Just Try One Bite...

Camila Alves McConaughey has a best-selling book on her hands - Just Try One Bite features empowered kids tempting their parents to eat better. It's not preachy - it's peachy! Camila shares a few stories about her famous and inspiring husband Matthew, too. Plus...what happens when you eat fast food? That story is in here too. Making small changes in our diet can have profound effects on the way we operate in the world. Take good care of yourself. You are so very worth it!

Transcript

This is Shine On,

The health and happiness show with new episodes every week on how to live well.

Shine On is heard all over the world as a podcast,

But it's heard first on the radio in New York's Hudson Valley.

Hi,

It's Casey.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Shine On.

Let's take a great big breath together.

And welcome to the show.

We're going to talk about food today.

What's your relationship with food?

I realize my relationship with food is limited to just like 10 foods.

I'm not very adventurous.

I'm happy with a piece of Ezekiel bread toasted with hummus on it.

I'm happy.

Amaranth flake cereal with almond milk.

I'm happy.

Very simple plain foods.

Makes me happy.

Nobody enjoys an apple the way I enjoy an apple.

I enjoy an apple.

Kiwi,

Not so much.

Like I really stick to simple basic foods.

And we're going to talk today about what fast food does when it gets in your body.

Yes,

We're going to go minute by minute from when you eat the fast food to 55 minutes later.

What is going on in your body?

Ah,

Do you want to know?

You're going to find out.

But first,

A beautiful breath of fresh air and a beautiful book you may want to put in the Easter basket this year.

Easter Bunny,

If you're listening.

It's called Just Try One Bite by Matthew McConaughey's wife,

Camilla Alves McConaughey.

And she's teamed up with another famous children's book author,

Adam Mansbach,

For this very entertaining children's book.

And what I love about it,

Camilla,

Is that the children in the book are actually the empowered ones who are teaching their parents how to eat better.

Well,

Look,

When Adam and I were working on this,

I really,

You know,

We really wanted to make sure that it wasn't preachy.

We wanted to be fun.

We wanted to be funny.

We wanted to,

You know,

Do something different with it and reverse in the world is something that we haven't seen it yet on a kid's book that,

You know,

That talks about food.

Right.

So on that topic.

So that was our version of going,

You know what,

Let's give the kids the power.

And I've seen it in my only house,

You know,

On my household that when you do get the kids the knowledge,

You do give them the power to make choices that they understand.

Eventually they start making the better for you choices.

Right.

And it's a beautiful thing.

Beautiful,

Beautiful.

Is it true that you didn't like mushrooms for most of your life?

Very true.

I just started to like mushrooms not long ago.

You couldn't pay me enough money to eat mushrooms.

And I had this meal from Kristen Kiss,

The chef,

And she,

I loved it.

I ate everything.

I was like,

This is so good.

But what is it?

And she's like,

It's mushrooms.

It's all mushrooms.

I was like,

Oh my gosh,

Stop.

I was like,

No way.

So anyway,

She shared the recipe.

We have it on Remed of Today.

It was a veggie bolognese.

Ever since like it kind of hit me that,

You know,

I had that light bulb moment,

You know,

It took me this long to have the light bulb moment of like even using that tactics with,

You know,

My kids of like,

Hey,

It's not that you don't like this,

It's that you haven't had it in a way,

Prepared in a way that you liked,

Like cooked in a way that you like yet.

So like I use that with my daughter,

You know,

She's like,

I can't send spinach,

Cannot have spinach.

And I've tried different ways.

And I tried it one way,

Just,

You know,

I chopped it really small and I just put it in the,

On the satin with the pasta really quick with some other things in it.

And she ate all of it.

And I'm like,

You know,

That was spinach.

And she was like,

Oh my gosh,

It was.

And I was like,

Yeah,

So there we go.

It's not that you don't like spinach.

You just needed to find it,

You know,

Cooked in a way that you love.

Let's try one bite.

How did you meet your co-author Adam Mansbach?

Is there a story there?

Are you friends?

No,

Look,

We met through our,

The agent at the management at 3R.

That's really how the introduction came about.

I was having a conversation with him about doing a project,

Doing,

You know,

Kids' book,

Actually the whole idea came together.

We're having a conversation.

What should we do?

Should we do a cookbook?

Should we do this?

Should we do that?

And then we did this book and then him and my manager were like,

I think we know exactly who you should partner with and talk to.

And that was Adam.

And if you know his book,

Go The App to Sleep,

You know that this one is going to be fun and fun,

Got a little bit of a rhyme and rap to it.

That's great.

And the cookbook can come next now,

Right?

This sets you up for the cookbook,

Camilla.

Yes.

Tell everybody about your Women of Today platform and what you do there.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So Women of Today is an online community that it's all about us learning from each other and us learning from each other on how to do better for ourselves,

For our households,

Our families and our community.

And we do anything from food to beauty to hacks to health to exercise.

We do a little bit of everything.

And majority of the content is things that the community is asking and curious to learn more about.

So you can check it out,

Womenoftoday.

Com.

You can check on Women of Today Instagram.

And I highly recommend that people sign up for the newsletter because that's where you get the good stuff that we don't talk about much.

All right.

I am going to sign up for that newsletter.

I want to bounce back to the book again,

Just Try One Bite.

The beautiful family on the cover.

How does everybody feel about their illustration by Mike Bolt?

Are the kids happy with the pictures?

You know,

That is so funny because it's not supposed to be us.

Like,

It is not us.

No,

Like it is not us.

But it is a multicultural family,

Which we are one.

And that was important.

But no,

It's not.

I did not.

It was no conversation about making the illustration to be our family.

I thought I recognized your husband's chin.

He might use some of that in there.

All right,

All right.

And speaking of your husband,

I have to ask because everybody wants to know,

Is there ever a moment in your daily lives where he says,

All right,

All right,

All right?

Does that ever like pop out?

No,

Not too much.

Well,

Here and there.

Here and there.

I have found him on the Internet,

TikTok,

Things like that to be very inspiring.

Is it wonderful to have a partner who has that kind of outlook on life?

Absolutely.

And the thing is,

It's not just the outlook.

I say this all the time to him,

You know,

Like the stories that he's telling,

The outlook that he's sharing,

He actually lives by it or has lived it or has experienced.

And I think that that is such a beautiful thing to be able to speak out of your own experiences being good or bad.

Right.

It's a beautiful thing.

And everyone knows him closely,

Knows that he walks the walk.

It's not just a talk.

It's not just an inspirational thing.

And I'll say this bluntly here just because he's not here.

But you know,

Like a lot of times when inspirational things,

You know,

People that talk about inspiration all that they grab this concept that they know it's a good concept.

Right.

And they work on it and they make it digestible for people.

And with Matthew,

He really lived it.

You know what I mean?

He had that experience and he learned from it and then took that perspective.

So when he speaks about it,

It's to me at least and to a lot of people,

It just touches it in a different way because again,

It's coming from experience,

Not from,

Oh,

I think this is the right thing.

So let's talk about it.

Right.

Right.

It makes me want to be a better person.

Just like this book,

Try One Bite,

Is going to make people want to be better eaters,

Especially children.

What do your kids think about the book?

They love the book.

They actually did the narration of the book on the audiobook.

They did it.

They love it,

You know,

And it's nothing new to them.

I mean,

We had this conversation so many times,

You know,

But I do think it's important to share to everybody listening that this book is not about preaching to parents,

You know,

How to feed their kids or what to do.

It's not about being perfect.

We say in the book,

You know,

You can have your ideas.

It's creamy,

A doner hose.

Like,

You know,

We have all of that.

You know,

It's more about,

Hey,

Create a balance.

You know,

Again,

I'm not here telling parents what to do,

But I am here to give a reminder that the conversation around food and bringing joy back and fun back into talking about food is extremely important.

And the earlier you start that,

Most likely you'll be setting up your kids for a lifelong of good habits.

And could there be nothing finer than raising a child who enjoys good food and preparing a good meal like that gives them a whole life?

It really does.

You know,

It's so it's so it's a wild thing because,

Look,

We're going to have a relationship with food for the rest of our life.

It's just a fact.

So again,

You start early,

You make it fun early.

So then later on,

They don't have all the guilt and all the situations that we see happen over and over and over.

Right.

And you see it,

I mean,

It happens so much.

And it shouldn't food should not be as complicated as we all we are.

I'm guilty of it as well.

Make it to be sometimes.

So with this book,

I think it's a great way to either start that conversation or continue the conversation because you go from talking about pork butts to in your face,

Mom and dad to kids asking what is industrial waste?

What do you mean eating industrial waste?

You know what I mean?

It kind of touches all different angles of it.

And you have touched us and our lives.

Thank you so much for this.

Camila,

What do you want people to do?

Where do you want people to find you next?

Listen,

You can find the book local bookstores,

But you can also find it Barnes and Noble that Amazon at Target.

So it's super easy to get it everywhere available now.

That is Camila Alves McConaughey.

Just try one bite.

Cute children's book.

All right,

Fast food lovers.

Health educator Dr.

Julie Gatsa is here from the Florida Wellness Institute to talk about the sequence of negative health events that we trigger when we gobble down the fast food.

What brings her to this subject?

Well,

I've been a natural doctor for 30 years.

When I first graduated,

I thought I could cure the world.

And I found I fell a little bit short on many different things.

And when we really took a look at what it was that people were suffering and why they weren't improving on the different things that we were doing,

We found that the key to all of it was digestion.

And if you really get somebody's digestion working efficiently,

Where they have no attention on it,

They have no thoughts on have they gone today,

Are they gassy,

Are they bloated,

Do they have heartburn,

Do they have acid reflux,

When they have none of those symptoms,

You usually have a person with a very efficient digestion system.

And so with keeping that in mind,

I don't care what a patient comes to me with,

We correct the digestion and then the rest of it falls suit.

How do the people with the efficient systems get them,

Keep them,

Or are they just lucky and born that way?

Yes,

Well,

There are some lucky and born that way people.

Then there's also people who,

Whatever they are eating,

They are able to digest the food that they're supposed to be eating.

But then most of the people are not making enough digestive enzymes.

They're not adequate and able to break down the food that they're eating.

And so they have rotting food in the digestive system that's basically getting reabsorbed in the bloodstream.

And now the body is actually toxic and attacking with the occurring belly.

How many people are walking around with this toxic belly situation?

Over 85%.

What?

I'm not kidding.

You ask anybody,

Do you get gassy,

Bloated,

Indigestion,

Heartburn,

Constipation,

Diarrhea,

Too full feeling.

And pretty much everyone has some complaints in that area.

And I think it's the food source.

I think it's the fact that we've all been taught now that we can eat fast foods because they're there.

We've been taught that we can have all sorts of strange drinks because they're there.

And we are not going back to how our grandparents were actually raised,

Which was real food.

Not a lot of weird drinks.

Everyone drank water and occasional coffees and treats of lemonade were on holidays.

Not a daily thing with all the other things that were available now.

Right.

Right.

It used to be things were a treat.

We're talking to Dr.

Julie Gatsa,

The co-founder of the Florida Wellness Institute.

Dr.

Julie,

What are people drinking routinely that's upsetting their digestive process?

They're drinking a lot of coffee,

Tea,

And soda pops and carbonation.

And all those things change how you actually absorb in the body.

So what occurs is it changes it from an acidic system to an alkaline system.

So it's like putting a piece of steak in soapy water and the next morning you have a piece of steak in soapy water.

If you put that steak in a glass of vinegar,

In the morning you have a steak that looks gross.

The water's all milky and yucky looking.

Well that's how your digestive system should be reacting.

And we are changing that with our kids.

We're changing that and giving them all sorts of juices and to-go drinks and sports drinks.

And we are having kids that have weight problems and they aren't behaving properly and they have circles under the eyes and they're not sleeping.

And it's because of the fact that we're changing so much of what's occurring.

Because nobody talked about this for a long time.

I just thought everyone had a stomach ache all the time.

I just thought that was normal.

But through lots of trial and error and talking to lots of smart people like you,

I finally feel healthy most days.

Once you get to that healthy place,

You know right away what you can't eat because it interferes with that good feeling immediately.

Talk to me about the Red Bull drinks and things like that.

Well the Red Bull basically is a carbonated drink also with the caffeine in it.

So it's not just changing how you absorb,

It's also doing a number on your adrenal glands.

And your adrenal glands are supposed to be there for short-term fight,

Flight,

Fright type situation.

And when we wear these guys out,

They are no longer able to help us when we're really needing them.

So now people are in more pain and inflammation because they should be making steroids.

They're not sleeping.

They have weight problems.

Their blood pressure is high.

Their blood sugar is soaring.

And this is just part of what's occurring when Red Bull is in the diet along with probably some other bad choices.

In general,

We're not making enough digestive enzymes in our body.

And if we're not making enough digestive enzymes,

We cannot break down the foods that we need to.

I've been supplementing with very high quality digestive enzymes for the last 30 years.

And the one that I use right now is called Absorbaid because it's a vegan formula and it really does the actual trick on people where it really breaks down the proteins,

The fat,

The carbohydrates,

The vegetables,

Even the dairy products that are consumed.

And what we want is like a little sous chef in our bellies breaking down these foods so that they're able to be absorbed and get into the cells so that we have health again.

All right.

Let's go down the breakdown of what happens to your body after you take one big bite of that super fast food burger.

Can you go down the list with us?

What happens at five minutes?

Five minutes,

You get a sugar rush.

So you're basically putting it in the system and now you feel a bit of a surge of energy,

Which is,

You know,

Sort of the happiest time of the meal.

Right.

Fifteen minutes later,

What happens?

Now you've got dehydration because our food is loaded,

That type of food is loaded with sodium.

And because of that,

Now you start to feel dehydrated.

So instead of drinking the water that you didn't order at that meal,

Now you're consuming the Coke that you did have and that's doing that same number of keeping you from absorbing.

And so you've,

You know,

You're already not eating the right food.

Now you can't absorb it and break it down.

After 20 minutes,

What happens?

So you can have heartburn.

You can feel too full,

Maybe burpee.

And it's because of the fact that these fast foods are slow to digest and they're spending longer in the gut because we can't break them down.

Now they're basically a toxic,

You know,

Substance that the body's going,

Hey,

We got to handle this.

And since it can't,

Heartburn is what will ensue burping and,

You know,

Too full feeling.

Right.

After a half an hour?

Most likely now people are bloated,

Including little kids where they were looking all fine and then their belly starts to stick out.

And if you've seen men with those bellies that are very high up and sticking out,

That's not fat,

That's bloat.

Ooh,

After 45 minutes.

Now you get a sugar drop.

So this is where your kid is starting to,

You know,

Be whiny and not listen to you and maybe try to pick fights with their siblings.

This is where,

You know,

The spouses are starting to pick at each other because the sugar,

How high it went is now going much lower than when you started.

Okay.

So 50 minutes after my burger,

How do I feel?

You're in a bad mood.

Generally in a bad mood.

You're usually flicked on the couch.

You wish you didn't eat it.

You're,

You know,

Feeling a little remorse because now the body is actually,

You know,

As great as the rush was.

Now it's smaller a lot and it's dumped.

And after 55 minutes?

Now you've got poor concentration.

So think about these kids at school or,

You know,

People at work and you know,

They've eaten their lunch and you know,

Within almost an hour later they are not performing the jobs as well.

The kids aren't paying attention and you know,

They're getting bad grades or caused,

You know,

Behavioral problems.

And the fact is it starts with the food.

It starts with the food.

And I imagine too,

When you're stuffing your body full of food that's unhealthy and your body has to work harder to break it down,

That's taking energy away from other functions.

Is that true?

Yeah.

So if you touch your body like a storage of let's say a bank where you've got vaults,

We all should have a nice storage of nutrition.

But we have just completely robbed this vault for so long now and our kids aren't even getting this storage happening in their system.

So now we have people that,

You know,

They are sicker faster.

They are in bad moods faster.

They're gaining weight.

They can't sleep.

They're having skin issues and all sorts of different problems that look like we're fat lazy Americans.

And quite frankly,

We are just being fed poor food.

We are not digesting our food.

We're not making the enzymes.

And no one's talking about taking good supplementary enzymes to aid in this problem because yes,

Of course we all want to eat fast food.

Of course we all should be able to on occasion on a treat to reward our children after a baseball game or some sports event.

That's all fine.

That's how we were brought up.

But it's now become a daily occurrence.

And even,

You know,

Some of the things at the grocery store resemble fast food.

So you're not winning the game buying it at the grocery store when you're buying pre-packaged microwaved,

You know,

Food that when you don't even understand the ingredients.

Right.

And I know during the worst days of the pandemic,

One of the only things that was open was the drive-through window.

I'm learning so much about this.

I'm taking a restorative yoga teacher training and it teaches so much about the body's rest and digest function.

And it's like since we can't see it,

We just ignore it.

Yes.

And you know,

When you think about all the different medications and over-the-counter things to handle these symptoms,

It is not normal to be bloated.

It's very common,

But it's not normal.

It's not normal to have excessive gas.

It's extremely common.

It's not normal.

We're taking things for heartburn and gas and constipation.

And the fact is we aren't really taking a look at what can we do naturally.

You know,

I have been pushing all my patients to take these high-quality digestive enzymes because I often hear,

You know,

I don't want to buy all these vitamins.

I don't have the money for this.

I don't like to swallow all these things.

And I,

You know,

What's the most important thing I can take?

And they all think it's a multivitamin,

Which makes sense,

But wouldn't it be better if they could break down the food that they're eating and adequately get those nutrients from the food that they're buying and preparing and consuming for themselves and their families,

Which is why I push so hard for them to take the Absorbate because it works at such a level that even people who are experiencing acid indigestion and acid reflux,

They can take it and 15 to 20 minutes later,

They start to see a,

You know,

A huge resolve in this and feel a lot better.

And it works better than taking an over-the-counter thing that isn't fixing the problem.

It's just getting rid of the symptoms.

Right.

For a few minutes.

Can you talk about digestion's effect on the nervous system?

Think about it this way.

If you,

Let's just say,

Put some chicken and some vegetables into your digestive system,

You should be able to break those down,

Absorb them in small intestine,

All the small nutrients that get into the bloodstream go to every single area of the body.

If you aren't able to get those nutrients into the digestive system properly and then into the bloodstream,

Now you're going to be deficient in the nutrition.

Your nervous system is,

You know,

The one area that's like,

It's the brain of the body.

So you've got your brain connecting all sorts of information to every single area of the body.

If you can't get nutrients in properly,

That system isn't going to work as well.

I'm a chiropractor.

I've been working on necks and backs for years thinking that people only think,

Well,

That's the only reason you should go see the chiropractor.

Well,

I have been working on necks and once we fix their diet,

Their necks actually resolve.

Once we fix their diet,

Their back starts to stabilize.

Their headaches go away.

They sleep better.

They lose weight.

They digest properly.

They don't have restless legs.

Their skin improves.

So you must fix this digestive system.

I certainly have referred patients out to medical doctors and certainly things I cannot correct,

But I usually want to fix the whole efficiency of the system.

So then whatever it is that they're going to go do,

They have a chance to really have improvements in that area.

Dr.

Julie Gatsa.

Okay.

Now I have to think about probiotics.

I just ordered probiotics for my dogs.

I'll see how it works out for them.

Hi,

It's Casey.

Thanks for tuning in to Shine On.

I hope you're enjoying the 40 day intention challenge that we've got going on at the Circle of Women page,

Also at casysplace.

Com.

Having fun with that?

Let me know if it's working for you.

Our thought for the day,

The problem with doing a food show is there's not a lot of great food quotes.

There's just not.

You know,

They won't stick with you all day.

Like,

Oh,

That was an inspiring food quote.

But I am watching this new series about Julia Child.

Have you seen it?

The guy from Frasier,

The brother on Frasier,

David Hyde Pierce,

He plays the husband.

Sarah Lancashire plays Julia Child.

Oh,

Bebe Neurath is in it too.

So is Judith Lake.

Anyway,

It's a great series about Julia Child.

It's on HBO Max.

I'm enjoying that.

So we'll have a Julia Child quote to wrap up today.

And it was Julia Child who said,

Everything in moderation,

Including moderation.

So,

We'll see you next time on Shine On.

You've been listening to Shine On,

The health and happiness show with new episodes every week.

It's your time to shine on.