Search for tag: "dietitian"

Interviewer: Eating well is a crucial component for good health, but for a lot of us, it's a skill that we never really were taught or learned much about. The Utah Wellness Bus visits communities and offers free health screenings in addition to education to anybody who wants it. And if you visit the Wellness Bus, one of the people you might talk to is our guest today, clinical dietician Alex Marie Hernandez.

In today's interview, we're going to talk to Alex about tips that could help you eat healthier, some common barriers and misconceptions about eating well, and how a free nutrition counseling session from Utah Wellness Bus can help you understand about nutrition and help you improve your health.

Alex, let's go ahead and start with what could somebody expect during a nutrition counseling session if they visit you on the Wellness Bus?

Alex: Part of the sessions when somebody comes to see me for a nutrition or lifestyle coaching is that we take some time to get to know the client. So part of that includes a dietary assessment. So I ask them, "What do you normally eat? What does a normal day of eating look like for you?" And from there, I can then see what are some of the common foods that they eat? What are some of those that maybe we can improve?

Based off of that, then we go into different nutrition, education topics, right? So one thing that's very helpful is learning how to read a nutrition label, which is something that a lot of people aren't too familiar with. So just checking that nutrition label for things like added sugars.

And then a lot of times, if they are drinking something, for example, that has a lot of added sugars . . . Just yesterday, I had a client who mentioned that she was drinking a lot of vitamin water. She was like, "This is great. I'm getting lots of vitamins."

Interviewer: It sounds healthy.

Alex: Yeah. And then I'm like, "What brand is it? Let's take a look at this." So we look it up online, we look at the nutrition label, and it turns out it has like 26 grams of added sugars in one bottle. And she was having multiple every day.

So then we go through and we look at . . . we'll compare that to what the maximum amount that you should be having in a day is, and then they come to that realization, "Wow, I'm having a lot of added sugars and I didn't even know."

So things like that. The nutrition label is a very great tool in figuring out how to make healthier choices.

Interviewer: Do you find that a lot of not such great stuff is hiding in our food and we really need to do some research . . .

Alex: Oh, yeah.

Interviewer: . . . looking at that label to figure out what that is?

Alex: Mm-hmm. Because some things can be marketed as healthy. The label will make it seem like it's a healthy choice, but you look at that nutrition label and it turns out that's not the case.

One example that I talk to a lot about with clients is when it comes to breads, like whole wheat bread. It may say that, but you look at the nutrition label, look at the fiber content, and it actually doesn't have a lot of fiber. You look at the ingredients, whole grains is not one of the first ingredients. So that nutrition label is going to tell you the truth versus what's just marketed or advertised on that label in the front of the product.

Interviewer: And this is kind of a new phenomenon, isn't it? That you have to be aware of what's in your food. I would think many years ago, we made a lot of our meals from scratch, so we kind of knew what was in our food, but now you just really don't know. You do have to do that due diligence.

Alex: Yeah.

Interviewer: Give me a tip on how I can start that process, because it sounds a little overwhelming, right? I've got to know what I'm looking for, and then I've got to know how much of that thing that I can have and still be healthy. I've got to do all that math. So how do you make it simple for people? Or is there not a way to make it simple?

Alex: There is a way to make it simple. But I guess my tip here . . . I don't know if it's appropriate, but come to the Wellness Bus.

Interviewer: That's right. Take advantage of you.

Alex: Yeah. We can talk about it some more, because one of the things we offer as well in these sessions is this health coaching book. And it has a lot of great information, visuals, things are colorful, which makes it easier to understand.

So we go over those things. We point things out. We do some teach-back as well, like, "Well, now that we've learned this, can you tell me this?" So I really think taking the time to talk to someone who can walk you through that is going to be helpful. So come to the Wellness Bus.

Interviewer: And realize that it is complicated.

Alex: It is complicated, yeah.

Interviewer: I think some people might feel a little ashamed, like, "Well, I should understand this stuff," but it's not necessarily super easy to understand all the time.

Alex: Right. And I'm trying to think . . . I don't know if it's always taught in schools. I took a nutrition class in high school, which is where I became interested in nutrition, and that's where we went over the nutrition label. But even then, not too much in depth. It was later on when I studied more nutrition that I better understood how to use that nutrition label.

Interviewer: Right. You've this for how many years of schooling?

Alex: Oh, I took longer to get my Bachelor's, but . . .

Interviewer: But it's a Bachelor's degree, so . . .

Alex: Bachelor's plus Master's. In a few years, Master's will be required for all dieticians.

Interviewer: Okay. So I think that really illustrates how much there is out there to know that somebody could dedicate two degrees to it, right? So come to the bus and capitalize on that knowledge that you have.

Alex: Yes.

Interviewer: What do people think their nutritional challenges are generally, and do they align with what you know?

Alex: We work with a lot of diverse communities, right? So I think with that, a lot of people come to the bus thinking that their cultural foods are not healthy foods. And we want to highlight that you can still eat healthy within your cultural foods.

When they come to the United States, maybe they're presented with one way of eating, and that that's the only way of healthy eating. But that's not true. There are so many healthy foods across the world.

For example, the Mediterranean diet, right? That's one of the healthiest diets in the world. So it's just highlighting their staple foods and why those are healthy.

A lot of times, it just comes down to portion sizes, right? Maybe people are eating too much of one thing and not really balancing it out with the other nutrients that they need.

Interviewer: What are some of the barriers to good nutrition that you encounter? So we talked about just knowledge. Are there other barriers?

Alex: There are other barriers. For example, access to healthy foods. That's a big challenge. Sometimes, we'll talk about some . . . For an example, healthy fats like salmon, great source of healthy fats. But when I mention that, they'll say, "Oh, that's too expensive." So then we can talk about other sources of healthy fats as well, right?

Or even thinking about frozen or canned foods, it's okay to eat those foods. Again, just reading that nutrition label is going to help you make better choices there.

But we can also talk about food pantry, local resources, where they can go get more food if they're not able to afford that at the grocery store. And also just talking about how you can still eat healthy on a budget is important. So I think that access to foods is another big barrier that we encounter.

Interviewer: How about time to make meals at home? Is that a barrier?

Alex: That is another one as well, yeah. That's a good point. And there, we talk about ideas. Based on what they like, their food preferences, what are some quick, easy meals or even snacks that you can eat to incorporate more healthy eating?

One thing, for example, that I mention a lot is baby carrots are super easy to take with you as a way to add some more vegetable in your day. However, people don't think that. Maybe it's not as glamorous, but there are ways to do it. There are.

Interviewer: When somebody comes to the Wellness Bus, if they see it in their neighborhood and they want to come in and talk to a nutritionist there, you, is there something they should prepare? Should they come in with a list of what they've eaten for the past couple days? Is there anything else that they should come in with that could make the job a little bit easier, more productive?

Alex: I want to say that they don't have to prepare at all if it's going to make it easier for them to come in. No worries. Just come in. I'll ask you the questions to learn what I need to know to help you.

Interviewer: One of the programs on the bus is called Journey to Health. Tell me a little bit about that.

Alex: It's a nutrition education program. We're collaborating with the Nutrition Department at the University of Utah. It's six months long. There are four nutrition classes that a participant would go to. And then part of it is also to come see me, dietician on the bus, for two sessions. And then at the end, the participants gather together for a community meal to celebrate their successes and what they've accomplished throughout the program.

The program has been very well received by the community. People are loving it. Some of the classes include cooking demos. You get free gifts like kitchen items, which is wonderful. Learn how to shop around a grocery store and find healthy foods on a budget.

It's been something that people have really enjoyed. And when they come see me, they rave about the classes, like, "They were great. I love them. When are there more?" I was like, "Sorry, there were only four classes."

But it's great because they get a good foundation of healthy eating from the classes. And then when they come see me, we can talk more individualized about their specific situation, what's going on, and how we can set some goals specific to them. It's open to the community, so come check it out.

This week's recipe is Stuffed Spaghetti Squash and homemade No-bake Chewy Granola Bars. If you make it, tell us how it was and post your pictures on our Facebook page.

This content was originally created for audio. Some elements such as tone, sound effects, and music can be hard to translate to text. As such, the following is a summary of the episode and has been edited for clarity. For the full experience, we encourage you to subscribe and listen— it's more fun that way.

Scot: All right. So today on "Who Cares About Men's Health," we're going to find out how it went with the first recipe, easy Thai red curry. Was it tasty? How did it go for cooking newbie Troy? And we're also going to get another easy-to-make man meal that you can eat all week today.

It is "Who Cares About Men's Health," providing information, inspiration, and a different interpretation about men's health.

All right. Today's crew, we've got co-host, Dr. Troy Madsen.

Troy: Hey, Scot.

Scot: I'm Scot Singpiel. I bring the BS and ask the dumb questions so you don't have to. Mitch, looking good from his head to his toes, and now he can breathe through his nose. It's Producer Mitch in the mix.

Mitch: Oh, wow. I'm glad I get an intro now. It's fancy.

Scot: And our guests today from University of Utah's College of Health Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology, we have registered dietician and culinary coach Theresa Dvorak. She's got another stack of tasty recipes.

Theresa: Hey, there. How's it going?

Scot: Doing well. And he has a PhD in nutrition, and I also just learned today biochemistry and molecular biology. And he also has a 16-page CV. Thunder Jalili.

Thunder: You must be really bored to be looking up my background.

Scot: All right. Today's easy-to-make-all-at-once man meal we're reviewing was the easy Thai red curry. We're going to go around the table here, see what people thought, get any sort of feedback that might be useful, and then Theresa is going to give us another recipe.

I don't have a ton to say, so I'm just going to jump in first. I thought it was really good. What'd you think, Thunder? Was it good?

Thunder: Yeah, I thought the meal was delicious. It was a little different than the curries I've made before because of the added tomatoes, but I found I actually liked that extra flavor in there.

Scot: Okay. Troy, what'd you think?

Troy: Well, it's clear that I'm the outlier in the group. I think Mitch should go before I do.

Scot: Okay. Well, just in general, was it tasty? Can you at least answer that?

Troy: It was good. I liked it. It was good.

Scot: Okay. All right.

Theresa: Did we get to the end product?

Troy: We did. It was good.

Scot: Yeah, stay tuned for some whining from Troy coming up. That'll be fun. Mitch, was it good or not? What'd you think?

Mitch: I really liked it, but my partner is a bit of a foodie, and it was really surprising when we went to . . . We went down to the Southeast Asian market to get some supplies because I know Theresa on the episode was like, "Get good stuff. Go and get some quality ingredients. It'll make a better product."

I got the pre-prepared curry paste and he was a little snooty about it. He was like, "You know you can make your own curry? You know you can do that." And it turned out better than any curry that we've tried before. I'm just going to throw that out there.

Scot: I have a feeling, Theresa, that in this particular recipe, simplicity trumps authenticity.

Theresa: Well, I would beg to differ on the authenticity piece because I know many Asian/Southeast Asian/Thai individuals who just use paste.

So that brings into a good point of when you use pre-prepared packaged items and when you make them from scratch. And some of the key things that you want to look for are: Are there added chemicals, things like MSG or added alternatives? Is there added sugar? Is there a lot of extra salt in it?"

Those types of pre-prepared packaged things, sauces, mixes, soups, things of that sort, you could probably do better if you did from scratch. Whereas something like the curry paste is really just a blend of spices and peppers and things like that. And across the board, I would say most of them don't have that extra stuff in them that we often want to stay away from.

But if Jonathan wants to make his own, I would be more than willing to taste test for it.

Mitch: That's kind of what I told him too.

Troy: I'm just going to jump in here and say if I had to make my own curry paste, that would have been my breaking point.

Thunder: It would have been back to the bean burrito, Troy.

Troy: No, this is what I would have done. I thought very seriously about going down to a Thai restaurant we had been to a week before and ordering a red curry, and eating it, and saying, "Yes, I had a delicious red curry. I loved it." I was close.

Theresa: And taken a picture like Thunder.

Troy: And taken a picture and said, "Look how great my . . . I made a few modifications. It may not look like yours, but it was delicious." I was close, but like I said, I'm definitely the outlier. I recognize this was not a difficult recipe, but my background is . . . I thought back over the years. I've never made anything that required more than five ingredients, and even that has been a stretch for me. So usually my ingredients are pancake mix, eggs, milk . . .

Theresa: Water.

Troy: And maybe some water. That's been it. I made some cheesy potatoes before. You cut up potatoes. I looked it up to see how many ingredients it was.

Thunder: Wow.

Troy: It's potatoes, cheese, and cream of mushroom soup. That's the extent of my cooking expertise. So this was a stretch.

Theresa: Was it real cheese or Velveeta? No, I'm just joking.

Troy: It was real cheese. It was better than Velveeta. So I'm speaking for all the guys out there who may not have a lot of cooking experience. This was a stretch for me. This was tough.

Scot: Yeah, I want to throw in Troy's wife posted on Facebook and made me laugh out loud. So it says, "Troy's preparing dinner as part of a challenge for the podcast. In 13 years of marriage, he's never made dinner." Here are my favorite comments so far. This is from Troy's wife. "What is a saucepan?"

Troy: I have no idea

Scot: "Are shallots a vegetable? Was I supposed to buy those?"

Troy: Yeah, there were shallots in the recipe. I get down to this point and it says, "Add the shallots to the oil that's already cooking." I was like, "What did I miss? Where are shallots? I missed that."

Scot: That might be a little trip-up in the recipe because it asks for a yellow onion.

Theresa: I apologize. Yes, Troy, that was a typo. Thank you.

Troy: I figured it out later, but I hit that, I was like, "Shallots? Number one, what is a shallot? Number two, I didn't buy one."

Theresa: Well, see, I was thinking of you because I changed it originally from shallots to yellow onions, because I knew . . .

Troy: So you did that for me? Thank you.

Theresa: For all of you, yes.

Troy: For all of us. Me in particular.

Scot: It just sent him into a tailspin, though.

Troy: It did. I was like, "Whoa."

Scot: The third thing, "Do you know coconut milk is a thing?" That was his third comment. And not only is it a thing, it's the thing that makes this so freaking good, I have to say.

Troy: It did make a difference.

Thunder: It's a key ingredient.

Scot: If you don't know anything about coconut milk, know this. It makes things good. "Ginger is crazy-looking," and, "How do I do medium heat?" which is a legitimate kind of question in a way.

Thunder: Isn't that the middle part of the heat dial?

Troy: One would assume, but I honestly had it on medium and I'm like, "This isn't cooking fast enough." I'm supposed to brown everything I chopped up and it was two minutes into it and it wasn't very brown. I'm like, "Okay, I don't think this is medium." So that was throwing me off a little bit.

Scot: It takes time. I think I might have put in a little too much oil because it took a long time for my onions to brown, and I think maybe it was too much oil. I don't know.

So I think what we should focus on here is Troy's story because I think this could be a familiar story. For somebody who doesn't have a lot of experience in the kitchen, can be really kind of intimidated, Theresa, is there anything . . . What would you say to Troy or somebody like that? Because you teach cooking lessons out in the community, so you must run into this.

Theresa: Certainly. First and foremost, I would probably say Troy should join one of our classes.

Let me kind of tease this out a little bit more, Troy. Was it the recipe literacy piece or not knowing what . . . It sounds like there was not knowing what things are. And so just learning that? Or the actual seeing this laundry list of ingredients and multiple paragraphs of instructions, was that the intimidating part that caused a little bit of the shutdown?

Thunder: Or all the above?

Troy: Everything you just said. I went down aisles in the grocery store I have never visited before.

Theresa: Awesome. Love it.

Troy: I'm like, "I have never been in this aisle. Wait." And then I'm looking for the diced tomatoes and I find this aisle that has all the vegetables. I'm like, "Where are diced tomatoes?" There's every other vegetable you can imagine in this aisle. Come to find out diced tomatoes are in the Italian aisle. There are like 400 varieties of diced tomatoes by the spaghetti sauce.

And then the clincher . . . because I found the Thai paste pretty quickly because there is an Asian aisle, but the clincher was the coconut milk. I was like, "Coconut milk? Where in the world am I going to find that?" And I finally found it down on the bottom. They had a couple cans of coconut milk by the condensed milk. And so that part . . .

Theresa: In the baking aisle, yeah, which threw you. Why shouldn't it be by the Asian food?

Troy: I know.

Thunder: Troy, did you start in the dairy section for the coconut milk?

Troy: I might as well have.

Theresa: That's great.

Troy: I didn't go that far with it. I'm like, "I don't think it's going to be refrigerated. So it's not going to be next to a gallon of milk that I would pull out of the thing." But like I said, I was going places I've never been. And I'm glad there weren't a lot of people in the grocery store because it was just me going up and down aisles, up and down aisles multiple times.

Scot: Yeah, your frustration started at the grocery store, and then did it continue?

Troy: It did. Yes, it did continue. That wasn't the end of it. As I'm trying to peel the garlic, I'm like, "How do I peel garlic?" Just simple things. Honestly, I've never done them before, so Laura, my wife, says, "Well, if you put it in the microwave for like seven seconds, it makes it easier to peel." So that kind of helped.

And then the ginger, I kind of figured out how to peel that with the spoon, but again, it's something I'd never done before.

But when I did get into the recipe itself, I'm trying to time this stuff, like, "Okay, I've got this in there. Oh, wait, I need to add this. Oh, wait, I should have chopped those vegetables first. I didn't chop those vegetables. I've got to get those in."

So I think I probably should have read ahead a little bit more and been prepared for what was coming rather than just kind of going step by step, which is what I did. I mean, I got through it and it actually tasted really good. I was happy with the outcome, but it was a process, but I got there.

Theresa: So looking back, was it a good . . . Do you feel a little bit more empowered now . . .

Troy: I don't know if empowered is the best word.

Theresa: . . . for this next week's recipe?

Troy: Maybe a little bit.

Scot: Quite frankly, I'm afraid he's dropping out. I really am.

Troy: I thought about it. I hate to admit it. It was a challenge. Again, the most rewarding part is that, number one, I enjoyed it. It tasted good. Number two, Laura was very impressed. She was like, "Okay, this is really cool you did this." She was very supportive, so that was great. But it was a challenge. It was definitely a stretch.

Thunder: Troy, I have a question for you. How long did it take you to actually cook it?

Troy: The whole process, like once I chopped and cooked everything, was an hour and a half. So I was hoping it would be under an hour. It was an hour and a half.

Thunder: Well, the recipe did say an hour.

Troy: It did.

Thunder: So you blew through that metric.

Troy: Yeah, I did okay there. At the end I was like, "I'm just going to botch this and it's going to taste awful," but it actually tasted good. I will admit, I told you I was going to do minute rice. I did minute rice. I did not do any special kind of rice, but it tasted fine. It was good.

Scot: I just have a feeling . . . I'm not super well versed in the kitchen, but you start to kind of learn when . . . Like, while the onions are doing their thing, if you have an idea that it's going to take five to seven minutes, then you can be chopping your vegetables. I mean, after you do this a couple times, you start figuring that stuff out. So I hope that by the end of this, maybe we see some growth as Chef Madsen puts on his hat.

Theresa: In training.

Scot: Chef-in-training.

Theresa: Yeah, I think that's great. And you bring in a really great point, Troy, that a lot of newbies in the kitchen experience, is that they often don't read through the recipe. And so really reading through the recipe first to know what ingredients you're having. And often in that list, it tells you how it needs to be prepared and you can investigate and research that a little bit if needed.

But then it can also give you an idea of . . . kind of set the agenda almost of where we're starting and where we're going. And so you have that in the back of your mind as to, "Okay, this is the process."

Troy: It's true. And I think having been through this now, if I never cook another dish . . . I will. I will stick with it, but if I never cook another dish, I do feel like I could go back and I can make this and I could actually serve this to people who came to our house and be like, "Hey, I made this." And they'd be like, "Oh, it's pretty good."

So I feel like I now know what to expect and how to do things with this specific dish. And hopefully, that translates into a little more expertise with our next attempt here. We'll see how it goes.

Scot: And if you did this dish four or five times, you would be a master at it. I mean, it's just a matter of . . .

Troy: Yeah, that's true.

Scot: I mean, you'd be able to probably cut that time down. The frustration level would go away. And Thunder wanted to throw in . . . he had a couple of tips for maybe even making it easier to prepare some of the things in here. What did you have, Thunder?

Thunder: Yeah, since the idea is to have easy recipes that men can make that are not too intimidating, here are some ideas to make it more manly. I actually got frozen vegetables out of my freezer and put them in the curry instead of buying and slicing up my own vegetables. I had a powdered turmeric that I used instead of just shaving the root. I used the . . .

Troy: Powdered ginger, you mean?

Thunder: Sorry. Yeah, ginger.

Troy: Yeah, the ginger . . . Okay.

Thunder: And then I also had pre-minced garlic out of the jar. I used that stuff. Actually, the whole recipe didn't take that much time. What took the most time for me is I added my own flair to it. I took tofu and I pressed the water out of it and I stir-fried it and I added it to the curry, but I didn't have to do that.

Scot: They also have a pre-bottled or in a jar chopped ginger-garlic combination, which is what I used. So we have a jar of chopped garlic and then this little deal. Then you don't have to deal with that stuff, Troy, which can kind of take some of the stress and pressure off if you just buy that sort of thing.

Troy: That would have been nice.

Theresa: That piggybacks off of kind of what Mitch was talking about of how do you know what is a decent packaged or pre-prepared type of food versus not. And frozen vegetables, even some canned vegetables, are a great example of that because the chopping and finding it in-season and fresh can sometimes be challenging depending on the time of the year.

And those frozen individual veggies or veggie medleys are really great to have on hand so that you can just grab a couple of handfuls there and throw it in your sauce.

And you could throw it in your spaghetti sauce or your Thai curry sauce or your Alfredo or something like that too if you were venturing in those other directions.

Thunder: Can I ask a group question? I'm curious, what vegetables did you guys put into your curry? Now I'll go ahead and I'll start. I used frozen cauliflower, frozen red peppers and frozen orange peppers, and also some mushrooms I actually had in the freezer that I sautéed like a week before.

Scot: And those mushrooms held up, huh?

Thunder: Oh, they were fabulous.

Scot: Oh, that's cool. I did broccoli and cauliflower, a red bell pepper, and zucchini is what I put in. And then I just threw tofu. I didn't even press the water out of it like Thunder did. Mitch?

Thunder: I try to be fancy.

Mitch: Theresa was mentioning about the droopy vegetables, and I just threw everything in there. I had a parsnip, I had some carrots, I had a broccoli. It was just whatever. A red pepper. Things that were looking a little gross. They were not gross-gross, but they were a little wilty. I threw them in there.

Therese: A little wrinkly.

Mitch: A little wrinkly. Just chopped them up, threw them in there, delicious. I like that kind of thing because we try really hard to minimize our food waste in our house and so it was kind of cool to be like, "Well, this parsnip is not going anywhere. Let's just throw it on in."

Thunder: You've got the adventure award for using a parsnip. Who uses that in cooking?

Theresa: Troy, do you know what a parsnip is?

Troy: I was going to say, please do not put parsnip on the next recipe. It was hard enough to find a ginger root. A parsnip.

Thunder: Troy would be in the grocery for days looking for that.

Troy: You guys are just going to make a missing person's report or something. Seriously. Well, I have to add what I put in. I put in carrots and broccoli. So I get the least adventurous, but I did do tofu as well. Yeah, I did tofu too.

Theresa: Something that I hadn't put on the list, Troy, that I often do, thinking about keeping it meat-free as much as possible, is that I often will put garbanzo beans in it as well. It's another kind of additional protein alternative and good fiber source.

Troy: Nice.

Theresa: That's pretty easy, right? They're usually in cans. You don't have to boil them yourself. You can buy them canned and rinse them.

Troy: That's a great option.

Scot: All right. Well, Troy, this next week's recipe, I'm a little concerned, Theresa, that it's going to put Troy into a tailspin. I'm seeing stuff on here like canneli beans, artichoke hearts.

Theresa: Cannellini.

Scot: Cannellini beans, artichoke hearts.

Troy: Wow.

Scot: Sun-dried tomatoes, quality pasta sauce. You probably could manage that one.

Troy: Ragu?

Thunder: Is that Ragu?

Troy: I was going to say I know Ragu.

Scot: All right. So what's this week's recipe, Theresa? And talk us through this.

Theresa: Sure. So we actually have two recipes. I know that might be a stretch, and whether you make the second one or not, we can cross that bridge next week.

First is a stuffed spaghetti squash. When we think about alternative carbohydrates, spaghetti squash is one of those that tends to check some boxes when we're looking for something like a pasta dinner.

It's going to be nice in the sense that everything is relatively prepared for you. The ingredients are. So you're going to have marinated artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, things that you could all find in . . . If there was an olive bar at the grocery store that you were choosing to go to, you could buy your small quantity there. Or then head down the Italian pasta aisle, and you'll find most of these ingredients.

They should be pretty similar areas of the grocery store, hopefully, Troy, that you're not having to meander all the way around the grocery store multiple times to find your items. But also, the benefit with some of those is that it brings in a lot of savory flavor.

And that's sometimes part of the issue when we're looking at using these large spaghetti squashes. They often need a lot of flavor because it's pretty bland on its own. And so that's why I choose a . . . when I say quality spaghetti sauce, I take it a step up from Ragu or Prego, and look at something that has a little lovelier of a label.

Rao's is a good brand. There are several others. Look for, again, a glass jar. If it's in a glass jar, it's probably a little bit better, and maybe something that's more than, say, a dollar a jar. Shoot for maybe $2 or $3 a jar.

And there are some tips in the recipe about how to cook the spaghetti squash and speed it up. Throw it in the microwave whole for a few minutes. It makes it much easier to cut.

This is also one that you could do in stages if you wanted to depending on how much time you have. You could cook the squash ahead of time, or even the day before, and then prepare it. If you wanted it for Monday night dinner, you could put the rest together, and it's a pretty quick 15 to 20 minutes in the oven that Monday night.

Scot: Any questions on this, Troy? Have you looked the recipe over?

Troy: I did look it over a little bit. I saw roasted red peppers on there. Does that mean I roast the red peppers in advance, or can you buy roasted red peppers?

Thunder: Troy, the olive bar is your friend.

Troy: The olive bar.

Thunder: Yes.

Theresa: And if not, yes, you can buy them jarred.

Troy: Okay, good. Good to know.

Theresa: So they're going to be in this same area that . . . your artichokes, your Kalamata olives, your sun-dried tomatoes are all going to be in that same area in the grocery store.

Troy: Italian aisle? Kind of near the spaghetti? I know pastas. I know spaghettis. As long as it's somewhere in that vicinity, I think I can find it.

Scot: Yeah, the stuffed spaghetti squash looks great. I've had spaghetti squash before and it is really, really tasty. And this looks really gourmet, but it also looks pretty easy to make. Like you said, a lot of the stuff is already kind of in cans, jars, whatnot.

The second one, I think Troy is going to really like this because he loves his protein bars.

Troy: I do love protein bars.

Scot: Yeah, maybe this will be a good substitute for you. It's something you might like. What is your second recipe, Theresa?

Theresa: Chewy granola bars. So from our conversation last week, there was lots of talk about things that are easy to grab and go, needing snacks that you feel good about, whether it's late night coming home from work, or middle of the day and just needing something to kind of take care of that craving in the afternoon, or even that sweet tooth. This one would definitely satisfy that as well. And who doesn't love a nice, crunchy, chewy granola bar that's got chocolate?

And so this one is really pretty easy and you can mix and match with either what you have at your house or what you like to put in it. Essentially, you need a nut butter, some honey, and then some cereal. So puffed rice, puffed kamut, things of that sort to give that crunch.

I like to put in some seeds like chia seeds or flax seeds. You could certainly put in some slivered almonds or things like that if you wanted to.

And then whether it's chocolate chips or a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder, both work to give that nice chocolate flavor without a ton of extra sugar.

So yeah, the chewy granola bars, I think they'll become a favorite. And they're really easy to make and you can store them in the fridge or the freezer and pop one out as you're ready.

Scot: So one of the things that we want to watch for is added sugar. We've learned that added sugar is not necessarily great. I'm noticing a lot of sugar stuff in this, like light brown sugar, cocoa powder. Maybe that's actually not sugar. Chocolate chips, that's sugar. What makes this better?

Thunder: Partly.

Scot: Yeah. What makes this better than what I might buy in the store?

Theresa: So part of it is the ratio of sugar to your cereal and your nuts and seeds and things of that sort that are mixed into it. And certainly, yes, there is the sugar there. It's going to taste sweet.

We've got to think about portion size. Whether I'm eating a Snickers bar or a protein bar, often when we look at the nutritional content, they're very similar honestly.

And so with this recipe, it's got a significant amount of protein, which is really nice, from the nut butters brought into it. And if you add some nuts and seeds, you're getting a lot of extra fiber there as well.

And when you split up the actual sugar content per serving, it's a bit less than . . . When you see, "Oh, a whole half a cup of honey," you've also got to remember that you're dispersing that throughout all of your servings.

Troy: Are we making both of these then?

Scot: You are. I don't know about the rest of us, but you are.

Thunder: Troy, you make both of them, and we'll give you a couple of weeks to get through it.

Troy: Thanks, guys. Seriously, that's not a bad idea.

Thunder: You might have to take a leave of absence.

Troy: Yeah, can I get a leave of absence? Can one of you guys give me a work note? Seriously. Wow.

Theresa: Focus on the spaghetti squash. And if you've got time to do the granola bars, you can go from there.

Troy: I'm going to focus on spaghetti squash. I'm going to find the olive bar. I will find roasted red peppers and marinated artichoke hearts. I'm going to do this.

Scot: Warning: Put that spaghetti squash in the microwave. I've never heard that trick. They can be really hard to cut. You have to be careful with spaghetti squash.

Troy: Yeah. I do not want to slice a hand.

Theresa: You can always put it in the oven whole. It takes a little longer. It takes more like 45 minutes versus a half an hour in the oven. But yes, you can just put it straight into the oven on a baking sheet if you want, or straight onto the rack, but you can do that. And then how do you know it's done? You can stick a fork in it.

Scot: All right. Well, we're going to stick a fork in this episode right now. Thank you very much for listening, and we hope that you participate. If you do, let us know about it on Facebook. You can go to facebook.com/whocaresmenshealth. Send your pictures to hello@thescoperadio.com, or leave your voice message at 601-55SCOPE. Thanks for listening and thanks for caring about men's health.

Announcer: Need reliable health and wellness information? Don't listen to the guy in the cube next to you. Get it from a trusted source, straight from the doctor's mouth. Here's this week's listener question, on The Scope.

Interviewer: "Where should I start, diet or exercise?" This particular listener wants to get into better shape and wants to know if, you know, it's better to start with fixing your diet first and then moving on exercise, or do you exercise first and then the rest will follow. Certified exercise physiologist Britta Trepp, what do you say? Diet or exercise? What should you start first?

Britta: Both.

Interviewer: All Right. Well, I suppose we should define some terms first. So diet, what does that mean to you?

Britta: Yeah, when we say diet it doesn't mean a one-time diet, but rather a lifetime strategy of healthy eating. So most popular diets should be approached with caution you can talk to a registered dietitian to make sure that it makes sense for you, but healthy diets really aren't low carbohydrate necessarily, extremely low carbohydrate or very high protein. They're well-rounded and myplate.gov is the current recommendations for a healthy diet.

Interviewer: And that's not only healthy in the nutrients you get, but the sustainability of it too. Just being able to maintain that, I mean, it's really hard to do a low carb diet for a long time.

Britta: Right and oftentimes you will see that people will do an extreme diet, and they'll often lose the weight, but then gain it again.

Interviewer: Yeah, is that because they just can't sustain that diet and then all of a sudden, now they're bingeing on carbohydrates?

Britta: Certainly. A lot of the fad diets are low-calorie. They're not surprising when people lose weight if you're actually looking at the diet, but it isn't sustainable long term.

Interviewer: All right, and that resource again for a good diet?

Britta: myplate.gov.

Interviewer: All right. Now, let's talk about exercise. What does that mean? Does that mean I got to go to the gym and be an Olympic power lifter?

Britta: Yeah, exercise really, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends 30 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous activity. Moderate to vigorous means you can hold a conversation, but you might not be able to sing a song, okay? So that's the intensity that we're talking about. Thirty minutes, five days a week.

Interviewer: All right, so when I asked the question, "Where should I start? Diet or exercise?" I would imagine, and I can't speak for this listener, but that's making some assumptions, right? Like diet is going to be super hard so I got to really concentrate, or this exercise part is going to be super hard so I got to really just concentrate on that, but you're saying there's some moderation in there.

Britta: Right, even small tweaks make big changes.

Interviewer: All right, like what for example?

Britta: For example, I worked with a client who is working on changing his body composition, he actually cut out just added sugar for one month and lost 10 pounds of fat. So in addition, to maybe cutting out just one simple thing with a diet to become healthier, you can break up your sedentary time. So these are also small tweaks, if you are able to get up and move every hour, one to five minutes, you are able to accumulate up to 30 minutes a day.

Interviewer: Let's talk a little bit about what the ultimate goal is here. When somebody is asking the question, "Where should I start, diet or exercise?" they're probably trying to change their body composition a little bit.

Britta: Yeah, the ultimate goal is to become a healthier composition. So the numbers on the scale, how much you weigh doesn't tell the whole story. Now, you can weigh quite a bit and actually be composed of mostly muscle which is metabolically active. So we always recommend instead of looking at the scale actually doing Bod Pod body composition test so that you can look at plus or minus 2% what your actual composition ends.

Interviewer: And that's how much fat you have, excess body fat. A certain amount is healthy, but most of us are carrying around probably more than we need to.

Britta: Certainly. Males and females each have separate amounts of body fat that are essential for normal biological processes, but we can track not only where you are now and make small goals and tweaks year after year, but we can also, if you are an athlete, say, "Okay, we're performing really well at this certain body composition and that can be a goal for us moving forward."

Interviewer: Some of the, I think, mistakes that some people make though is they think that losing those numbers on the scale is, like you said, the ultimate goal where they could be really shorting themselves of calories and losing valuable muscle as well. Talk about that a little bit.

Britta: Yeah, so just as with weight loss, diet and exercise are both part of the puzzle. With exercise, cardiovascular activity as well as strengthening activity are essential. So we could act like a gerbil on a treadmill all day long and just zoom, zoom, zoom around. If we are not doing resistance training whether that's body weight exercises or standard lifting in a gym, we will lose some of our muscle mass and that is honestly very metabolically active. It is good to keep.

Interviewer: So an answer to the question, "Where should I start? Diet or exercise?" You should do both.

Britta: Yes. The research says that both are the most beneficial for weight loss.

Interviewer: Got you. And if you need some help who would you recommend somebody get in touch with?

Britta: Yeah, here at the University of Utah we have a clinic called PEAK Health and Fitness. We have registered dietitian as well as certified exercise physiologists, and they can work together to come up with a program for you so that you can get on the right track.

Interviewer: And for those that aren't in this area try to find a similar resource probably in your own community and I think probably one of the most helpful parts of that is you have a plan in front of you then.

Britta: Certainly, yeah. It's often very good to track. It'll keep you honest. So I know on my desk I have a little, it's actually a little black book, that I track my weekly exercise and I see every day, and I open it up and I know that I want to add more to it. So it's very visible in my life.

Announcer: Have a question? Ask it. Send your listener question to hello@thescoperadio.com.

Announcer: Need reliable health and wellness information? Don't listen to the guy in the cube next to you. Get it from a trusted source, straight from the doctor's mouth. Here's this week's listener question on The Scope.

Interviewer: Today's listener question, I think, is one that a lot of us have struggled with. I know I have. Three big meals versus several smaller meals throughout the day, "grazing," as they call it. Is one better than the other? I'm going to ask our expert right here. She's a registered dietitian, Theresa Dvorak, from the Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology at University of Utah College of Health. Three big meals versus several smaller meals, you can go online and find cases for both. What does the research say?

Theresa: The research really supports both, honestly.

Interviewer: Okay.

Theresa: I know. It's one of those, "Well, great, thanks." But there really is . . . we see positive health management, weight management, along with weight loss following multiple food meal plan practices. So whether you're just consuming three meals and breaking your calories into those three or spreading them more, say, through five or six smaller meals throughout the day.

The big take-home for weight management, weight loss, is total caloric intake. So how many calories are you consuming during an entire day? So what we see metabolically as well is that we like to spread those calories evenly throughout the day. But whether that was spread in three even meals or over six relatively even meals, it really doesn't seem to matter.

Some individuals, depending on their own physiology and their own kind of genetic makeup will tend to do better on one versus the other. And that really just takes some trial and error. But research-wise, we see that individuals can successfully maintain weight and then also lose weight on all those different meals plans.

Interviewer: So if I'm only able to get kind of three bigger meals throughout the course of the day because that's all my schedule will allow, I shouldn't stress out about that because I've heard somewhere else that grazing is actually going to help my weight loss?

Theresa: Right. No.

Interviewer: It's those total calories.

Theresa: It is. It is and really trying to manage the length of time in between your meals. So what we find is also . . . is that when we go longer than say about five hours without eating, that we tend to kind of rate higher on a hunger scale. We tend to get really hungry, overly hungry, almost, when we come to that next meal. And then that's what tends to lead to overeating in that particular late meal.

So if I had lunch at, say, 11:30, but I didn't have dinner until, say, 7:00, I'm going to be exactly ravenously hungry and I'm going to have a tendency to eat quickly and consume more calories than if I had eaten a little bit earlier. So if you've got a long span of time, certainly a snack is going to be helpful in managing those hunger cues so that your dinner comes along, you're still hungry, but it's not kind of like that ravenous hunger, that over-hunger where we tend to overeat.

Interviewer: So it sounds like you're not going to be able to give me an answer. I'm going to have to find out what works for me.

Theresa: It is. And maybe it changes from day-to-day.

Interviewer: And that's okay. Sure. Got you.

Theresa: And maybe some days are going to be fairly structured and consistent in my timing of eating. And other days, maybe I have to plan that I've got a late meeting or an early meeting that I'm going to have to maybe plan a snack for because it's not going to fit into my exact schedule.

Announcer: Have a question? Ask it. Send your listener question to hello@TheScopeRadio.com.

Announcer: Need reliable health and wellness information? Don't listen to the guy in the cube next to you, get it from a trusted source, straight from the doctor's mouth. Here's this week's listener question on The Scope.

Interviewer: Answering this week's Listener Question is Registered Dietician, Kary Woodruff. Kary the question, "Are fad diets safe and healthy for me to be on?"

Kary: It's a great question and it's really hard to say specifically one diet is, one diet isn't. But here my recommendation is, is the diet sustainable? So is this something that you could see yourself doing, you know, one to 10 years from now? Some things to kind of consider, or red flags I should say for less healthy fad diets would be diets that cut out entire food groups, right. So if a diet cuts out greens, and dairy, and legumes, right, that would . . .

Interviewer: Like the smoothie diet's probably not a thing that you should be trying then.

Kary: Right, correct. And or a diet that asks you to eat the same thing every day. Right, that's not very sustainable.

Interviewer: Nuts.

Kary: Yeah, we get bored of it, right? So that's not going to be very sustainable. Is there something that we can do in our day to day life that includes social functions, right? So if we're avoiding social functions because it doesn't accommodate our diet, then I would challenge that's not a very sustainable approach.

Interviewer: So pretty much the answer's no, right? There are no good, safe fad diets out there?

Kary: Typically not, it usually comes back to balance, moderation, and variety.

Announcer: Have a question? Ask it. Send your listener question to hello@thescoperadio.com.

Interviewer: Healthy benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle. That's coming up next on The Scope.

Announcer: Medical news and research from University Utah physicians and specialists you can use for a happier and healthier life. You're listening to The Scope.

Interviewer: I'm with Carrie Woodruff, a registered dietician at University of Utah Health Care. So, what are some of the benefits of a vegetarian diet?

Kary: Sure, we see that people who follow a vegetarian diet tend to have lower rates of cardiovascular disease, lower risk for diabetes, for renal disease. They tend to have a healthier BMI and lower risk for obesity. And just their overall intake of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and other nutrient dense foods tends to be higher.

Interviewer: So, as many pros as there are, it sounds like, to being a vegetarian, are there any cons?

Kary: No, I don't think so. I think as long as the person is educated. Someone who follows a vegetarian diet could be at greater risk for iron deficiency, for zinc deficiency, B-12, calcium, and some other nutrients. But if they follow a well-balanced diet, and they make sure they get enough protein in their diet, and enough nutrient rich foods, then they're not going to be facing those sorts of deficiencies, and can have all the health benefits that we mentioned.

Interviewer: Do you find that people often consult with their doctor or with the dietician before making the switch to a vegetarian diet?

Kary: No, I definitely think there are some people, but not everyone does. Sometimes people just decide to do it, and they go ahead and start a diet. And then a lot of times, at least what I see as a clinical dietician, is that patients maybe did get some sort of nutrient deficiency. So maybe they're deficient in iron, or deficient in B-12, and their doctor said "Hey, you should go see a registered dietician just to make sure that you are getting all the nutrients that you need to be getting from your foods."

Interviewer: So, for someone who is a vegetarian and who is iron deficient, or not getting enough protein, or something like that, what are some sources of those nutrients that they can eat and get that way?

Kary: Sure, so iron rich foods will be our leafy green vegetables. We'll even get some iron in some nuts. Definitely legumes are going to be a good source of iron. So those will be in soy products, will have some iron. And then we'll see protein coming from soy foods, from nuts and seeds and legumes as well.

Interviewer: How about vegan diet?

Kary: Vegan diet means that they're not consuming any animal products, so it would exclude any meat, any fish, eggs, or dairy foods. And so they can be at greater risk for nutrient deficiencies. Again, someone who follows a vegan diet can be meeting all their nutrients needs. They just need to be smart about it. And a vegan diet should be supplementing with B-12. That's the one nutrient that we can only get from animal sources.

Interviewer: Any final thoughts?

Kary: Well, I think a vegetarian diet can be very healthy, have lots of benefits, it just should be done with education and be done smartly, I suppose. And so if someone is choosing a vegetarian diet, just to make sure that they're educated on what nutrients they are at risk for deficiency. And to make sure they are getting enough plant sources of those nutrients.

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