132. The Story Behind Chia Sisters with Chloe Van Dyke

Just to take it back to the science a little bit, because neuroscience can sound like a really big intimidating field.

So from your perspective, what are one or two things that you wish every woman understood about how the brain responds to everyday life, especially in the realm of well-being, stress, sleep, food?

First of all, I want to say the brain, you know, it's not a separate part of the body.

Yes, it has its own individual functions, but our body as a whole and everything is interacting with everything else all the time.

So I think the first thing to say is, well, you know, let's fuel our body and fuel our mind.

And that comes by giving it the nutrients it needs to be the best it can be.

Very, very understated, isn't it? And especially when you guys first started, that would have just been like hardly spoken about, very, very little peer-reviewed scientific research actually linking everything.

So yeah, you were really a forerunner for your time, to be honest, to actually bring it out of the realm of research and into something practical for people.

Yeah, yeah, I suppose so.

I mean, that's it.

It's always been there.

Knowing that certain nutrients are good for the body has always been there.

But yeah, certainly making it more accessible in everyday life is something that we certainly strive to do.

And in terms of gut health, because that's been a buzzword for so long and still is, what is one thing that you think we're getting right and one thing that we're perhaps still overcomplicating?

I think when you look at the New Zealand diet, it's typically low in fiber.

The average diet is low in fiber and fiber is so important for digestive and gut function health.

It's just, it keeps everything moving.

It helps grow the beneficial bacteria.

So I think something that we could do better is add more fiber to our diet.

Well, even in all the work that I've done, for a lot of people to even understand that it's like a standalone essential nutrient, right next to all the big ones, carbohydrate, fat and protein, is still like, what? Really? As opposed to this little thing on the side.

It's like, no, no, it's one of the big ones.

But it just gets sort of swept under the carpet, even for babies and toddlers, actually.

Yeah.

Most of the good ones do.

That's the funny thing is we're so focused on the ones that we're trying to reduce that all of our eating habits evolves around that when really if we switch the dial and started focusing on the fiber and the essential nutrients that your body absolutely needs to be the best it can be.