The Slow Kitchen Podcast

Episode 25 - "Carbs, Fats, Fruit and Sleep: Your Nutrition Questions, Answered"

• Cat Dillon • Season 1 • Episode 25

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0:00 | 19:16

What We Covered

This episode is a deep dive into the nutrition questions I hear most often, and the answers are more nuanced than the headlines make them sound. Specifically, we covered:

  • Carrots and simple carbs. 
  • Fruit. Why variety beats ranking every time.
  • Natural sweeteners. 
  • Plant fats versus animal fats. 
  • Protein before bed. 
  • Protein powder for midlife women. 
  • Tart cherry juice. 

Key Takeaways

  1. Food context is everything.
  2. Variety in fruit is the goal.
  3. Natural sweeteners still behave like sweeteners. 
  4. Leucine is the signal for muscle building. 
  5. Tart cherry supports sleep from two directions.
  6. Your nervous system is part of the picture.

Mentioned

More Resources for You

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Bone Health Blindspots Guide: A clear, grounded look at what’s often missing in the conversation around bone loss, midlife metabolism, and stress. 

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SPEAKER_00

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Slow Kitchen Podcast, your 15-minute space to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with nourishment that actually fits your real life. I'm Kat Dillon, a registered holistic nutritionist and former chef, and I help women simplify food in a way that tastes amazing and feels grounding and supportive from the inside out. Food is essential. It fuels us, supports healthy aging, helps prevent disease, and connects us to culture and community. But it's not the only piece. On this podcast, I explore how food, lifestyle, and nervous system health come together to help you feel more steady, nourished, and at home in your body. If you're a woman in midlife, navigating, work, family, shifting hormones, cravings, mood changes, in a world that rarely slows down, this space is for you. We take the pressure out of cooking and bring the pleasure back in. Because food is more than fuel, it's connection, regulation, nervous system support, sensory, emotional, even spiritual. And what I see again and again is this when we slow down even slightly, even for a moment before we eat or cook, something shifts. Digestion improves, food noise quiets, energy levels out, your nervous system feels more supported instead of being constantly on alert. But those moments don't exist in isolation. They're shaped by the rhythm of your entire day. How you sleep, how you wake, how you use light, how you move, and how you wind down. Because here is what I keep seeing smart, capable women who have read all the articles, followed all the accounts, and still feel confused about what to actually put on their plates. That confusion is not a character flaw, it's a direct result of nutrition information being stripped of all its context and handed to you as a rule. My job today is to give the context back. Before we get into it, if this podcast has helped you in any way, please rate and review it and pass it along to a woman in your life who could use some of this. It's how we reach more people who need it. And I am deeply grateful every time you do. Now, let's get into your questions. Okay, so the first question I've received is are carrots really a simple carb we should avoid? That's a good question. Carrots do contain natural sugars, same with beets and other root vegetables. That part's true, but those sugars come packed with other things like fiber, water, phytonutrients, and that packaging changes everything about how they behave in your body. A medium carrot contains roughly six grams of carbohydrates, but the fiber slows absorption down considerably. A whole carrot eaten alongside protein and fat is metabolically a completely different event than drinking a large glass of carrot juice. Portion size matters, and food context matters as well. The whole person picture is truly what we want to identify here. We've gotten into a habit of labeling individual foods as good or bad, air quotes here. And it's genuinely backfiring on us. The better question is always asking yourself how does this food function inside my body? And how does the quantity shift that function? I hope you got a lot out of that answer. So here's the second question. Are certain fruits better than others? All right. So all fruit has something to offer. I would always rather you eat a wide variety than rank them and restrict on a list. That said, if we're talking therapeutic value, berries are where I start. They're so rich in antioxidants, fiber, polyphenols, and much more gentle on the blood sugar for most people. Citrus is very underrated, things like oranges, grapefruits, kumquats, lemons, and limes. They bring a lot of vitamin C, as you probably already know, potassium, flavonoids, and lots of compounds that actively support immune, cardiovascular, and metabolic health. So tropical fruits also deserve a bit more credit here. Papaya is particularly interesting for its digestive enzyme activity. Passion fruit has a surprisingly high fiber content, same with mango, pineapple, and their companions each bring different nutrient profiles worth knowing. My personal favorite is a slightly green banana for its resistant fiber, which is a type of dietary fiber that is resistant to digestion in the small intestines. So it ferments in the colon. That's a good thing. And it acts as a prebiotic to feed beneficial gut bacteria. It offers health benefits including improved insulin sensitivity, lower blood sugar, and overall better satiety. One thing that I pay attention to personally is what I pair my fruits with. So adding some protein, healthy fat or fiber, like a seed or a nut butter, maybe Greek yogurt, or even having fruit alongside a meal or in a salad. And that can create studier blood sugar and better energy throughout the day, rather than just eating fruit here and there. But honestly, the question worth sitting with is what fruit leaves you feeling nourished and energized and satisfied and not hungry after a half an hour? That answer matters as much as any research study. All right, question number three. What about natural sweeteners? Natural sweeteners absolutely have a place. Honey, maple syrup, dates, coconut sugar. I use some of them myself, and I'm not here to demonize any of them, but I do want to name something directly here. People put a health halo around beef simply because they came from nature. But honey still affects blood sugar, and maple syrup is still metabolically sugar. And that reality doesn't disappear because the source feels wholesome. Some natural sweeteners do contain antioxidants and trace minerals that make them marginally less processed than refined white sugar. And that matters. Stevia and monk fruit can help reduce overall sugar intake and are pretty useful for those managing blood sugar, just as long as you watch the labels. Many commercial products, though, that you buy at just a regular store contain blends, fillers, erythritol, which is a sugar alcohol, which is safe in small amounts, or additives that aren't obvious at first glance. Personally, I don't like anything with the erythritol. I find that it has an incredible metallic aftertaste. And I'll tell you one thing. One time I made a pumpkin custard and I couldn't try in the monk fruit that was plain, like a simple monk fruit in a granular package. And I used one that had erythritol in it. And I tell you, for about 24 hours after that, I had this terrible dry metallic sensation in my mouth. So I think some people might be sensitive to erythritol and other sugar alcohols, while other people, it might be okay. It's definitely not an unsafe thing, but I would definitely moderate that if you are sensitive. What I actually keep in my kitchen though are pure monk fruit drops, pure stevia leaf. And on occasion, I'll use maple syrup and molasses, maybe a honey or a date sugar when I'm baking, something that calls for sweet. My goal really here is intentional use. I like to get the sweetness from fruit, from root vegetables and dark chocolate first, and then sweeten deliberately, not habitually. All right, question number four: Plant fats versus animal fats, which are better? Oh, another good question here. This conversation has been so polarized, and the honest answer is so much more nuanced than any social media post can hold. Older research focused heavily on saturated fats raising your low density lipoprotein cholesterol. That's your bad cholesterol. I'll put that in air quotes again. Newer research shows the story is considerably more complicated than just that. The food matrix matters enormously. Meat and butter inside a diet built on ultra-processed foods is a totally different thing from a small amount of saturated fat inside a minimally processed, nutrient-dense eating style. And genetics play a role here too. Some people are genuinely more sensitive to saturated heavy diets. And we can get tested for that. There are tests such as lipoprotein delay, which is an independent risk factor for heart disease and stroke, and it's just a genetic form of hypercholesterolemia. The fats, though, with most consistent report for long-term cardiovascular and metabolic health are always seeming to be the same: olive oil, nuts and seeds, avocado, and omega-3 fatty fish. That doesn't make saturated fat automatically toxic, though. It does not need to be glorified. Metabolic health matters, inflammation matters, and the whole dietary pattern is gonna always come first, more than just avoiding saturated fat. Question number five: Can eating protein before bed help with sleep? Well, for some people, yes, particularly women who tend to wake up frequently or struggle with blood sugar stability overnight. Having said that, many bodies sleep more restoratively when digestion is quieter and the nervous system has full permission to shift into that repair mode. My general recommendation is to finish dinner about two to three hours before you go to sleep. If by chance you experience multiple nighttime awakenings, possibly having a small protein-rich snack in the evening after dinner and before bed might be genuinely helpful. Some research highlights casein protein in particular because it digests much more slowly, providing a steadier release of amino acids overnight, which may support muscle repair, recovery, and satiety while you sleep. I often discuss the importance of evening protein intake for muscle preservation and recovery, especially for midlife women. And this can be supportive, especially during those hormonal shifts, during period postmenopause, when hormone changes can contribute to increased muscle loss and changes in appetite regulation and blood sugar balance. Foods like freak yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs, or even a balanced plant-based protein option can all fit very well here. The goal is not to be perfectionistic, it's really just helping your body feel more stable and supported overnight. This one really does need to be individualized. Some women sleep beautifully with the light protein snack, others sleep more deeply when digestion gets a full rest. That would be me as well. Look at the whole picture. Look at your blood sugar stability, your nervous system state, your digestion capacity, sleep quality, and then your training demands. All right. One more question. What protein powder is best for building muscle and bone? Well, whole foods obviously are always the foundation. That doesn't change. But in real life, many women in midlife consistently fall short of their protein needs. And so a well-chosen protein powder can fill that gap with meaning here. For muscle protein synthesis, whey protein isolate remains one of the most effective options. And I like it because it's naturally rich in something called leucine, it's an amino acid that signals muscle building. And so you need about 2.5 grams of leucine per serving to stimulate that process. Some women who are sensitive to dairy can still tolerate whey isolate because most of the lactose and casein have been removed, but you have to test that yourself. Beef-based proteins are richer in glycine and proline, and that's great. Those are great for connective tissue support, but they're typically lower in leucine. You do have to watch out for some of these beef powders. And if you have a question, you may want to even call the manufacturer because some of these beef protein blends, they don't use all muscle. They will use byproducts like rawhide in some of their protein. So definitely be aware of that. Plant-based proteins do work, but because of the phytates and tannins and lower leucine density, slightly higher amounts are going to be needed to get that comparable effect, to get the same amount of leucine. What I do is I will just scoop my protein powder, my pea protein powder when I'm eating it, and make sure it's a heaping scoop. So the question worth asking about any protein powder is it easy for you to digest? You want to look and find if that protein powder has been third-party tested. Does it support your goals? I mean, can you use it consistently? And maybe are you using it too much? I know some of my clients have come to me with eating protein powder twice a day. And that's not good because that's gonna fill you up and you want to get the whole food forms of protein, right? Because they come with a spectrum of nutrients, not just protein. Speaking of protein, I do want to tell you about something that I created specifically because of conversations like this. The questions you're sending me about protein are not just practical questions, they carry real weight. Years of diet culture, macro accounting that left you feeling worse about food rather than better. And now a whole new wave of protein messages is coming at you from every direction. Your doctor, social media, a rehealth podcast, including this one. And I hear you. And I made something especially for you. My free guide is called Protein Without Obsession, and it is exactly what it sounds like. No new rules, no tracking, no perfection required. Just a grounded, honest explanation of why protein matters for your body right now in midlife and how to bring more of it in. If you have ever tried to do protein writing, ended up feeling more anxious about food than when you started, this guide is your reset. The link is in the show notes, so go and grab it. It will take you about 10 minutes to read, and it might genuinely change the way you think about nourishing yourself. Ah, final question. Should I be drinking tart cherry juice before bed? Oh, this is a good one. Tart cherry juice has a ton going for it. It contains its own melatonin and also supports your body's natural melatonin production. It's so rich in antioxidants and polyphenols, phytonutrients, and research supports its role in supporting that deep sleep quality. It's also wonderful for muscle recovery and regeneration. Look for pure tart cherry juice specifically, not sweet cherry or dark cherry. And if you prefer a lower sugar option, there are tart cherry capsules that work really nicely. You want to look for Montmorrissey Tart Cherry on the label. And research doses land around 4 to 500 milligrams of extract, best taken about a half an hour to one hour before bed. Treat it as a gentle support, not a total fix, but you want to definitely combine it with solid sleep hygiene, blood sugar balance, and nervous system regulation. That is where the real results live. I would put my sleep protocol where that melatonin lives, also in the show notes. The whole food context changes how any carbohydrate behaves in your body. Variety in fruit matters far more than ranking or totally restricting it. Natural sweeteners behave like sweeteners. You want to use them with intention. Your leucine-rich protein matters for muscle and bone preservation in midlife. Weight isolate has a strong starting point, but no need to overdo it. Tart cherry, specifically, the Montmorency, support melatonin production in deeper sleep. The juice or the capsule both work. Thank you for spending this time with me today. Next week, we are talking all about spring farmers market finds and how to use the seeds and foods to support your energy, blood sugar, digestion, and nourishment in a very real-world way. Make sure you're subscribed so the episode lands right in your feed. And if something from today sparked a question or a shift in you, I would absolutely love to hear it. Rate, review, and share the episode with someone who needs it. That's how we grow this community one real conversation at a time. Until next week, take good care.