SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Hello and welcome back to that Home Lawn Hub. Today I am joined by my birthday twin, this special lady that came into my life a few years ago, and it's just been a ray of sunshine having her in my life. And today I'm gonna share her with you a little bit in a nice way. Just the voice. Lucy Edwards from Lucy Nutrition down in Carpeti. Hello, Lucy. Good morning. Good morning. What a beautiful day. Oh, beautiful spring day. We finally got some sunshine. We finally got some sunshine. So, Lucy, you and I go a while back now.

SPEAKER_02: 0:46

Yeah, probably five years.

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

I was just thinking four and a half.

SPEAKER_02: 0:50

Four and a half, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 0:51

Yeah, because I started when Zara was about six months.

SPEAKER_02: 0:54

Yes, wow. That's impressive.

SPEAKER_00: 0:56

Yo, and now she's like five and a half. So yeah, yeah, it's gonna come up to five years of our relationship.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02

We got to know each other. You gave me the evils, I remember.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05

I gave you the evils. That doesn't sound like me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08

When I turned up and you were like, who's this chick?

SPEAKER_02: 1:10

Who's this chick?

SPEAKER_00: 1:11

Who's this chick? So where where did I turn up? Do you want to share? Where did we meet? We met at we met at Taekwondo.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18

And I do not believe I gave you the evils.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23

I'm usually very smiley. It's just my resting. My resting face is usually pretty smiley too, though. Maybe I was tired.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

I think you were quite tired.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30

If it was that, so um a little bit personal, maybe getting too deep, but um if it was where that venue was in the cricket club. Yes. Um, it was actually I had a lot of anxiety about that club uh being there because it's um the pla the time I had been there before was my brother's funeral. So stepping in when that club moved to there, stepping into there, I didn't like being there. Oh no. So if I was giving the evils, it was probably like, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:59

Ah, because that's what I felt from you. That's so weird. Because that's you know, you and I talk a lot about energies. Yes, yes. And I and the energy I was getting from you, like, I don't want to be here.

SPEAKER_02: 2:08

Yeah. So I probably saw my they had made it was really beautiful. They had made a beautiful trophy of my brother with his um date of you know, date of birth and date of death. And so anytime I wouldn't my poor son would tr want to show me things around the corner and I'd be like, I can't look at that. So it took a it took a little while. But if it was when we first met, it was when it had first moved there. So I was a bit anxious being in the in that building.

SPEAKER_00: 2:32

Ah, okay, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02: 2:33

It's but then it became my happy place. So not to bring the mood down, it became my happy place because I met people like you. It was so much fun, wasn't it? We had a great time.

SPEAKER_00: 2:43

We had a great time, and I'm so glad that you shared this with me because I'd never knew this, see? Right, yes. I love when we do this.

SPEAKER_02: 2:49

It wasn't you, it wasn't you, it was me.

SPEAKER_00: 2:52

Okay, phew, phew. But what a what a glimpse into your life. And so we met at Taekwondo, and you're about too great for your black belt. Yes, yes, which is really exciting.

SPEAKER_02: 3:03

Find out soon whether I'm quite there. I'm nearly nearly, nearly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:07

This is so exciting. I'm a bit jealous to be honest. I'm having a bit of a formal because of course over the last few years. I've sort of dipped in and out of taekwondo for personal reasons. Yes, but um, but it's so cool to see you on the sidelines and go, go, girl, like thank you. You know, to be at our age and to be getting I'm 40.

SPEAKER_02: 3:26

I'm 40 and going for my black belt. How cool! I never thought I would have, you know, the abs I have at 40. I've got I'm in the best shape of my life. And the kids as well. That's amazing. Do you think it's because of Taekwondo? Well, yeah, it's a huge commitment.

SPEAKER_00: 3:41

Yeah, yeah. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 3:43

It's a different sort of exercise, isn't it? A different sort of intensity than any other exercise I've done. Yeah, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 3:48

It gets you moving, right? It gets you moving in ways you never thought.

unknown: 3:52

Oh, yeah. You could.

SPEAKER_00: 3:55

Um, and today we're gonna talk about we diverted a lot, didn't we? Yeah, today we were gonna talk about your line of work and my line of work and how we can help our listeners to make some smarter maybe decisions around their lifestyle, their eating habits, and because the cost of living is just rising.

SPEAKER_02: 4:17

It's so stressful. It is so stressful, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 4:20

Yeah. I mean, the article that was just uh I shared with you this morning was um it said something like the year on year, I think the percentage difference was huge. You know, even if people are feeling a little bit richer because the mortgage rates have come down, but at the same time the cost of living has gone up. So they don't they don't feel any richer at all.

SPEAKER_02: 4:40

No, and you just go, you go, you've got lots of kids, you know, you've got four kids, I've got two kids, they eat a lot. Um going to the s I wanted to make them cookies the other day, you know, some nice homemade cookies. I went to go buy butter to get the cheap ham's butter was ten dollars. Whoa. So I really I think everyone is really, really feeling the pinch there when it comes to food. You want to eat good food, but it's you know, there's barriers there, it's difficult.

SPEAKER_00: 5:05

It blows my mind that we're leaving an agricultural country. Yes, and the butter is expensive.

SPEAKER_02: 5:10

Yeah, we've got cows everywhere. Come on. But we export it all, you know, we export a lot of the good stuff. Uh, but you think local stuff should be much cheaper. It should be, right? So maybe we should get just get a cow. And we'll just get our own cow. Like men's milking it.

SPEAKER_01: 5:27

Let's invest into a cow, Lucy.

SPEAKER_02: 5:29

Would be healthier milk, you know, getting it fresh.

SPEAKER_00: 5:32

True, true. Um, yeah. So what can we suggest to people? What can they do to improve their lifestyles? Let's just dig into it. And um, and look, guys, we didn't really prepare uh a list of things. So we're just gonna, you know, go with the flow today because Lucy and I operate much better when we don't have a list. Yes. For those that don't know. We just like to feel it, don't we?

SPEAKER_02: 5:54

We'll go with it.

unknown: 5:55

We'll like to feel it.

SPEAKER_00: 5:56

Exactly. So uh number one.

SPEAKER_02: 6:00

Um, plan. Plan. We just talked about not having a plan. So planning out your meals can be helpful. Um, that is something I do somewhat. So it's being planning. So going, you know, we might have pasta one night, we might have something sort of tex-mexy another night. But then also being open to what's on special. So yeah, I might plan four meal, four main meals, but then you know, you see tofu's on special, so we're gonna do a tofu dish or sausages are on special, so you're gonna do a sausage dish, that sort of thing. Are you not vegan? I'm not vegan, no. Are you vegetarian? I'm vegetarian. My family is not. Yeah. I do eat a bit of fish. Oh, okay. And I do feed my kids and husband meat. Okay. Yeah, they all eat meat.

SPEAKER_00: 6:44

Okay, because I'm like, hold on, she's just said sausage, and all this time I thought she was vegetarian. Yeah. No, I was right. You are vegetarian. And the kids and husband eat.

SPEAKER_02: 6:52

Kids and husband are, and I eat a little bit of fish. I eat salmon because it's so good for it.

SPEAKER_00: 6:56

Okay. Plan. I like that because often I find that if I don't have a plan, I would spend more money. You'll spend more money because you'll get takeaways.

SPEAKER_02: 7:04

If you especially you, you know, you work a lot, you come home, you're exhausted.

SPEAKER_00: 7:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:08

So having easy options. Yeah, planning to have uh, you know, at least four easy options.

SPEAKER_00: 7:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:13

Okay, cool. So planning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:15

For me, I would say what I would like is to grow more of my own. Definitely.

SPEAKER_02: 7:22

That would definitely be one of my suggestions. Yeah. So grow your own. What do you grow? Do you grow anything? I grow a lot. I've got a lot of silver beet still, and that's been from last season. So that grows quite wild. I have a lot of fruit trees, so I've got lemon trees, we've got an avocado. We got, I think, three avocados this season. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01: 7:41

Especially especially at the time when they were like five dollars each.

SPEAKER_02: 7:44

Yeah, you're like, oh one little tiny avocado. Got mandarin trees, we've got a Fujoa tree that, you know, so growing a lot. Um just in the last good planting season. We've got a whole lot of seedlings ready for summer. So, you know, everything. Everything from capsicum, chilies, uh, lettuce, spinach.

SPEAKER_00: 8:03

Do you need to know much about how to grow things? Is it easy to learn?

SPEAKER_02: 8:07

It can be easy to learn. It will would help if you got a book or just even stuff online. Um, sometimes planting with the moon can be really helpful. It's sort of something that seemed a bit strange to me at first, but um from the results, you know, there are depending on where the moon's pulling the water, it can change how things grow. So if you plant at the wrong time, you can get really spindly sort of um plants, but yeah. Had no idea that it affected it so much. Yeah. Wow. And I guess that goes back to our ancestral roots, isn't it? This is how they're planted. That's how they plant, they plant with seasons of plant with the moon. And the sun, and the rain, and the winds, and the everything, yeah, all the elements, the rain dance. Yeah, so definitely if you have any sort of garden planting your own stuff, it's like saving money.

SPEAKER_00: 8:53

Yeah, yeah. Um, I went uh last weekend to Maita Tan and I looked at their veggie pods, and they had this really cool veggie pods, and I really wanted one for a long time, but it was ridiculously priced, it was like$300 just for the plastic bed, and then you needed to pay$200 for the wheels, and then you needed to pay another$150 for the cover.

SPEAKER_03: 9:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 9:12

And I was like, man, it's gonna, you know, cost a lot of money. But I jumped on the marketplace and I found them really cheap because I guess people bought them and then decided to upgrade or whatever, you know. So my suggestion here would be don't go and invest with the first thing you see, you know, go and have a look around.

SPEAKER_02: 9:29

Look see if there's secondhand stuff like on trade meet. Yes, definitely all of that. But if you can manage to grow anything, and if you don't, if you live in an apartment or something, you could always grow herbs on your windowsill. And that's going to be really good for your gut health as well, because it's still got all um little microorganisms on it, which is really good for um diversity in your gut. Um, and anytime you're eating something really fresh, it's still alive, it's got all its digestive enzymes still in it. So it's the healthiest food is when you eat it very, very fresh. So growing it yourself is going to have much more nutrition than something you buy from the supermarket. It could have been sitting there for weeks. And you know it hasn't been sprayed. It hasn't been sprayed, no, unless you want to spray it with something. Yeah. So it hasn't been sprayed as well. So yeah, definitely much better for your health. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00: 10:18

What's your number three?

SPEAKER_02: 10:20

So we said planning, we said growing, um, buying bulk. But shopping with a special is in buying bulk.

SPEAKER_03: 10:27

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02: 10:28

Um, that is definitely very helpful. It's something, especially with taekwondo. I'm, you know, just training evenings. Sometimes I don't have time to cook. If I'm working and then training, I need to have different meals ready at different times. So making bigger amounts, freezing it, having it for lunch the next day. Um, I often make soup for myself. So I might make a soup in the weekend and all of us have it, you know, be I make delicious soups. And then I'll freeze some of it. So I've got some easy lunches for myself when I get really busy, or I'll keep enough servings to do at least two lunches that week. So that's something I don't have to think about. Doesn't cost, you know, soups you can do quite cheaply. And they're very nutritious, very nourishing, and I like a lot, you know, a lot of flavour in them too. So, yeah, buying bulk and I would love to try your soup, Lucy. You can try my soups. I make delicious soups.

SPEAKER_00: 11:19

I almost think you should start your own brand of Lucy's soups.

SPEAKER_02: 11:22

Lucy's soups. I get told stuff like that all the time, but it's when do I have the time to do this? I've got to sleep, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 11:30

Sleep is overrated.

SPEAKER_02: 11:32

I just think that um I can hear the cough. Oh I tried to put it down so gently. That's okay. That tea is delicious. We're having a beautiful pomegranate tea, by the way. What is pomegranate good for? It's really good for blood flow, and there's some studies coming out that it can actually help to stimulate stem cells. And stem cells are those beautiful cells in the human body that can turn into any other cell. So they can heal whatever's damaged. Okay, so it's really good for my current current torn muscle. Pause Beniso sitting here with a torn muscle.

SPEAKER_01: 12:05

It's funny because I've been recording all these episodes in the last week, and um, you know, I can't laugh much now.

SPEAKER_02: 12:10

Oh, you have to hold it together.

SPEAKER_00: 12:12

I have to hold it together. And then when we um when I cough as well, oh my god, the pain. Unless it's getting better. Thank you for the suggestion of that chiropractor. She's definitely making a difference. All right, so we talked about planning. So planning, growing, growing, buying in bulk, buying in bulk, or preparing in bulk.

SPEAKER_02: 12:32

Preparing in bulk. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00: 12:34

Yep. Um what else would we suggest? What about um like a uh one thing that people always talk about is lunch boxes. How expensive it is to do lunch boxes these days, and also kids, you know, they don't need this, there's a lot of food waste. Yes. Yeah, so what would you suggest there?

SPEAKER_02: 12:51

Oh, see, I that's an area I struggle into. So my my son, he will, he's a great foodie, he loves cooking, he'll make his own lunch, he'll put, you know, carrot sticks and such in there, which is wonderful. Carrot sticks. Carrots are always cheap, grown locally, grown up in our cunei. Um, so they're generally fresher, cheaper. At the moment, I think at Pack and Save, I was getting, you know, it's a you get a whole two kilo, two and a half kilo bag for two dollars. Wow. So things like carrots are a really good thing if your kids will like them. Your kids will eat them, they'll love it. Affordable, you know, even the dog loves it. Dog loves them. Yeah, our guinea pig loves them, so we always get lots of carrots. Um, I do struggle with lunch boxes because most things, as well, if you're pre-buying them, are full of sugar. Everything's got so much sugar, and um, sugar causes inflammation in the body, it causes a whole lot of damage. Uh, generally, as people, we eat way too much. Um, so it is a challenge I have as well, is finding enough to keep them full, but trying to keep the sugar down and be affordable. Um, yeah, so I guess finding things that they like. So one of the rules we have is uh, you know, you have to have two different veggies in your lunch. Oh. Yeah. And then uh especially having a couple of uh protein sources as well. So that could be, you know, a little bit of um those little meat sausage salami things. Are they good for you though? So generally preserved meats, not so good. They have do have preservatives. Um, but they are quite affordable.

SPEAKER_00: 14:23

Well, that's and that's where my problem is, because this is what we buy for the kids' lunge boxes too. But I always go and look at it and I'm like, oh, it's got all this different preserves. Preservatives, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 14:34

So it again it's weighing that up. Um, if you can afford to, you can get, you know, the the organic ones, but they're generally not affordable for most families.

SPEAKER_00: 14:44

What about like a boiled egg?

SPEAKER_02: 14:46

Yeah, if you can do that, if you can be bothered doing that.

SPEAKER_00: 14:49

Yeah, definitely. What about um you know, chicken pieces?

SPEAKER_02: 14:55

Yeah, so that's something I get for my son a lot is I'll get some shredded chicken because then we can put them in wraps and things, and he eats a lot. It's I imagine your boys eat a lot too. Um doing a lot of training, so they're very hungry all the time. So yeah, just definitely things like chicken wraps, and then if you've growing a little bit of lettuce or spinach or something, you can put in there too. Growing the three avocados.

SPEAKER_00: 15:17

My daughter is obsessed with avocados. Um, so good for you. Zara and Amir, they definitely both love avocados, they just sit there like with the spoon.

SPEAKER_02: 15:26

Yes, yes, my kids used to do that. It's so cute.

SPEAKER_00: 15:28

Yeah, spooning it out, which is really good.

SPEAKER_02: 15:30

Oh, uh uh, something I do with my daughter is some um lunches, some dinners she really likes. So she loves pasta and she'll love um, you know, bean mixes I make, and she'll actually eat them left over them in her lunch. Really? Yes, and so I'm like, getting some veggies, getting some protein.

SPEAKER_00: 15:47

That's awesome. Because my kids always frown like when I say to them, you know, why don't you take over you know the leftover dinner?

SPEAKER_02: 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:53

The only leftover dinner they'll take would be like takeaway pizza.

SPEAKER_02: 15:56

Like pizza, yeah, yeah. And get making your own pizzas as well. It's uh, you know, that's a really good school lunch thing because you can put a bit of you know, some sort of meat on it, some sort of veggie. When I make my own pizzas, I put a whole lot of good stuff into the sauce. So I've got heaps of herbs in the sauce, I've got onion, you know, organic onion powder, uh, great garlic, and and they don't even notice or care.

unknown: 16:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 16:18

Sneaking a lot of good stuff in.

SPEAKER_00: 16:20

I'm having trouble.

SPEAKER_02: 16:21

Oh, hello. Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_00: 16:22

Can you bring the microphone a bit closer, my dear? Have you got me now? Yes, I've got you now. Oh, good. Thank you. We don't want to miss a single tip. Don't want to miss a single little tip. No, I love that. My kids love sweet tomatoes. Oh, that's a perfect one. The cute little ones. And they're coming into season now. Yeah, and I've planted hips this time. I went to my to 10, they had a special, they had like three or four different plants for$15. Oh, wonderful. So I planted, and they grow easy.

SPEAKER_02: 16:47

They grow so easily. We had so many tomatoes last season. Yeah. I was making so many pasta sauces just to use them up, but they were cherry tomatoes as well. Yeah, can you freeze them? Not well. You're better to prepare something. They'll go disgusting when you unfreeze them. So if you put them into a sauce, you can freeze the sauce. It's probably a better way to do it.

SPEAKER_00: 17:07

Okay. But I I'm sure we won't get there because they eat like Yeah, yeah. And and I really struggled when the tomatoes were like eight or nine dollars for a little tiny punnet.

SPEAKER_02: 17:18

Or cucumbers, because that's something my kids eat too. Yes. And then they were like five to seven dollars.

SPEAKER_00: 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 17:24

Oh, we're not getting cucumbers.

SPEAKER_00: 17:26

And that's the that's the battle, isn't it? Like you look at how much the fresh fruit costs, fresh fruit, fresh veggies versus packaged stuff. Yes. And of course it's cheaper for people to buy packaged. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 17:37

It's like a dollar fifty for a big bag of chips. How do you compete with that? It is hard. Yeah. So it's finding a balance of what works for you. Um, I always the way I justify spending a bit more on food is it's investing in my kids' health and investing in my health, and it actually saves you money on the long run. Then you don't have to pay for the doctors. You don't have to pay for the I can't remember the last time my kids went to the doctor, you know, and that's how how I justify it is um how healthy they are and generally how healthy I am.

SPEAKER_00: 18:07

The other thing you and I covered a while back was around making your own um gut healthy food, like kombuchas and sauerkraut. Yes. Can you dive a little bit deeper into it? Because I know this is your topic of passion.

SPEAKER_02: 18:21

I am very, I'm very much the gut health queen. Um when you if you can make your own kombucha, it's really cheap. It's very, very cheap to do because you just need a few tea bags, you need a little bit of sugar, and it's the SCOBY that you need to get. But if you've already got one from, say, another bought kombucha, which you often can get, you can scoop that out and actually grow it. Um so you can do that really, really cheaply. However, I generally don't because the few times I have, I ended up getting ants. Ants. Yeah, from the when you're feeding the sugar to it, the ants somehow got in. Um, but if you if you do have space for it where ants can't get it, it it's a really cheap way. Because kombucha can be up to seven or eight bucks for those bottles. Or even for the organic one, for the really nice ones, they're sort of fifteen dollars.

SPEAKER_00: 19:12

Um, my third son, Amir, he loves kombucha, and I got given the scobby, and it looks terrible. They look disgusting.

SPEAKER_01: 19:22

And I'll show it to you on the way out. And I've refused to deal with it, so my mother is now in charge of SCOBY.

SPEAKER_00: 19:28

Okay, because I said, I'm gonna throw this away. She's like, No, Amir loves it. And I'm like, nobody drinks it. She's like, I'm constantly fitting the scoby, I'm making the teas. Oh, good ones. He's actually drinking it, and it's funny because the I couldn't find any bottles that would fit the fridge, so it's um we put kombucha and a wine bottle.

SPEAKER_01: 19:46

So I've got this wine bottle sitting in the fridge that's got kombucha, and you should see the look on people's faces when he pulls out this wine bottle, pours out a massive carp, and just goes gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp. And people look at me funny, and I'm like, no, no, it's fine, it's kombucha. He's got a great he's got great gut health.

SPEAKER_02: 20:04

And we're recycling with the wine bottle.

SPEAKER_01: 20:07

Well, I couldn't find an appropriate bottle that you know Well, it's glass, so it's that's great.

SPEAKER_02: 20:12

I had a friend that would use a wine bottle as a drink bottle, um, because she said it keeps the water cooler. Yeah, it does. Yeah, and it's not plastic. So that was her justification for it. So yeah, why not? So there you go.

SPEAKER_01: 20:25

Um I'll show you my scobby on the way out.

SPEAKER_00: 20:27

Oh, thank you. But I've been told not to feed it sugar.

SPEAKER_02: 20:30

I've been told that it's fine without the sugar. Oh, it like the sugar helps it to ferment, and that's what will make it go bubbly. But it ferments out, so by the time you're drinking it, all the sugar's gone. Ah, okay, cool. It's like making bread when you put a little bit of sugar in with the yeast to feed the yeast, but by the time you're having the loaf, there's the only sugar you're getting is from the flour. Yeah, it helps it activate it. Yes, yes, yes. It's feeding them. Okay. Uh, sauerkraut. Sauerkraut. So again, this is something I haven't had to buy because I'm very fortunate that Living Goodness often sponsors me um when I do my gut health talks. This episode is not sponsored by Living Goodness. Um they often send me samples when I do a talk and I get the leftovers. So I'm very, very lucky. Um, but it is easy to make. So it's basically you just you can put in anything you like. It's usually cabbage and you put a bit of garlic and other things in um with liquid, and the liquid has to cover the top. Um, and every few days you basically push it down and it ferments. And it's really easy, really affordable because cabbages aren't you know, green cabbages, how much are they at the moment? Two or three dollars?

SPEAKER_00: 21:38

Two or two bucks, yeah, they're not that expensive. My mum makes amazing sauerkraut. Oh, does she? Yeah, last time she made it, she made like so much, and I think she was the only one eating it because it was just she made so much. But it was really easy because I was watching her make it, and I was like, wow, this is actually not that hard. And then, yeah, as you say, you put pressure on it, you put it. You put pressure so the liquid keeps coming out. I think she put like a pot on top of the so there was like in a bowl all the sauerkraut, then there was a plate, then there was a pot, and inside the pot it was something else heavy. Okay. So it just kept putting pressure on it, or like a big brick or whatever she found.

SPEAKER_02: 22:12

But something heavy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:14

Well, you know, we're from Soviet Union, she she's quite creative. Yeah. To be honest, back in the day, like when we were growing up, there wasn't much food available quite easily. No, no, there wouldn't be, right? So people had to make their own food. We had to make our own cottage cheese. Oh, yeah. So I make really good cottage cheese. Oh, good, good, that's great. Very easy to make, by the way. You get goppola yogurt. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 22:35

You know, goppola? Yeah, it's and that's on special at the moment too. I got a big thing for three bucks.

SPEAKER_00: 22:39

Yeah, and you just boil it until it separates. Yes. And then it separates, and then you tip it over in a drainer. Uh sieve. Sieve, thank you. English, third language. Um, I'm glad you get me. So you tip it out in a sieve, and then it's um all the liquid will go down, and then you're left with the cottage cheese. Oh, nice. And out of cottage cheese, we're used to eating it sweet, so it blows my mind that in New Zealand you guys eat it sour. Right. Um, but in our culture, it's like a sweet food. So you will add um a bit of sugar, a bit of flour. You can make little bowls, fry them. They're delicious with sour cream. Oh my god. It's like my to make them for me sometimes. So you making soup, I'll make you. You make the dessert. The cottage cheese dessert. Cottage cheese dessert. Um, yeah, and then the liquid that's left over, I usually use it to create crepes.

unknown: 23:32

Oh.

SPEAKER_00: 23:33

So I repurpose it. I add a bit of milk and then flour, whatever, and then I make crepes out of it. So um, that used to be my go-to when uh, especially you know, when I had young kids, I was working in the bank, the money was very scarce. So I would make things last quite a bit. And same with the chicken carcasses. Oh my god, my pulse just took off when I posted that thing.

SPEAKER_02: 23:54

Great recycling.

SPEAKER_00: 23:55

It's all the collagen out of the chicken.

SPEAKER_02: 23:57

Yeah, it's really good for your skin and your gut as well, what you were doing.

SPEAKER_00: 24:00

So chicken carcasses, very cheap, you know, a couple of bucks. You can get like four carcasses in the pack from the butchers or from the shops, and I would just um boil them for a bit, you know, add carrots, potatoes, uh, onions. Carrots are cheap, onions are cheap, right? And so you've got suddenly you've got a soup. Yes, and then this chicken carcasses, there's still quite a lot of meat in them, too. Right. So I would take the meat out completely out of them. And yeah, it was just making fantastic soup for under like 10 bucks. Yeah. That would last, you know, few days, whole family would eat it, quite healthy for you. Yeah, very, very, very good for gut health. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 24:38

So there's a lot of things I think we can do. It's putting the effort, it's knowing what to do and then putting the effort in. And sometimes the effort's not as like yesterday, I because I kept telling myself, and we tell ourselves stories as people, don't we? All the time. So I often tell myself I don't have enough time to do that. I don't have enough time to make them whatever. But when you actually do go and do it, you do have the time. It doesn't take long. I made I had a craving for bumper bars yesterday. Do you know bumper bars? Yes, oh my god, that's like it's such a classic. Yeah, so I'm I made them myself. Wow. And they were so good, and they were all eaten in a day. The kids love them. They're like, please make this again. You didn't bring me any. I didn't bring you an absorption, sorry. But they were absolutely delicious, no refined sugar. I managed to get these beautiful New Zealand um gourmet dried apricots that I cut up really finely in them, so they were just delicious.

SPEAKER_00: 25:33

That's another thing that you just reminded me of. Yes. As a kid, what we used to do is we'd you collect apples. Everyone usually has like heaps of apples growing. And even in New Zealand, you would find, you know, people that have trees and they don't really do anything with those apples. So many trees. So what we will do is we will um chop them up and then leave them to dry in the sun. Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02: 25:55

And then you've got dried apples, and they're delicious, they're so chewy and sweet and yum.

SPEAKER_00: 26:00

Yeah, and then one time I was crazy enough um a few years ago when the kids were little, I wanted to make them um fruit rolls. Oh, yes. So I made the apple puree, and then oh my god, that took forever. Don't do that. Okay. It took like I think a day in the oven because you had to like bake them very, very slow to dehydrate them, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 26:20

Oh okay, so maybe not that one.

SPEAKER_00: 26:22

And and they were gone like within seconds. But I wanted to make something healthy for them because I was reading up the ingredients in those fruit rolls that they use. They don't even have fruit in them half the time. No, yeah, and that's what I realized. I was like, cool, I'll make them my own. Yeah. Oh my god, that took forever. But dry apples in the sun was my favorite thing. Oh, I used to love it as a kid.

SPEAKER_02: 26:43

Yeah, because they're so sweet, and you probably didn't have shops with a whole lot of sh over-sugared food very readily available. No, no, we didn't. So, um so it's having something really sweet like that would have been a real treat.

SPEAKER_00: 26:54

Yeah, so again, they also uh package up quite well, you know. You could dry them up, remove that moisture, and then you know, put them in the containers and definitely kids can snack. Yeah, kids can eat them. Um, cool. And fijoas, by the way, when you do grow a lot of fejoas, they freeze really well.

SPEAKER_02: 27:11

They freeze well, and then I make crumbles for the rest of the year. I make a beautiful crumble out of coconut sugar and oats and um coconut oil and such, and lots of cinnamon, and that makes a really, really healthy crumble. And the kids absolutely love it, and there's fights over who gets it, and um, it's also a really nice breakfast if you add a bit of yoghurt in the morning. So, yeah, definitely if you've got a fijoa tree, you can freeze them and the skins you can make use to make the kombucha. Kombucha, yes, I love fijo fizz.

SPEAKER_00: 27:42

Oh, yeah, love it. Um, the other thing uh you just reminded me of when we were talking about this uh fijoa thing is lemons. So you know how everyone has lemons and stuff. Yes. One time my friend gave me a bag of lemons. I'm like, oh man, I can't get them to waste. So again, what I did was as I chopped them up into tiny little pieces. Yes, and then I lined them and then I froze them, and then I once they were frozen individually, I could put them in a container individually as well. Yes, yes, so then they store really well. Because if you lump them together, then it's gonna be one big lump. Yes, no, no, no, and it's hard to do frost, yes. Yeah, but that way you could just pick out a piece every time if you need to. Yes. For your teas, delicious, or your gin and tonics, um, for anything, you know, they're quite multi-purpose and definitely in flavor. Again, it blows my guest minds away. You know, when they arrive and I'm like, would you like some lemon? And they're like, oh, okay. And it was a lemon. You know, instant.

SPEAKER_02: 28:39

Instant. Just the one thing to be aware of with that is because lemons are very high in vitamin C, vitamin C is destroyed by heat. So they as soon as they're frozen, they will lose their vitamin C, unfortunately. Oh, really? Yeah, you still get other minerals and such from them, um, but the vitamin C is gone. Oh. So just something to be aware of. You need it fresh. Fresh lemon. Fresh lemon for the vitamin C.

SPEAKER_00: 29:03

As a kid, I must have been licking uh vitamin C because I would eat them. I would eat them raw.

SPEAKER_02: 29:09

A lot of kids do that. I I I love lemon. But I think it's vitamin C, laking vitamin C and your body knows. Yeah, your body is generally if if the more you look after your body, the more your body will sort itself out. It will crave what it needs. And yeah, as you said. Yeah, I had a friend and uh her baby was craving chalk. Okay, that's called pika, and that can mean they're very iron deficient. It's something else.

SPEAKER_00: 29:33

That's something completely different. Um, all right, so the other thing I wanted to talk to you about was um what do you see at the moment in terms of health issues and how can people address that?

SPEAKER_02: 29:44

Oh, okay, that's such a huge subject, but I am seeing more cancers in young people, and this is absolutely devastating and heartbreaking that young people are now getting bowel cancers.

SPEAKER_00: 29:57

Bowel cancers?

SPEAKER_02: 29:59

Um, that is yeah, it's really, really sad. So a lot of what would sort of be our the previous generation would be, you know, old associated with older generations. Generations illnesses, you know, um are coming much younger. And heart disease is you know, you're getting 40-year-olds with having strokes and such. So um a lot of diseases are getting uh happening to people a lot younger, and that is absolutely heartbreaking. Um what you can do about it, being aware of your health. Being aware of your health, don't wait till the last minute, don't wait until it's too late. Um, often with clients, I get referred to them because they've been to the doctor first and then they're on the medication for life, and then they come to me. And I wish it was they had come to me a bit earlier before they're on the medication, because in many cases we could reverse it enough that they wouldn't be on medication, so you don't get the side effects from that. Um so that's quite sad when it gets to that. Glad the medication's there, glad we have ways to um help manage a lot of these health conditions. But why were they in the first place? But why were in the first place? And sometimes it's not their fault. There's you know hereditary things, there's environmental things, there's things they don't know about. But I think we've got to take our health more seriously from a much younger age than what we're used to before. Um, yeah, so just having that awareness. Again, I don't want to put fear into anyone's head. Don't be scared, but just be aware. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is power. As soon as you think something's wrong, yeah, chat to your doctor. The sooner you make better health decisions, the sooner your health can regenerate, you know, your body's amazing at regenerating itself and healing itself. Um, but you just have to allow it to be able to do that. Yeah, and you have to look after it. You have to look after it. So exercise, drinking water, you know, vegetables. Most people can't overdo vegetables. I've never met a client or a human that I've had to say to them, you're eating too many vegetables.

SPEAKER_01: 32:03

I love that.

SPEAKER_02: 32:04

Cut down your vegetables.

SPEAKER_01: 32:05

Yeah. You're drinking too much water.

SPEAKER_02: 32:07

You're drinking sometimes, no, no, sometimes. Sometimes, yeah. If you drink too much, you're diluting all your water-soluble nutrients. Oh. So you can get cramping, you can get all sorts of horrible other things. So, yeah, there's there is a balance.

SPEAKER_00: 32:20

Wow. Yeah. And so that's another thing, like, because I also do insurances, right? Yes. And we tell people, we tell young people is get insurance when you're young and healthy. Yes. Before all those things that happen in your life. Because this is when you are insurable. Yes. And then once you start having all the symptoms, then insurance may turn around and not want to insure you. And that's when you need it the most. And things like um, I think so.

SPEAKER_02: 32:46

I had a client who might need a colonoscopy, doesn't have health insurance. It's gonna cost three grand to get that colonoscopy. Wow. So he ended up coming to me first. Um, and I said, You still might need to go get that colonoscopy, you should still save up. You know, I'm not a doctor. Um, but there's a lot of things we can do now to to lower that that risk those risk factors of uh of it turning into something like a bowel cancer.

SPEAKER_00: 33:12

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because I mean that's one thing I've noticed the difference in cultures, like coming from my country, you know, we're a culture of drinking lots of teas, so herbal teas, you know, the green teas, there's it's quite an Asian thing.

SPEAKER_02: 33:24

That's how um a lot of Asians used to preserve water.

SPEAKER_00: 33:27

Yeah, we don't drink a lot of cold items, right? Versus I find in New Zealand, you know, it's all uh not many people drink hot drinks. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people you've got I do, I'm always like give me the tea. Yeah, but a lot of people don't, and uh soups, we've got a massive culture of soup as well. So maybe I'm Asian. Maybe you're Asian, maybe like you were like teas and soups. Yeah, so like soups is a big thing, you know, fermented food is a big thing. Right. So when I first came to New Zealand, I was like, wow, that's a lot of you know, fried food, fish and chips, and you know, roasts, cool, but at the same time roast can be done well.

SPEAKER_02: 34:09

You can have a good roast, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:11

And then uh I was like, okay, and then lots of desserts, you know, like lots of sugar, lots of sugar.

SPEAKER_02: 34:16

I think it's a we have a lot of British influence, and they're quite um a lot of sugary, floury type foods.

SPEAKER_00: 34:24

Yeah, because for me it was like wow, it's a very carp-heavy.

SPEAKER_02: 34:28

Very carp heavy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:30

And I really struggled with that. You know, I put on like 15 kgs when I first came to New Zealand. I went from like 50 kgs to 65.

SPEAKER_01: 34:38

And I know at 50 was my high, there wasn't much to me.

SPEAKER_02: 34:41

It was pretty tiny, yeah. Yeah, there wasn't much to me.

SPEAKER_01: 34:43

And I look back at those photos and I'm like, oh my god, it was just bones. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 34:47

Um someone make her a meal, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:50

But then, you know, I gained like within six months of living in the homestead family. Yeah. Because suddenly I was exposed to all these heavy creams and you know, all these desserts. Every night in my homestead family, they would sit down after the kids were in bed. Um, they had a four-year-old and a five-year-old, they'll put them to bed and then we'll sit down and they will always have like ice cream and donuts and I don't know, all sorts of different things. So for me, I was like, oh my god, this is great, but not at the same time. And I was craving soup because they didn't really want the soup. I want the soup. And it's funny because when my kids um come home after school, every day after school, when they come home, there's usually a hot meal waiting for them. So that's part of their culture now. Like they can't because at school they they can't eat whole food.

SPEAKER_02: 35:34

But there's no hot food. That's something that does upset me because you know, you could give them leftover dinners inside.

SPEAKER_00: 35:40

But it's not, yeah, exactly. It's not cold. And it's not hot. So they eat it cold. And in my culture, we believe you need to be eating hot food to keep with that qi, you know, your chi, yeah. Your energy, your body energy. So they come home, they know that there will be a hot meal waiting for them. They don't just snack on chips and whatever until dinner time. So they have a proper meal. So it's normally will be a soup or mashed potatoes and meat patties or yeah, you know, chicken, pasta, whatever. There will be some sort of protein, yes, and something else. And then at dinner time, again, they will have another proper meal. Yes. And usually at that time, they will also have a salad and something else with that. So normally they will have a proper breakfast, then whatever lunch they have in their lunch boxes.

SPEAKER_02: 36:29

You just give into sandwiches, don't you?

SPEAKER_00: 36:31

Well, I was about to say, yeah, it's usually sandwiches and you know, fruits. But the rule is, yeah, they have to have a fruit. Have to have something, yeah. Fruit, something fruit, something protein. Something fruit, something protein. And then um, but yeah, my my peace of mind is that I know when they come home, there will be a hot meal waiting for them that they can eat and then they will eat again because they're always hungry, as you say.

SPEAKER_02: 36:52

They're starving when they come home, they're growing, they're doing lots of exercise.

SPEAKER_00: 36:56

Yeah, and um Akmal, he's obsessed with rottis. I love roties, I haven't had one in a while. I absolutely love rotis, he makes really good roties. Oh so often if I don't have roties in the freezer, so I've discovered in the Indian um dairy shops you can get like a pack of roties. Okay, very cheap. So um, well, they're like 30 roties for like$20. Oh, okay. So under a dollar, you know. Um, and he usually fries them up quite easily. But if it's not there, what he discovered I wanted to call him something, but I'm not. Um little smart person that he is, uh, the flaky pastry that I get for baking, he discovered if he cuts it up into little squares and fries them up, they taste the same almost as roti. I was like, okay, thanks, James.

SPEAKER_02: 37:42

It's a similar ingredient. Well, roti is usually yogurt, isn't it? Yoghurt and um flour. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 37:47

And I'm like, you know how expensive that flaky pastry is? Don't do that. But no, he can make his own as well. So he's discovered how to how to cook.

SPEAKER_02: 37:54

Yeah, well, it's wonderful. Teaching your kids to cook is one of the best things you can do. So one, they're never going to take you for granted because they know how much effort goes in. They also get a sense of pride. I remember when my son started um cooking, he would be like, Oh, this is the best pizza I've ever had, you know, because he made it, he knows what goes into it. And it's also subconsciously helping them to get aware of what ingredients they're eating, what's going into their cooking.

SPEAKER_00: 38:21

No, I'm I'm very blessed that all of my kids want to um learn how to cook and usually are easily encouraged to. Like if I say, Oh, you know, we're doing this, come and cook, I know they can survive by making their own food. Yeah. And a lot of people miss their life skill. It's funny because um I had this conversation with my friend. She said to me, you know, let kids be kids, let them, you know, just enjoy their childhood. And I'm like, Yeah, but at what point does it go from, you know, let them be kids to an adult that doesn't know how to do simple things?

SPEAKER_02: 38:53

And that or they love it, especially when my kids were really little. They loved baking. That was a a treat is helping me doing baking and measuring out the things, and then they learn, you know, they're learning maths, doing that, and again, learning what's going into their their food. I think it's part of their childhood, it's being creative. Cooking is a huge amount of creativity and love, you know. A lot of people express their love for their families by by putting but you know, in many, many cultures that's how you express love is through food.

SPEAKER_00: 39:22

Yeah, exactly. I 100% agree. Um, and it's been really cool that Aslan has been coming home and he's like, Mom, can we bake this? Can we bake that? And I found this little cute book that I would have purchased, I don't know, years ago. It was like a it says a fundraiser for some sort of club, don't even know what it was, but it's got like different cooking recipes, and it's got like a really old-fashioned, you know, like chocolate fudge or chocolate brownie and a few other things. And um I'm like, Cool, here's a book, you tell me what we need, yeah, and then we're gonna go shopping, and then you know, we're gonna make this. So it putting that responsibility back on him, yes, and then he has to think it through, and then he gets the reward as well. Yeah, yeah, and as we say, the pride to see him being so proud of it. Often what I also do as the kids, you know, going back to that budget piece, is I say, Look, we can't go to the shop right now. What do we have in the fridge and the freezer and the pantry? How can we get creative here? Yes, definitely. Don't just follow the recipe tea tea to tea. To a tea. To a tea.

SPEAKER_02: 40:21

You could say that to a tea, that not this tea, to a tea.

SPEAKER_00: 40:25

Yeah, and you know, just the showing them a way of how to get by without spending extra money.

SPEAKER_02: 40:32

Yeah, definitely. And that's a that's a skill I had when I was a very, very poor student. As you said, you came from poverty at some areas in your life. In my lowest year, um, I earned six grand the whole year. Wow. The whole year. I don't know how I survived. I think it is like I starved a little bit. But I you know, I'd be paying rent and bills and things, and that was sort of my lowest. Yeah. And you get by on one meal a day. You get but you work out, you work you have to work it out. Um, so when people say, you know, I can't afford it, I'm like, well, you you can, you just gotta work out. Um and prioritizing health. I always, you know, your health is everything, otherwise you're dead, right?

SPEAKER_00: 41:19

Well, I've got a really good metaphor for you. I don't know if you remember a few days ago there was a truck that got stuck on the train. Did you see the video of Post? Oh my gosh, yes. That oh, I'm so glad no one was hurt. Do you remember what happened in that video? Yes. He waited until the last minute to keep the truck moving. Yeah. Because he realized he got stuck in the middle, something happened with his transmission, it failed, you know, it um tanked out, and he was trying to make it go. And in that video, you literally can see to the last like last second, and he gets out, runs like a few meters, and then the train comes and hits that truck. So I decided that's gonna be my metaphor now for people. When um don't wait until the last minute to change something in your life. Because that is so much harder. It's so much harder. The train will come and it will crash, yeah, crash you, you know. So don't wait. Just don't wait, yeah. Get out earlier, you know, prepare for life.

SPEAKER_02: 42:16

Yeah, and invest in yourself, invest in your health. Yeah, health is your wealth, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 42:22

Look at us, look at us. You know, we've been going for 42 minutes. Oh my gosh, we could probably talk all day though, couldn't we? Can I have you back to share as a regular guest with some more tips and tricks? And we'll we'll make it shorter episodes for our listeners. Sure. But something, you know, that will help them to get better with their health. And as you say, you know, if they're healthier, they will feel better about themselves. Feel so much better, yeah. Their earning capacity will be much better because the money will be going in the right ways instead of just paying the doctor bills.

SPEAKER_02: 42:52

Yes, yes, definitely. I would love to do that. And as I've always said, my goal, you know, I'd like to earn lots of money and be rich and such, but my goal is always helping people. That's the bottom line for me is I don't want other people suffering. I don't want people like my brother dying prematurely. You know, I don't want that for anyone. I don't want anyone to suffer. So my goal is to help as many people as possible to look after themselves.

SPEAKER_00: 43:16

Yeah. And I think this is where you know you and I twin because we've got birthday on the same day. Yeah. And and I know where you're coming from. Like fundamentally, I get you. And you get me. Like, we want to help people. You know, we want to see them do better in life. Whether I do it through the finance point of view and you do it through the nutritional point of view and a health point of view, at the end of the day, if we can help more people to have a better life, we surround, we're actually a bit selfish, aren't we? We want to surround ourselves with happier, healthier people. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 43:48

Get a healthier community, a happier community, a thriving community. And then everyone wins. No one loses from that, do they?

SPEAKER_00: 43:55

No, no one does. Lucy, five seconds of fame, where can people find you?

SPEAKER_02: 43:59

Uh, LucyNutrition.co.nz, if you want to book an appointment or see what talks I've got coming up. Yes. Cole.

SPEAKER_00: 44:08

Lovely to have you, Lucy. Thank you so much for coming along. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 44:11

It's an honor.

SPEAKER_00: 44:12

And we look forward to having you back.