in the thing, and I was like, okay, I guess she was hungry, but I wish she ate the avocado. She was like, But yeah, I think um this book is really we built these recipes with our families. Um, I don't know, we we actually did a Kickstarter for it four years ago, and in that video, you'll see pictures of the kids are so small in the video, and they're uh my daughter wasn't even born, and they're eating oysters and you know, dipping mussels and putting roe on the on the chawamushi and just like different things like that. And so we have these classic recipes like a chawamushi. If you've ever been to a sushi restaurant, it's the soup they give you that's a custard. And the traditional ingredients are literally like a seaweed, bone broth, and egg, um, and a little bit of soy sauce. Um, you could use coconut aminos, and it becomes this delicious custard. And uh we we were looking for recipes that contain certain nutrients, bone broth, egg, and when you have no appetite or nothing sounds good, this this and the Strecchiatella, the egg drop soup, I lived off of my first trimester because yeah, you know, the you get those could be bone broth and it's creamy, but you're not like having like a fried egg that's ruddy when you're just like ew eggs or whatever that cleared version is. So um I'm really proud of these recipes. And Eric, like I said, is an amazing photographer. Every single recipe has a photograph that's very rare because in traditional publishing it's very expensive.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
So they don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_03
Beautiful. I will, I mean, truly, yeah. I I cracked the book not expecting to see you know uh photos, and I was just enamored because everything had such a vibrancy to it, the colors, the you know, the the the you could being able to sort of see the different textures on a on a plate. It was just really quite beautiful. So I I really encourage viewers and and listeners to the check out the soap notes and and check out um I uh this the it's the it's the uh eating for life book that I'm referencing, but um check out check them both out. So for I want to be mindful of your time and the viewers and and and listeners' time um because we're busy. I'd rather see you go prep for your next meal. What would you say would be three takeaways? And you can you can add more if you want that that someone should could could just you know sign off now and go do the thing to improve their nutrition until they get the book.
SPEAKER_00
I would say reassess your breakfast. Most people are either women especially are under eating, they're not getting enough protein. So just put it in Chat GBT or put it in Google and put your normal breakfast in and ask how much protein you're getting. Because I want you to get around 30 to 35 grams of protein. And if you can do it within the first hour of waking, I promise you that afternoon crash or that afternoon fatigue or that afternoon craving is gonna be gone.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, beautiful.
SPEAKER_00
So that would be number one. My second one would be you know, try new veggies.
unknown
Yes.
SPEAKER_00
We really get into that routine of buying the same thing at the store. I really, I mean, we love our farm boxes. So if you have access to a farm box or a farmer's market where it's always discounted and you get things that you would never normally eat, right? Um and look, there's so many recipes for free online that you could just be like, oh, what's a cold rabi? Okay, it has here's some recipe, you know, whatever it is. I think that really helps with the gut and the microbiome and these, you know, the antioxidants of polyphenols and all these important things that can are contained in these vegetables. But yes, switch up your vegetables. Yes. Um, and then the third one would be I would I just add minerals to your clean water because so many people are dehydrated, and I have clients that are drinking so much plain water and they're just it's stripping all their minerals. Um, you need electrolytes, so um I have some favorites, but you know, ones that don't have sugar in them.
SPEAKER_03
I try to be really salt and a squeeze of lemon.
SPEAKER_00
Great, that's a great way. Yeah, that's enough. I do like having um, you know, the magnesium if you're not if you if most people need magnesium. Yes. Um, and some I find that a lot of women need potassium.
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
SPEAKER_00
So it just depends. And it depends on your lab work, but that's a great start. Like start your day with a big glass of water with a squeeze of lemon and some good high mineral salt, um, like a Celtic salt or something like that.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
Excellent. Yes.
SPEAKER_03
Because I I I really want people to be able to say, okay, I can do this as soon as I sign off. Yes. Okay. While I wait for my electrolyte order to to come in. Yes. I because I really just want to demonstrate how doable all of this is. It's so hard sometimes to presume we can take that next step because it seems so insurmountable. Overwhelming. But truly, it's like open your fridge, boil some eggs.
unknown
Right.
SPEAKER_03
Open your fridge, cut up some veggies. And by the way, I'm sure you'll agree, pesticide-free, organic, you know, you know, free range, wild caught, all of those things are critical because that's the foods version of get rid of the, you know, the toxins in your in your clothing and your hair care and all of that.
SPEAKER_00
So in the beginning of the book, we have the first page of the book, we have a QR code right here, and it has like all it has all the my favorite, you know, electrolytes and the meat that I like and all of that. But also in the first chapter, I talk about sourcing. And in every one of the chapters, whether it's the seafood chapter, I talk about why, you know, if you're gonna eat raw fish, this is why, this is how you choose it. Um, if you're gonna, you know, where you're gonna buy your meat, this is what what you should do. And, you know, there's there's ways to get a half a cow if you're eating a law, if you have a big family of three boys eating tons of beef, like get a half a cow. Um, or maybe have like a butcher box subscription or something like that. You know, that's that's actually a really affordable. Um, but and then I would say my last one would be to um turn off your Wi-Fi at night and be really aware of your lights. Um, blue light before bed. People like sleep is so important, way more important than people think. I even tell women, I'm like, skip your workout if you get an hour, an extra hour of sleep, because that sleep is more important than your workout exhausted. Exactly. Um but you know, we have red lights in the room, we have um, we have switched all our light bulbs in the kids' rooms, you know. So uh I had work with executives that don't sleep, and I'm like, okay, you gotta get off your phone, no TV, like none of this because this blue lights the same.
SPEAKER_03
I'm like, okay, electronics off at least an hour before bedtime because sometimes they do need to do, you know, kids get to bed, then they've got a little bit of work to do.
SPEAKER_00
I was like, but so time it, you know, or put some red light glasses on. I have red light on all like my devices, blockers, like there's ways to still work efficiently and you know, don't be in your room with a in like these fluorescent lights, right? Really, really helpful for our brain, our melatonin, our deep sleep, our REM sleep, all these things. So uh, I mean, I could go on and on, but I don't want to overwhelm people. But I think those are really important of just like maybe maybe tracking your your um blood sugar or even just tracking your protein throughout the day and making sure that you're hitting a goal of maybe a hundred to a hundred and fifty, depending on how much you weigh and what your goals are. But um, most pregnant women and most women that I work with are under-eating total, like in general, and then under-eating protein.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I I couldn't agree more. And yes, tracking blood sugar is is a great idea. And I it and if that feels too arduous to get a continuous glucose monitor, just just mind what you're eating and see how you feel afterwards. If you're a heart racing after your meal, you're probably having an insulin issue. And so shift your diet, and it's probably in the book, so that that is more you know, protein forward and and uh low carb vegetable forward, so that you're not having that blood sugar spike, blood sugar drop.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think that you know pairing your carbs correctly is a really good tool because I don't like to tell women to be scared of carbs because we're already so scared of food. But just being aware, like don't eat an empty carb. Just like I wouldn't feed my my kid a bunch of crackers, I'd have that crackers be with nut butter, some cheese, or you know, maybe some my kids love sardines, like, but just just thinking about those little tweaks in your snacks or you know, maybe you're starving before dinner, it's really gonna set you up for success if you if you can balance your blood sugar. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03
And and your hydration, as you say, because oftentimes we're we think we're hungry when we're yeah, we think we're hungry when we're thirsty. So um if you're feeling hungry, start with a glart with a glass of water with with your minerals and then and then have what it is that you want to have because that way you're not um you're not continuing the dehydration by virtue of having eaten something. So well, before we part, because again, we're I I keep saying that I want to be mindful of everyone's time, but we keep yammering on, which I because I'm I so love this topic. Are there any any parting words that you want to make sure that we you know wrap up with? Your all your information will be in the show notes to be sure.
SPEAKER_00
Um, but um, I want to give you the I would just say that this book, you know, four years of really hard work, has so many, it basically has a free nutrition consult with me in the beginning. I have like a whole section of hydration, electrolytes, like you know, where these vitamins and minerals come from and and why these foods are so important and how to be able to feed your family, feed yourself. Um, we have this scan and share. So let's say you have a friend that wants to come over and you just had a baby, you can scan a recipe that you want them to bring over, and it goes right to the page because so often people are buying Uber Eats and all these things, and when you're postpartum, you just want like a home cooked meal. And like, especially a lot of my my clients, like maybe they have a gluten allergy or dairy allergy, at least they could find something that looked really good and they could scan it to their their grandma or their aunt or their girl girlfriend, and like, hey, would you bring this over? Right.
SPEAKER_03
Um, and you know, it uh if a new mom or as a new mom is likely also nursing, even if she does not know that she's got a food sensitivity that is likely going through to the breast milk. So you're you're helping the baby as well as helping the mom get some good nourishment, exactly.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. So so yeah, and we, you know, the all of these recipes are there's a couple glute like gluten, like a gluten pasta recipe, easily substitute for a gluten-free. Um, I do believe in eating high-quality raw dairy, but if it if if it impacts your gut, you need to do a GI stool test, but um you, you know, you could easily switch it out for like a coconut cream, and we give you those options. So it's really um a tool that I hope that people go back and back to and five, find recipes that they make every week and just love so much. So well, thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_03
Thank you for writing the book. Thank you for coming on and sharing with us today because it again, it's a a cookbook can seem also like a monumental task, but I think this conversation has helped reframe that around it. No, it's actually a support structure, it's not another thing to do. It's it's it's you know having your your best friend or your aunt you know right right by your side so you can start making changes that will improve your health, your baby's health, your future family's health, wherever you are in the process. And by the way, we mentioned this prior to our conversation. This is not just about fertility, this is about health. So if you are finished with your fertile years, you still need the all all of the principles in this book and the nutrients in this book, because long after baby making years are over, you need to be healthy, including through your your your reproductive organs. So um there's nobody for whom this book is not gonna help. So with that with that in mind, I want to say thank you once again for joining us. I will be sure to to have all of the information and the and the resources in the show soap notes, and maybe we can come on another time and and do a part two. Sounds great. Thank you so much. My pleasure.
