Cheryl Martin (Host): We are constantly encouraged to choose a healthy diet, but what does that mean? Well, here to answer that question and give us some tips on how to practice healthy eating patterns and grocery shopping on a budget is Dr. Charisse Huot. She's the assistant director at the University of South Florida Morton Plant Mease Family Medicine Residency. This is BayCare HealthChat. I'm Cheryl Martin. Dr. Huot, delighted to have you on to discuss such an important topic.

Dr. Charisse Huot: Hi Cheryl. Thank you so much for having me.

Cheryl Martin (Host): So, what is healthy eating or a healthy diet?

Dr. Charisse Huot: So, chronic diseases are really on the rise. High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are really increasing across America and really throughout the globe. And we know that these chronic diseases are largely driven by lifestyle habits like our diet, our nutrition and physical activity.

So, if we can truly help people to adopt and then stick to a healthy diet, then we can reduce chronic disease. One of the best studied healthy diets is the Mediterranean diet, and that has been shown to have beneficial effects on chronic diseases like high blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease, and diabetes.

There's even evidence that shows that it can reduce the risk of certain cancers and Alzheimer's dementia.

Cheryl Martin (Host): Can you talk more about what that would look like and what kind of foods are we talking about?

Dr. Charisse Huot: So, the Mediterranean diet is basically a pattern of eating, and it's modeled after the healthy foods that are eaten mostly by the people in the countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea. These people are known to live long lives, and they don't just have long lives; they also have a long health span, or the number of healthy years of living.

So, these people are healthy, well into their old age. And this is a pattern that really focuses on a lot of vegetables and fruit in the diet. It's high-end legumes, and that means beans and peas, fruits, nuts, and whole grains. As far as whole grains go, that means things like whole wheat, brown rice, farro, quinoa, barley. Basically, the grain is going to be in its natural state and it's unprocessed. So, it hasn't been stripped of the outer capsule of the grain, which tends to be really rich in B vitamins and fiber and magnesium, which are really good for us. Another aspect of that Mediterranean diet is that the main fat they use is olive oil for cooking. It's less of a focus on saturated fats, like we'll see in butter and lard, and more of a focus on unsaturated fats like the olive oil or avocado oil. As far as proteins go, there's going to be a bigger focus on more lean or plant-based proteins.

So, this means consuming more seafood or fish, with dairy, but lower amounts of beef and poultry than we typically see in the standard American diet. As far as the dairy goes, most of the dairy is going to be cultured like cheese or like yogurt. And these things contain lots of good probiotics that we know are great for our gut health.

But overall, this basically just means that we're increasing the plant-based foods in our diet, and we're looking for whole and minimally processed foods.

Cheryl Martin (Host): And I assume in terms of cooking the food, you mentioned a lot of seafood, is it getting away from fried foods and more baking or broiling?

Dr. Charisse Huot: Yes, because that oftentimes will help you lower the saturated fat in the diet. So, using cooking methods like broiling, like braising, like sauteing as opposed to deep fried, may be more consistent with the Mediterranean diet.

Cheryl Martin (Host): Now, does healthy eating mean more expensive?

Dr. Charisse Huot: Not necessarily. Many of the most nutritious foods that are out there are really also the cheapest. We're talking beans, lentils, oats, brown rice, frozen vegetables. Those are all very economical. And, you know, when we're thinking about healthy foods, if you're looking at a food package, and it has a lot of health claims on it, you may be paying more for like convenience or for marketing and not for the actual nutrition.

Cheryl Martin (Host): So, what kinds of tips if a person says, I really want to sign up and do healthy eating? Talk about the value of planning before you shop and what that looks like.

Dr. Charisse Huot: Okay. My first tip would be shop your pantry first, see what you already have on hand, and then build recipes around that, and then only buy the ingredients that you need to fill in the gaps. This really helps reduce food waste and it's easier on your wallet. Also, plan simple meals. Meals don't have to include a ton of different exotic ingredients in order to be tasty and nutritious.

So, plan, simple meals, shop with a list, and that helps you reduce impulse buys. And then lastly, build your meals around plant-based proteins because they tend to be less expensive. And again, that's consistent with the principles of the Mediterranean diet. So, think things like beans, legumes, and soy.

Cheryl Martin (Host): I had this conversation with someone this week about children. They have gotten really accustomed to, let's say, eating fast food. And you mentioned your meals can be simple. Any suggestion for parents if they admit, we're doing a lot of fast food, but we need to change this. What would be an easy way for them to reacclimate their children to move them away from fast food?

Dr. Charisse Huot: Well, I think one of the most important things is to involve children in both the shopping and the cooking processes. I like to talk about eating a rainbow of colors every day, and this tends to really resonate with parents and with children as well. So, we should be looking for a wide variety of vegetables and fruit that are deeply pigmented and when you take kids shopping with you, have them help you pick out those brightly pigmented vegetables and fruit. Say, let's try a new blue food today. Let's try a new purple food today and involve them in the process. Then involve them in the process of preparing the foods and cooking.

Kids tend to get a lot more excited about foods if they have helped to prepare them, and they're less likely to turn their noses up at it if they were involved in the process.

Cheryl Martin (Host): You talked about a lot of fruits and vegetables, should it always be fresh foods? What about frozen and canned foods?

Dr. Charisse Huot: There's absolutely nothing wrong with frozen foods and canned foods. Frozen foods and veggies they're harvested at their peak of freshness and the highest nutrient levels, so they're very nutritionally dense. When you get them frozen, they tend to be less expensive.

They're also longer lasting, and there's going to be less waste there. There's nothing wrong with canned foods as well. So canned beans and vegetables are very nutritionally dense. Just choose the lower sodium ones or rinse them to reduce the sodium.

Cheryl Martin (Host): That's good to hear that it's okay to get the canned foods. Now, how important is it to read the labels when you're aiming for healthy eating?

Dr. Charisse Huot: Well, this can really help you make smart food choices. I think it's a good idea just to start with the ingredient list on the back. Avoid all the health claims and the marketing that's on the front of the package but look at the ingredient list. You want to look for minimal number of ingredients and ingredients that you can recognize on your labels. You also want to look for foods that are lower in saturated fats, lower in added sugars, and definitely avoid trans fats.

Cheryl Martin (Host): You serve as the site director for the Jacobsen Teaching Kitchen. What is a teaching kitchen?

Dr. Charisse Huot: So, teaching kitchens are interactive educational spaces, and these are places where participants can learn healthy cooking, they can learn nutrition, and also just general life skills to help promote healthier lifestyles and behavioral change. These are really unique spaces where we kind of bridge nutrition science with health care and culinary arts all into one space.

Basically, promoting the idea of food as medicine. So, in a teaching kitchen, people learn to translate the knowledge of what a healthy diet is into actual practice and habits for better health, with hands-on learning.

Cheryl Martin (Host): So, a person can just sign up for this? How can you actually get a chance to experience the teaching kitchen?

Dr. Charisse Huot: Well, there are teaching kitchens across America. They're oftentimes found in schools. They may be found in hospitals; they may be found in clinics. At our clinic, the Turley Family Health Center, with the support of the Morton Plant Mease Health Care Foundation and the generous donors and the community, we were able to build a teaching kitchen within the site of our family medicine residency clinic. And there we offer cooking classes to our patients and that basically helps them prevent, manage, and reverse chronic diseases, so it's available to all of our clinic patients.

Cheryl Martin (Host): Wonderful. So, what's the focus now at the Jacobsen Teaching Kitchen at Turley?

Dr. Charisse Huot: So, we teach cooking courses that are based on those Mediterranean diet principles. But I do want to point out that the Mediterranean diet doesn't necessarily mean Mediterranean recipes. Those principles that we talked about earlier can be adapted to a wide variety of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and really respect the heritage foods that come from those traditions.

So, we're offering these cooking classes to our patients, but as the Family Medicine Residency Clinic, we're also the site of family physicians in training. So, we teach classes to our family physicians in training that help develop them into doctors that lead by example, using food as medicine.

Cheryl Martin (Host): Anything else, doctor, you want to add in closing about healthy eating and shopping on a budget?

Dr. Charisse Huot: I just like to say thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed this conversation.

Cheryl Martin (Host): Great. Well, Dr. Charisse Huot, thank you for explaining healthy eating and giving us just some great suggestions and tips for shopping on a budget.

Dr. Charisse Huot: It's been my pleasure. Thank you, Cheryl.

Cheryl Martin (Host): That wraps up this episode of BayCare HealthChat. Head on over to our website at BayCare.org for more information and to get connected with one of our providers. Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and all the other BayCare podcasts. For more health tips and updates, follow us on your social channels.

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