Overcome Roadblocks On Your Road To Healthy Eating

Patty James, MS

Okay. Well, I’m Patty James. I’m a nutritionist and certified natural chef. I had very briefly I had a cooking school, the first certified organic cooking school in the country. And I closed that in 2008. And I founded a nonprofit helping children with their health, traveled the country. I was gone a year. And so I did that. And then I wrote the manual that we teach children how to eat and understand their body processes so that we did. And then and then a lot of other things over the years, everything that I do in my life has to do with nutrition and cooking. That is my world and I am now and have been for some years. The Chief innovation officer at Google. We are we are. Yes. A recipe app that we filter for, for sugar, for fiber. We developed the app for Dr. Wall’s four year clinical trial and for the Walls Diet app. Our chief medical officer is a personal friend of mine, Dr. Robert Lustig. We’re thrilled that he’s involved and really believes in our mission. So for me, what I do and my team at Fogle, we develop recipes that are have appropriate fiber, low sugar. You’ll never find any ultra processed foods in ingredients in any of our recipes.

Terry Wahls, MD

And then I’m going to stop you for just a moment because I want to take us back to food, because the people who are listening here are people with multiple sclerosis and other new immune conditions who are often struggling with severe fatigue. They may have some hand weakness. And what I thought you and I could do is talk a bit and help them think through because we want them to have less added sugar, less processed food and more non-starchy vegetables, more high quality protein. So yeah, can we talk a little bit about strategies for them in the kitchen?

Patty James, MS

Yes. Well, my company Food will have been working with you for a couple of years or so now. And with people developing recipes, follow your protocol for people with multiple sclerosis. But personally, I have a good friend who has Hashimoto’s and my sister Margaret has had rheumatoid arthritis for many years. So I have an experience with autoimmune and the fact that opening a jar is difficult for from my research and from learning from you and reading your books. Of course, things like being in the kitchen, a lot of heat can be an issue. So when we develop recipes, we not only think of the of the best ingredients to put in that follow your protocol, but we’re thinking about as an example, if a recipe for roasted vegetables calls for some butternut squash. Well, a butternut squash, you have to peel it, which to some people might not sound like a difficult job, but it certainly can be. 

And then to cut into a butternut squash would be very, very difficult. So we will say things like in the recipe descriptions like, you know, you can purchase cubed butternut squash in your produce department and almost every produce department has that or things like you can buy chopped onions in the freezer section and the fresh food section. So we try to enrich and we try not to have a lot of recipes that if they are difficult to prep, we have tips on how to get around that. Now, some people have no problem with doing those kinds of things, but many people do so. And then, you know, a big whole pot of soup that would be difficult for some people to lift up. So we try to give tips on preparation as well as, of course, the proper food and nutrients following your protocol.

Terry Wahls, MD

Do you have any recommendations on batch cooking strategies for people who are dealing with fatigue?

Patty James, MS

Oh, absolutely. So the general consensus, I mean, the general term that we like to use among ourselves is cook it once and eat it twice or more than twice. So, you know, slow cookers, especially, you know, this time of year. But any time of year, slow cookers, you make a big pot of soup and you freeze it. You market well, you freeze it, and then you have it that night and you would need it three nights in a row, because we need to have diversity in our nutrients, but, you know, make it once and cook it. And then you have in the freezer for later and also sheet pans. Because for those people who are sensitive to heat and a lot of people are they’re not going to want to maybe stand or sit over a stove for a long period of time. So then it’s a sheet pan. So here’s that, here’s the salmon. And if you could put it like a piece of parchment paper down first, it helps with clean up. That’s another thing to consider. 

So there is your salmon and then maybe you have some asparagus or whatever season it is and you can have everything on one pan. We have quite a few one pan dishes available for people because I think all those kinds of tips are very important. The one pan, the batch cooking and then, you know, I’ve been saying this for years, you sound like a broken record, but, you know, it just doesn’t come knocking at your door. Improved health. So you have to spend some time thinking about about how you going to work your your menus for the week do I have enough chopped onions so maybe you have a big thing of chopped onions that you’ve purchased or maybe you’ve done yourself in the so having everything labeled and organized in your refrigerator or is is very helpful for. So take whatever day to prep your ingredients to wash your lettuce or your greens. So, you know, if you have leaks to make sure that you’ve got all the sand out of them or purchase them already cleaned. So there’s lots of your meal can come together quickly for those with fatigue, if you don’t wait till the end of the day, which my understanding is where most of us are more fatigued. So have this already, and then you’re tired. But you know you need to eat well. You open the refrigerator and you’re like, okay, well, there are some, you know, ground bison and some chopped up onions and garlic. And here’s a bunch of chopped up kale. You know, you can put something together now what?

Terry Wahls, MD

What I like to do, Patty, is I like chopping everything. And I may put it in my instant pot in the night before. So I chopped onions, put in the spices the night before. And then in the end, I may even chop the kale, put that in the night before, and then I’ll put in the wetter vegetables and the meat and I may put it in the slow cooker. Yeah. On the slow cooking setting in the morning. So when I’m done at the end of the day it’s all done. So I think it’s super helpful if you’re using a slow cooker or your instant pot in the slow cooker setting to do all of the chopping prep and put it together, get started in the morning. 

Sure, you do your work and then it comes in the evening and then it’s winter time. So I like making soups and stews and I make a double batch and we have our meal and then I put it back in turn the heat back on, bring it to a boil, simmer in. I will. Can it or you let it cool and freeze it. Mm hmm. When I can that I leave it in the refrigerator, it’ll stay there, sealed for several days, weeks. And I always have a couple of meals from every meal that I make. It just makes it so much easier.

Patty James, MS

So much easier. And I like to when you’re making those soups and stews, we also try to encourage people, flavor it, you know, but everything goes back because I teach cooking. So for me, it’s the flavor. You can have the best plate of food, but if you just put a bunch of stuff on, it doesn’t taste good. You might lose interest in having that food over time. So I think fresh parsley and then the summer basil or, you know, whatever. Here, you add that at the end where it adds a lot of fresh flavor to the at the, you know, you can put your dried in while the whole thing is cooking but a little fresh at the end. Besides it’s you know.

Terry Wahls, MD

And what things I I’ve really enjoyed with my soups and stews is I will chop some red onion and I will just stir that in fresh at the end. I may have grated ginger ale, stir that in fresh at the end. And then during the summer when I’m growing all of these fresh herbs, I’ll go out to my garden and depending on the season, you know what, what herbs are fresh. So I will add the fresh herbs at the bread just before serving that.

Patty James, MS

Absolutely.

Terry Wahls, MD

So,

Patty James, MS

Delicious. Really too. Besides the fresh taste at the end. But it’s visually a nice a nice look, something fresh and green like your parsley or whatever at the end. So I think seasonings is a is a we always have that in mind. What seasonings are we using for what recipes just to keep it interesting. And condiments always have a lot of interesting condiments around. So I think that’s nice too.

Terry Wahls, MD

Yes, yes. Now when you have people with a complex chronic health challenge and we have one member of the family who has this particular diet needs, whether it’s one of the children or one of the adults, one of the things that we talk about is that we want the whole family to when we’re in the presence of of the of the patient who’s trying to use food as part of their their wellness strategy is that we want the food at the table to be just one meal as opposed to a you’re cooking one meal for a different meal for each member of the family.

Patty James, MS

Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Wahls, MD

I think that is exhausting for the person who’s the chef. It’s demoralizing for the eater to watch other people eat foods that they know they should no longer have. That’s incredibly difficult.

Patty James, MS

Right.

Terry Wahls, MD

Now. It can be super helpful to have food that tastes good. That is part of the culinary wellness plan that we’re using, which is why I think having a chef help you identify a helpful for meals that will support your healing journey. And we have created a number of walls diets from the first level, which is level one, which comes down to reducing the added sugars in ramping up green leafy vegetables, cabbage containing onion containing mushroom vegetables, deeply colored vegetables, beets, carrots, berries. And as I said, add the good stuff first. Take out the added sugar, take out gluten, contain grain, take out dairy, casein. It can be very inflammatory and take out eggs because eggs are the third most common inflammatory food. Then at the next level, we add in fermented foods, we talk about activated nuts and seeds, and we further reduce legumes and further reduce the gluten free grains. And we talk about organ meats, heart, tongue, liver, gizzards. I talk about the benefits of meat, fish. And then we also have ketogenic versions of the diet as well. And in the app we have created chef curated meals for each of these levels so that you can have a guidance on having tasty food that is compatible with whichever level of the diet that you are following. But it is really helpful to do this as a family and to have a conversation with the family where you want to begin and it’s super helpful to have food that tastes good.

Patty James, MS

Yes, definitely. Yeah.

Terry Wahls, MD

Yeah.

Patty James, MS

Keep them honest.

Terry Wahls, MD

Yeah. It needs to be delicious. It needs to be something that is pleasing to everyone.

Patty James, MS

There are some things too. Like I follow a lot of chat rooms, if you will, Facebook and other places of people with multiple sclerosis. And I start my day every day reading their comments for wherever they are. A lot of them follow you, but not necessarily, you know, part of your group. But they all mention you and other people. And I follow those and see what they’re looking for. And and organ meats is something that most people kind of dread, actually, because they’ll think of something I don’t know what they’re thinking of. But so as an example, we have, you know, you can make tacos at, you know, a taco salad or something and use part organ meat and part just ground beef or ground chicken. You can mix it together. And that would be probably suitable for the whole family because maybe they don’t even know or if you’re having some sort of, you know, like we did a recipe that will should be on the app next week for these beef heart steaks with lots of other things in there. But you know, all that soup that you put in the freezer a couple days ago, if you have a teenager who won’t eat meat or won’t eat that for whatever reason, then then there is maybe an option of something else that you’ve already made. But, you know, I don’t think most people are going to make to two meals. Like you said, having communication with the family is important. Its health goals, everybody wants everybody to be well. So that’s correct. Yeah.

Terry Wahls, MD

You know, and again, for everyone who’s listening, I know what many families have done is we agree at the meal at home where the patient is eating, the only food on the table is supportive for that. The patient. Yeah, but if the son wants to have pasta, they agree that Mom’s going to go out with her friends for a special night or perhaps the son goes out with dad for a special night, and mom has her friends come in so that people can eat the food that is special to them, but it’s not compatible. But they do it away from the patient so that the patients that attempt it because we’re addicted to sugar, we’re addicted to cheese, we’re addicted to this processed foods. And if it’s in our space, the longer it’s in our space, our resolve was down and we’re more likely to eat that food.

Patty James, MS

Okay. So in that particular case, I was going to suggest until you just elaborated. So I bet it is, you know, the mom or the dad, whoever has multiple sclerosis might have that Bolognese sauce on zucchini noodles and then the son, they won’t eat zucchini noodles. You can just make himself some pasta, but you don’t even want it in the house.

Terry Wahls, MD

Well, I think the family has to have a conversation about what works for them right now. In the beginning, maybe mom can’t have it in the house because it’s. It’s too.

Patty James, MS

Hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Terry Wahls, MD

Now, after she is, you know, firmly comfortable with this new eating pattern and she can really understand and feel the difference between eating at the walls diet and eating the standard American diet. So she’s not tempted anymore and then maybe it’s not a problem.

Patty James, MS

Right?

Terry Wahls, MD

Right. So it depends on the individual. So for some families, they agree it’s not going to be in the House. Some families agree it’s not going to be on the table. Some family agrees that we’ll have moms going to have a special meal. And I may have one ingredient that I prepare that can only serve me, and I will eat at the other end of the table away from mom and I’ll clean it up. I shouldn’t have to deal with any of this. So, you know, every film we can have their conversation about what being supportive to mom or dad will look like.

Patty James, MS

Or and you’re right, it may be changes over time, because my friend with Hashimoto’s, she didn’t knew she didn’t know at first that there was a gluten aspect to what she was doing. And so she would always be tempted to eat the bread if somebody brought bread or croutons or something. And now, after knowing that she can’t have gluten for 15 years, she’s not tempted. You could eat a whole lukewarm baguette in front of her and it’s like it’s not worth it feeling bad like I do if I even have two bites of that. So correct.

Terry Wahls, MD

It’s an evolution in time. And the sooner that we are able to begin to pay attention to what my response is to my diet and the foods that I’m eating, it will become easier to sustain. But in the beginning, what I want everyone who’s listening is to have this conversation with my with your family. What can you do to begin to improve your diet? Right. And the first thing is get rid of the sugar sweetened beverages.

Patty James, MS

Oh, good heavens. Yes.

Terry Wahls, MD

So do that. Eat more vegetables, eat more green cells. That’s a great place to start. And then I certainly encourage you to check out the all diet, check out the Walls Diet app and begin seeing just how delicious eating for health really can be.

Patty James, MS

We put a lot of time and effort and heart into creating these recipes to use on on your on the app. So hopefully everybody loves them. And, and we have a lot of tips because I think, you know, you’re this mindset, too, that we you know, we’re educate you know, we educate people. Why why aren’t I having this? Well, because if you do have that or that or that, it’s going to make you feel bad, you know, and here’s why. So I think sometimes people need to understand the reason.

Terry Wahls, MD

Actions, why.

Patty James, MS

The connections, why so otherwise, you know, you can’t have this. You can’t have that. Well, how come? Well, let’s explain it and then they’ll understand. So I think so we do a lot of little tips and notes, so and we look at every recipe carefully and make them and luckily, you know.

Terry Wahls, MD

Remind me, do we have a shopping list? We do as well. Okay. So this is like super convenient. So I can pick out my recipes and I can get a shopping list and can I send it to my honey to go do the shopping for me?

Patty James, MS

Well, that’s a good question. I know I should know the answer to that one off the top of my head. Can you. It’s on your phone. Well, if your honey is also on, because it’s not a web app. It is a you know, it’s on your phone. So I don’t know if you can do that or not, but I’m going to find out the answer to that, because that’s a good that’s a really good point. But you’re on the app. Maybe it would be nice if family members were on the app, too. But the thing with when you are on the app and I could pull it up here, but I don’t think you would see it again, I’ll send you screenshots that will be available, but we track everything. How many leafy vegetables, how many sulfur rich? What if you had today? You know, have you met those guidelines for Teri Walsh for Dr. Walls app nutrient requirements. So it tracks it all because how would you know here’s I had a raw kale salad for lunch or whatever, you know. Oh, gosh. You know, I’ve had a lot of leafy greens now because I also had this for breakfast, you know, whatever it is. So we can track those nutrients. So, you know what? You need me.

Terry Wahls, MD

And everyone who’s listening. What I want you to keep in mind is as I recovered in, I began teaching these concepts to my patients. That is when I realized they needed to create a way to teach the concepts that people could learn and implement in their home lives. And I couldn’t just give them a long list of foods to eat, which is how we came up with what we call now the walls diet. And then I created a program to allow people to progressively make their diet more and more health supportive.

Patty James, MS

Sure. Yeah.

Terry Wahls, MD

It’s this. You know, the supplements did not fix me. Yeah. In the paleo diet did not fix me. It was when I integrated the paleo diet. Integrated would add learned from my review of the basic science from functional medicine, that long list of nutrients that were key and said where are they in the food?

Patty James, MS

Yeah.

Terry Wahls, MD

Then I had for a while long list of food list that I was eating like, okay, I teach people how to do this. And that’s what ended up creating the pasta and the food list that we used. MM In that patties using to create those recipes.

Patty James, MS

Yes. And you’ll know that when you use the recipes on the app you’re not going to find any ultra processed foods. Now people need to understand the difference between, you know, ultra processed foods and processed foods. You know, ground beef is a piece of meat that’s been ground. So technically that’s a form of processing. But ultra processed foods, what’s that like? Food, like substances. It’s been stripped, well fortified. And there’s there’s colors and, you know, shelf stable additives. So none of our recipes you have, you’ll never see those kind of ingredients.

Terry Wahls, MD

Yeah, it would. Also, it’s part of why I’m okay with brown rice and beans are used in some of our recipes, but that’s very different than using flour. If you’re having flour or to make bread, to make pastas, to make cereals, those are more ultra processed. They’ll have a higher glycemic index. You’ll have a bigger raise if your blood sugar, when you eat those foods, you have less fiber and you’ll have less vitamin and mineral content in those foods than if you had the black beans in your chili or some whole whole rice.

Patty James, MS

Yeah.

Terry Wahls, MD

So of the ultra processed are those emulsifiers and ingredients.

Patty James, MS

Yeah. Just you name it. Yeah. Yeah. We see what none of our recipes have any of those kinds of products as part of them. You know, we would never allow that in, in the, out of our recipes. And, you know, you’re not kind of the recipes. You know, we talk about cooking for the persons who has multiple sclerosis, but the whole family, you know, there’s there’s a roast chicken, there’s, you know, roasted vegetables, there’s a green salad. It’s just regular food, you know, it’s just.

Terry Wahls, MD

It’s regular delicious food.

Patty James, MS

Is.

Terry Wahls, MD

Right. And then.

Patty James, MS

Yeah.

Terry Wahls, MD

Well, I want to sort of wrap this up because I know people can get a little restless if we go on too long. I want to remind everyone that we’re using these kinds of apps support in my clinical trials because we want to help people have a the ketogenic diet. We want to help them have the paleo version of the diet and some of the clinical trials that I do, because food should be fun. It’s a big part of family together. The family event and family time.

Patty James, MS

It is, yeah. And you know, and so even if you mention you brought up, you know, beans and legumes, you know, we’ll give tips on, you know, I know you prefer to have them pressure cooked, but you know, you can but nobody’s going to pressure cook a quarter cup of of legumes so make two cups, put them into quarter cup portions and put them in the freezer. To add to that chili that you mentioned, 4.4 for the antioxidants that are in those. And when we do the beans and legumes, we encourage people to, you know, if I live next to the ocean. So that’s helpful. But kombu, you know, seaweed makes them more digestible. So there’s we try it at we try to put little fun tips in there, too, to keep people interested, you know, and we have a lot of herbs and spice mixes because if the food isn’t tasty, they’re not going to stay on the diet. And sometimes just a mediterranean spice mix that we develop is also on the app. Can it just.

Terry Wahls, MD

Make it a lot more fun?

Patty James, MS

Makes a lot more fun. And you had requested that I do the recipe for the wet and dry brine for your.

Terry Wahls, MD

Oh yeah we’ve been doing that this was really.

Patty James, MS

Yeah I so I had a plumber in my house this morning and we were, we had a whole conversation about wet and dry brines. I gave him a recipe for the because those are fun. They make things interesting, you know. So we try to keep it interesting, dull, delicious. And of course, obviously, thing is, it goes back to your protocol.

Terry Wahls, MD

Okay. Well, Patti, thank you so much. Thank you for all that you’re doing to keep those wonderful recipes coming and we’ve had tremendous fun testing them here in the walls of your household as well.

Patty James, MS

Okay. Well, you let me know. I’m still working on your nacho recipe twice now, and it hasn’t worked out, but I’m not giving up. I will have that for you one of these days.

Terry Wahls, MD

That will be a hit. Thank you much.

Patty James, MS

Okay. You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.